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Leadership Vacuum for Records Management?

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AIIM Expert Blogger Mark Mandel recently asked, “Will the RIM Profession Become Obsolete?” http://tinyurl.com/2wun5we. With a 30 year view of records management as a practitioner in private and public sectors, educator, consultant, and now blogger, I think the bigger risk is a lack of leadership for records and information management at C-levels of organizations. Recent surveys support the existence of a leadership vacuum:

• “Records managers continue to be challenged to take a sufficiently strong leadership role in the deployment of consistent retention policy throughout their organizations.” (2009 Cohasset/ARMA Electronic Records Management Survey) http://tinyurl.com/2vdphc6
• In last year’s AIIM Market Intelligence white paper on electronic records management, less than 10% of respondents said they had a chief records officer at the executive level. “We also asked which direction records management responsibility was likely to head in 3-5 years time. There was a general indication that IT should take less responsibility, and that there should be more executive or C-level officers prepared to take on the responsibility and acquire the expertise.”  http://tinyurl.com/29m4mc3

Carol Brock, CRM made the case for creating Chief Records Officer (CRO) positions in every federal agency in her testimony on behalf of ARMA International to the U.S. House of Representatives' Information Policy, Census, and National Archives Subcommittee in June 2010.She suggested that it may be time to consider a CRO for every federal agency and empower the function to enable the competencies of records and information management. http://tinyurl.com/2f3dz7g

For organizations that recognize the need for a robust records and information management function and have the appetite to fund the supporting technologies, they will be challenged to find the right staff to build it. I know 2 major organizations that searched for several months to find CRMs with sufficient experience in electronic records and information management to lead enterprise programs. The more seasoned CRM’s have come up through the physical records management ranks and are generally unprepared for the realities of electronic records management, electronic discovery, and SharePoint governance.  

So what’s to be done?

I’m not sure if anyone is adequately prepared for the realities of enterprise electronic records and information management at the C-level. Here are some steps toward grooming future CROs:

• Get Certified– It’s better to be professionally certificated than not. CRM http://www.icrm.org and AIIM’s ERM Certificate Programs including the SharePoint 2010 Certificate Program are good investments to get the basics. http://tinyurl.com/26dfz6e
• Align with Legal – Attorneys can be authoritative communicators to help in establishing a robust records and information management program. They understand the risks of non-compliance with laws and regulations and will need to collaborate in communicating and sustaining the electronic discovery program.
• Align with IT – It is clear that many of the future challenges for records management will result from the complexity of the various repositories that contain electronic records.  This is clearly the domain of IT, but most organizations do not have the records management expertise within IT to tackle these challenges when the systems are envisioned as opposed to when there are already millions of potentially uncontrolled records within them.   IT needs our help. 
• Recruit Capable Graduate Students to the Profession– The next generation of C-level records management professionals need to prefer operating in electronic environments. In addition to recruiting from graduate schools in information science and libraries, we need to consider MBAs and law school graduates.

What do you think needs to be done?

Comments

Submitted by Don Lueders, CRM, CDIA August 17, 2010 - 7:39 PM

Well said, Dr. Cisco. I think many of us in the Records Management profession have been reluctant to step up to the plate when the call for leadership arises. Maybe it’s just not in our nature.

Unfortunately, timidity is no longer a luxury we can afford. The efficient management of any organization’s most valuable asset - its records and information - is more important now than ever. And the demands of our profession are increasing at a breathtaking rate as technology changes at break-neck speed and the sheer volume of newly created information continues to compound exponentially.

I agree completely that Records Managers must align themselves with the Legal and IT departments of their organizations to efficiently tackle the many challenges of modern records and information management. This is particularly true in large, diverse organizations. But to do this effectively, we must be able to communicate with these groups in languages they understand. If those of us in the Records Management profession want to establish ourselves in positions of leadership, we will have to learn to educate ourselves in both of areas.

For IT, we must understand how technology can help us do our jobs and how it can be used to manage records efficiently without overburdening our end users. At the same time, we must keep a constant eye out for changes in technology that may make us better at our jobs - or might potentially make our jobs much more difficult. We need to frequently discuss these changes with our IT staff and offer informed opinions.

We must also understand the legal complexities of managing records and information in ways that ensure our organizations meet internal and external regulatory requirements. We must understand the legal requirements for electronic discovery and the proper application of legal holds. We need to proactively engage our legal team in preparing to respond to discovery orders. And we need to consult with them when regulations change.

Educating ourselves won’t be easy. And given that change is constant, it will be a continuous process. But organizations like AIIM and ARMA can help the process tremendously. And I think if we commit ourselves to developing a broad understanding of records and information management – one that includes both a technological and legal perspective - our confidence will grow and the leadership positions will develop almost naturally.

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Submitted by Robert Bailey August 18, 2010 - 12:46 PM

Great future plan from this point forward, but what do we do with the hundreds if not thousands of people that are working in the records management career field that have some records work experience but don't even have an AA degree and who's positions are not likely to interface with IT and Legal. What is their incentive to continue training and upgrade their records management knowledge and skills. Maybe we need to include RM courses in the MBA and Legal educational programs. The question has always been, is it easier and more likely to happen, teach IT and Legal trained people RM skills or teach RM people IT and Legal skills? Who decides?

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Submitted by Susan Cisco August 18, 2010 - 1:46 PM

You only need one RIM strategic thinker/collaborator per organization. We still need an army of RIM subject matter experts to implement the strategies – managing physical and digital archives, maintaining and enforcing retention schedules and other governance structures, training, and helping employees find information.

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Submitted by Mark Mandel August 19, 2010 - 4:26 PM

This past chapter season (2009-2010), ARMA NOVA had as its program theme “From the Basement to the Boardroom, the Evolving Role of RIM.” We featured a number of speakers who are RIM professionals in leadership roles and discussed this trend. Our education seminar featured Alan Hilburg, who taught us how to rebrand ourselves to get more authority and recognition in an organization.

While this trend has not resulted in overwhelming numbers of RIM leaders in organizations, it is definitely a trend that is getting notice. So yes I wholeheartedly support your topic, but I don't necessarily agree that it hasn't happened yet. Surveys will not tell the tale, since the vast majority of RIM professionals are the workers who implement the programs.

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Submitted by Mary Hilliard August 26, 2010 - 5:48 PM

Susan, I agree with you – Records Managers need to think strategically, focus on the goals of their organizations and figure out how their skills and expertise can add value. They must communicate the message and that includes building relationships with stakeholders across the organization, particularly with IT and Legal. Certification is important, but even more important is to learn to market and communicate like a C Level, not an administrator.

Records Managers need to align with IT and Legal and focus on continuing to improve skills in communicating, project management, and add to their knowledge of technical and legal issues and leverage that knowledge skillfully.

Records Managers need to dialog regularly with other stakeholders who have parallel and similar processes and requirements, i.e. privacy, security, Infosec, investigations, and see if there is a way to streamline the effect of all their parallel requirements on the “customer” - every employee and business unit in the organization.

CRM certification provides a recognized benchmark to demonstrate that an individual has mastered certain knowledge and has documented, relevant experience. Although getting technical expertise is necessary and certifications such as those AIIM offers can be useful, I still believe that the time tested processes associated with RIM and thus the CRM certification are still valid and of utmost importance.

For the Records and Information Management profession stay viable, we need to continue to develop and monitor the supply chain to ensure the profession will have the numbers of qualified candidates for the CRM and eventually certifiable practitioners who will meet quality standards that uphold the value.

The ICRM has a strong partnership with ARMA and both organizations are highly focused on marketing the profession and promoting the value of certification. In the next year, we will see some of the fruits of these efforts.

Records Manager will not become obsolete so long as there are thought leaders who can articulate and advance the value of our skills.

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Submitted by Robert Bailey August 27, 2010 - 7:45 AM

While I would support the collaboration with Legal and IT, if given only once choice, I would go where the money is. Chief Financial Officer (CFO) would be a good partner. Most record management activities save organizational dollars and most knowledge mangement activities generate dollars. The key to being an esseential records manager and getting recognization in the board room is to be focused on the bigger picture. So far not many CEO's come from the ranks of records manager, but it is not impossible.

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This post and comment(s) reflect the personal perspectives of community members, and not necessarily those of their employers or of AIIM International