Are You Hiring a Records Manager?
(Richard Medina, Doculabs, www.doculabs.com)
When organizations ask us to help them find a Records Manager, we
start by providing them with a set of qualifications the candidate
should have. We also suggest questions for them to ask the
candidates. These organizations are typically implementing ECM and
RM on an enterprise level and need someone to manage an enterprise
program.
This post suggests some of the questions you should asking your
candidates. In larger organizations with more developed RM programs,
these qualifications pertain to the RM Director role.
First, please understand that managing RM technology – or managing
paper records management, or maintaining a records plan – is only a
small part of a Record Manager’s role. It’s mostly about protecting your
organization through programs and policies that encourage and
enable compliance and security, representing the organization during
legal events, and communicating the mission of the program and
socializing its importance.
The companies that are most successful at RM do it with a program
that addresses overall RM strategy, governance, information
organization, technology, processes, and change management. Usually
the Records Manager or RM Director is part of a team that oversees (or
at least advises regarding) the company’s ECM and RM activities. Your
firm may not implement a comprehensive RM Program with a Records
Manager/Director-plus-Team governance structure in the near or mid-
future, but we think it would be wise to hire someone with the ability
to help develop and participate in such a program.
WHAT QUESTIONS SHOULD YOU ASK THE CANDIDATES?
Here are some of the most relevant questions to ask the candidate:
1) Our firm’s (i.e. insert your firm's name here) RM Program will be
cross-functional, involving Records (of course), Legal, IT, and the
business. Can you develop, own, and coordinate the cross-functional
information and records management program? (Or help do so? How
have you done it in the past? How would you do it at your firm? )
2) Our firm obviously needs a record plan that addresses all records,
paper and electronic. Can you develop and maintain the organization’s
record plan and retention schedule? How would you address the ESI
on hard drives, shared drives, in email, in social media tools? They are
relevant to discovery; are they records or non-records? How would you
address them?
3) Can you develop and maintain the records management-related
policies, procedures, and guidelines for users?
4) Can you develop and maintain the organization’s ESI inventory?
(This is the “data map” showing where the actual ESI at your firm is
stored in various systems.) It’s relevant to the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure (FRCP), to good discovery strategy for each litigation case,
and for proactive strategy for ECM and RM.
5) Can you develop and implement a process for regular monitoring
and inspection of business and user adherence to the RM program
requirements? How do you recommend addressing the political and
change management issues that typically arise with such initiatives?
6) Can you work with IT to ensure that our systems can accommodate
our RM requirements? Can you ensure that our ECM tools are
leveraged to control and automate RM? (Note that this really entails
going more slowly and more carefully than the vendors want, and it
requires knowing enough about the technologies to know what they
can realistically do, what is/is not cost-effective to implement, and
what should be avoided – even if the vendors are pushing it.)
7) Can you work with the Records Coordinators, who are (or will be)
located in the business units, to ensure effective communication of
program requirements to users?
8) Can you work with Legal, IT, and Records Coordinators to define
and document our firm’s e-discovery process?
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