Supporting your staff
Helping your staff with their records management responsibilities
People are an important part of your agency's records management systems.
If your agency has any highly-structured work processes, it may be possible to automate some records management tasks such as:
- creation and capture
- metadata allocation
- access management
- disposal.
The likelihood of information being captured and the quality of the information collected and retained are liable to increase if the tasks are easy to do or are automated.
Where a process cannot be automated, such as for many policy or analytical tasks, staff need to:
- make decisions about what records to create
- capture these records into a records management system.
Try to integrate records management into existing work processes to ensure ease of use of systems for staff. You could include procedures on when to make or capture a record as part of the guidelines for specific work areas.
Make sure your staff know their responsibilities
Staff need to know what records management tasks have to be done as part of their work.
This includes quality control – making sure that records management is done well enough to mitigate the risks of the activity.
You may assign specific roles and responsibilities in information and record management processes to:
- a staff position
- a work group or section
- all staff across your agency.
You must ensure that responsibilities are clearly documented in policies, procedures and guidelines to ensure accountability.
Tips for supporting all staff
- Inform and train your staff in their records responsibilities – include training in induction sessions.
- Present regular training sessions in the records requirements of government, your agency and each section.
- Make sure staff have access to clear and easy-to-follow procedures.
- Make systems for capturing records easy to use – both for storing and retrieving information.
- Develop specific policies and procedures for any problem areas such as email.
- Make records and information management responsibilities part of performance management agreements.
- Reward good records management.
Train your staff
To fulfil their records management responsibilities, ensure your staff understand:
- what a record is
- when a record should be created
- what the record needs to document
- how and where the record should be captured
- what monitoring, auditing and reporting are required.
Make sure staff have access to training if they are not clear about recordkeeping responsibilities and procedures.
The National Archives' package Keep the Knowledge may assist with staff training.
