The Importance of an Effective Archiving Process and Procedures
Archiving is about more than storage of documents. It’s also about enhancing efficiency, reducing time, and making sure that you are in compliance. No matter the size or complexity of your organization An efficient archiving strategy and procedure will help you achieve these objectives.
It is essential to clearly define your document archive goals. It doesn’t matter if are looking to cut down on daily operating expenses, improve records and data protection compliance, make office processes more efficient or increase business metrics. The most important thing is to make these goals clear to everyone in the organization. This way, when the time comes to access those important files from the past your team will be able to pinpoint exactly where to find them.
Establish a policy that will ensure that employees adhere to the archiving procedures that you have in place. This will not only ensure a process that is efficient, but also strengthen data governance. It will help you to eliminate and purge old documents and verify the retention schedules. This will reduce the chance of data breaches or unauthorised access. It will also outline the disciplinary measures that can be taken if an employee breaches the policy and is able to access sensitive information.
To minimize the amount of storage space required it is recommended to store your archived documents off-site. Off-site document archives help increase accessibility and speed of retrieval. It also helps protect your company from cyber-attack or natural catastrophe by securing the data from unauthorised users.