Retention

ERM Community Wiki

Records retention schedules (and records inventories) are the basis for a sound records management program. A retention schedule (RS) is a formal business policy that lists the types of records an organization or enterprise creates and acquires and how long they should be retained according to legal, regulatory, and business requirements. A records retention schedule acts as an organization’s safe harbor during litigation and addresses legal requirements for all jurisdictions in which an organization operates. A retention schedule typically needs to be updated every 18 to 24 months, especially in highly regulated industries.

Anything and everything that is defined by the organization to be a record, irrespective of type, format, or media, should have a corresponding mapping to the retention schedule.

Organizations want to make it as easy as possible to apply their RSs and categorize records into the correct retention categories (also known as record series) so more organizations are adopting a “big bucket” strategy for streamlining their retention schedules. A [[On the Record with SharePoint
Bridging the Gap between Retention and Retrieval|big bucket RS]] serves one purpose and perspective – defining retention periods. The big bucket strategy simplifies a retention schedule by consolidating record types related to the same business function or process and with similar retention requirements into bigger buckets of retention categories (usually 100-150 for a large organization). With fewer buckets resulting in fewer retention choices, information workers and auto-categorization tools are more likely to consistently categorize records for retention, which ensures better compliance with an organization’s record retention requirements. This, in turn, reduces risks associated with keeping records too long and reduces costs for maintaining and responding to e-discovery demands for large volumes of unneeded records.

Whether an organization takes the big bucket approach or not, the first step is to just GET STARTED (especially regarding moving email into the records management program). Retention schedules will be unique to each organization, based on their industry and needs. However, guidance on retention schedules can be found in the MoReq2, DOD 5015 and ISO 15489 Standards.

The retention schedule also includes the ultimate disposition of the record – some records will have long-term archival value to the business and will be kept for 30, 40, 50 years (or forever) and other records will be destroyed.

MoReq2 includes specifications which records management products should have pertaining to retention and disposition functionality. These include 5.1 Retention and Disposition Schedules; 5.2 Review of Disposition Actions; 5.3 Transfer, Export, and Destruction; 8.1 Search and Retrieval; and 3.1 Configuring the Classification Scheme