Over the recent past on this List and in a few other venues, this
topic has been discussed with respect to RIM and the impact it has on
an organization (or an individual's) records and other information
assets when employees separate from service.

I was thinking about the primary circumstances this occurs under and
came up with the following:

- Retirement
- Voluntary Quit
- Termination for Cause
- Reorganization/Restructuring
- Internal Transfer
- Death While Employed

Some of these are planned and you have an opportunity to discuss the
information the individuals were responsible for managing with them
before they leave; others are more sudden or less amicable situations
and you don't have the same opportunities.

In the paper world, it's relatively easy to sort through the
information left behind by an employee and make some determination
what needs to be done with it, either by passing it along to someone
else in the organization, placing it in a central file location or
destroying what may have met retention requirements and was being kept
for convenience.  Some items may also have some historic or intrinsic
value and might be candidates for an organizational archive, if you
have one.  BUT... don't forget any records these individuals may have
sent to central storage or an off-site service provider if your
organization utilizes either of these.

Now, what about the electronic format information?

In most cases now, password protect systems, but even though they are
selected by an individual, there is some "organizational gatekeeper"
that can still access the accounts and provide access to the
information for processing in the event of an unexpected or sudden
departure.

Here's where the Real World versus Ideal World concept figures in.

In the Ideal World, we have ERMS systems and all information is
automatically categorized, it's stored on organizational servers away
from user's desktops. Retention schedules are appropriately applied
and information is reviewed prior to destruction to determine if there
is an ongoing need to extend the retention of the information beyond
the planned destruction, or to ensure there is no need to hold it for
pending legal action. You are able to globally change the "owner" or
the information to someone else in the organization and automatically
provide "rights" to another individual to alter and/or manage the
information when someone leaves.  And in the case of a "forced
separation", you are able to immediately disallow access to the
information by the user, eliminating any possibility of them
destroying information prior to their being notified that they have
been terminated.

NOW... in the Real World. You have information stored on desktops in a
"less than structured" manner, and some information is backed up to
local servers, or maybe even stored on CDs or Zip disks managed by
individuals... but the process is selective.  E-mail might be stored
on a server (for a set period of days), or kept locally at the
desktop, or your organization may use the concept of a "P drive" or "S
drive" for "personal" or "shared" files so they aren't stored locally.
 But even in these scenarios, they likely aren't indexed or sorted by
record series, nor do they have retention periods applied to them.

1) So... how do you go about disseminating the information throughout
the organization to ensure the information of value goes to the right
people, or to even determine WHAT the information is and that it is of
value, and who it's of value to?

2) Do you have policies and practices in place regarding e-mail of
departing employees to keep the information for a set period of time,
or do you simply delete the account and destroy all messages?

3) Do you image the desktop and all files in the event someone is
looking for something an individual might have been working on before
they left?

4) And if you do, who manages this content and how is it controlled...
and how long is it retained?

5) Who develops these polices?  Is it Legal? Records and Information
Management? IT? Audit and Compliance? Human Resources? Some
combination of the above?

6) And who administers the process to ensure everything is captured
and processed? The last department of record for the individual, or
IT, RIM, HR?

As an aside, in the private world, things are much different and
people should give some consideration to what they might need to do
regarding passwords to on-line accounts and information stores in
their personal life.  The case of the young man who was killed in
action in Iraq comes to mind as one where there was absolutely no way
his family could access his e-mail.

As tragic as that may seem, think about your own situation and would
family members be able to access bank accounts, photographs and other
things you may be storing with a variety of on-line services?  You may
want to consider some means of providing access to this information by
either keeping it in a safe place, or giving a list of your passwords
to a neutral third party to pass along to your family if you in the
event you should become unexpectedly incapacitated, or worse.

I encourage you to think about these issues... and as I said, I'm SURE
that no one has these problems to think about in their work
environments, because we all have IW scenarios we work in.  NO ONE
works in the RW, right??  Just the other guys =)

I look forward to your responses and will be happy to collect
everything I receive off-list and provide a collected response back to
the Listserv.  If you elect to reply off list, I will not identify you
(or your organization) in the collected response.

Please include "RW, IW #1" in the subject line of the reply and send
your off-list replies to [log in to unmask]

Larry

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