PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
Greetings ARMA members and friends,
Well, we pulled it off! Our first "Meet & Greet"/ Membership Appreciation and Networking Event for ARMA members and friends that was held on March 16 at the Crowne Plaza, Cromwell was pure success. I'd like to thank everyone who helped to make it a special event:
- ARMA CT Board Officers, especially MJ for helping us think outside the "box" by coordinating this event, as well as Ray and Jim for mailing out the very nifty invitations;
- Our event sponsors, Iron Mountain and their team and Diversified Information Technologies represented by Tom Cichon;
- And especially to everyone who attended!
And I can say that everyone was grateful for the donations for the drawings that came from Iron Mountain, Diversified Information Technologies, Holly Mazzeo, DuPont Systems, and the ARMA CT Chapter. Well done!
Records Clean Out
Now for me, it's that time of year for spring cleaning. You know - when the filing cabinets are overflowing folders, computer systems and email systems slow down because they are full and need a little RIM compliance. Have you started to make plans for your organization? Now whether you do it now or at some other time during the year, it's always such a great opportunity to educate our colleagues, reinforce all the benefits of RIM, dazzle them with our organizational skills and offer RIM training. Never mind that they may not have this important event on their calendar. We know that it's required, but we want to be kind and make it as interesting and fun as we can. So how do you do that?
In my experience, I have found that food and tchotchkes rate very high when conducting RIM training and annual record clean outs. But seriously, I'd like to share with you some of the finer points of conducting a Records Clean Out.
For anyone new to RIM, a records clean out is when you set aside a day or even allow people a period of time, like a month, when employees can clean up their workspaces and common spaces of records and information that have met their business need per your organizations retention schedule. Employees can also use this day to get rid of other miscellaneous stuff, like old phone books, unused furniture, empty binders and recyclable materials. Be sure to update your retention schedule and check with employees on any new record series before and during this process.
The benefits are many, but here are just a few:
· Frees up valuable office space and equipment
· Raises RIM awareness in the organization
· Promotes understanding of what a retention schedule is and how to use it
· Provides the opportunity to conduct RIM training for "newbies", with refresher training for everyone else
· Meet compliance with Federal and Agency requirements and your organization
· Become more operationally efficient - faster retrieval
So how do you make this happen? A lot of it depends on your budget, and what your organization will allow you to do. I've conducted clean outs with no budget many times by being creative and enlisting the support of other departments. Contact your executive management to get the green light. Once approved, always include Facilities, IT and your record storage company or department to assist. Facilities will be able to provide shred bins, additional waste cans and other related items. IT will support you with email and network clean outs as needed.
Your record storage company can offer support to supplement what your organization may not have (e.g. storage boxes, shred bins, labor and maybe even some tchotchkes to share with the employees.)
· Determine a time frame- could be a week or just a day and market it as the "Annual Clean Out"
· Offer RIM training to employees - choose a theme and associate it with your organization
· Plan a kickoff date and time-
o that would be the time to put out your snacks and tchotchkes
o provide RIM training at this time
· Require all employees to clean out their records by following your organizations retention schedule to see what can be retained, recycled or retired to off-site storage.
o Retain only those records per the records retention schedule
o Dispose of all records that have exceeded their retention period as indicated in the records schedule
o Shred or recycle paper records according to their confidentiality rating
o Retire all inactive records as indicated in the applicable records schedule and send to off-site storage.
o This includes EMAIL and all records regardless of media!
Now, get out there and clean out those records and make us proud!
Thanks again to my hard working Board of Directors and everyone who helps us to bring you the best monthly educational meetings ever! Hope to see everyone at North Haven on April 16th to learn more about RIM's responsibilities and Business Continuity Plans (BCP)...
ARMAly yours,
Anita
