How to Educate Your Team on the Importance of Document Storage and Management

In the present day and age of high-profile data hacks and cyber-crime, many companies are forgetting to emphasize the continued importance of document storage and management. Don’t let this critical area become a surprising vulnerability. Here are 3 important tips to help your employees make good decisions when it comes to storing and archiving important documentation.

Focus on the Why

While hard copy documents may seem easier to secure than digital ones, the truth is they are just as vulnerable but in a different way. The risk of identity theft, corporate espionage, loss of data, and even fines due to compliance failures are all potential repercussions of document negligence. Businesses can be severely impacted by improper management of documents.

Privacy laws, both in the US and abroad, are not something businesses can ignore. Governments are becoming increasingly aware of the opportunity for the misuse of personal and business information. The burden rests on businesses to protect the documents and the information they contain for customers and clients as well as employees. When a large retailer has a massive data breach that results in exposure of financial and personal information, the merchants are the one left holding the bill and often a hefty fine to boot.

If your company manages any healthcare related documents, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (or HIPAA) states that any business that is responsible for keeping any medical records or transferring medical information must protect the privacy of the individuals who the records document. Failure to protect that information can have serious legal consequences, so proper records disposal is critical.

Provide Best Practices

In order to enable your employees and vendors to properly manage documents, businesses need to provide the best practices and enforce the policies that will keep documents safe. Document management policies will typically outline specific industry requirements that must be met in order to remain in compliance. It is also worthwhile to provide guidelines for proper disposal, disaster recovery, acceptable use, and even a clean desk policy.

This kind of guidance will help your employees properly store or manage documentation created throughout the flow of day to day business, and will help keep files accessible and safe should the worst occur. As more and more of your content is moved to digital formats, make sure you maintain a strategic file naming strategy, build good folder structure, and keep files organized and out of the way in the office. For those digital files, very similar strategies still apply. Make sure digital files are named appropriately, saved to the correct folders, and optimized to make content searchable and easy to find. Be conscious of who has access to what content, and when needed lock certain files so that the information contained within is protected.

Work with a Records Management Expert

Document management is a time-consuming task that can have disastrous consequences if done incorrectly. That’s why we offer our records management services to companies who need that extra set of hands to stay on top of their documents.

If your business would benefit from an expert guiding your document management activities, connect with the team at Happy Faces Records Management today.

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