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Monitoring recordkeeping performance guidelines
How do you know if things are going well?
Ensuring staff are following recordkeeping policy and procedures
Individuals, work groups and business units within your organisation are responsible for:
- being aware and understanding organisational policy and rules for managing records
- creating records as part of their work
- capturing records into official recordkeeping systems
- handling hardcopy records with care
But how do you check whether staff are meeting policy, practices and responsibilities in regard to recordkeeping?
Some ways of systematically monitoring the recordkeeping performance of individuals are set out below.
Records management staff are responsible for making sure that the systems and tools needed to support individual recordkeeping are in place and operating correctly. In addition, they can:
- Conduct file audits – periodic checks of desks for working files, files not checked out to them, emails printed out and added to files or registered electronically.
- Monitor file creation and document registration statistics – usually for business units but if there are particular problems, then look at individual performance.
- Examine a sample of file and document titles (if created by the user) to check understanding and appropriate use of corporate language tools.
- Conduct surveys of staff (including records management staff) to identify any training needs, new tools or revisions to existing tools required).
- Confirm that digital records are being captured into recordkeeping systems and business systems that keep records.
- Check that emails are being captured into the EDRMS (this could include monitoring the size of email accounts and random/selected audits of email users to ensure conformity with organisational requirements to capture email into the recordkeeping system).
- Confirm that digital recordkeeping systems capture read-only versions of records (that is, records cannot be tampered with or altered).
- Confirm that records can be retrieved from digital recordkeeping systems and presented in formats which allow an individual to view and understand the record.
- Confirm access controls on the recordkeeping system, information security and protection mechanisms are in place and working.
- Confirm digitisation processes are resulting in authentic, complete and accessible images of hardcopy records.
Business managers and supervisors are well placed to monitor that business rules, procedures and responsibilities are being followed. This can occur as part of routine management and performance management processes.
Question 7 of the Records Management Assessment Tool has been designed to assist business managers and organisations in monitoring recordkeeping within workgroups and business units to determine whether staff are conforming with organisational policies and rules and meeting the organisation’s requirements.
Additionally, records can be checked for completeness and accuracy.
Note: Unless particular problems have been identified, the checking of records is likely to be at an aggregate level, for example, monthly accounting reports, complaints management reports.
If staff aren't using the systems and tools
Feedback from organisations indicates that a fundamental problem in recordkeeping is that staff do not use the systems and tools provided for them, despite best efforts to make these fit business needs. Performance measures of system use will identify if this is an issue for you.
Fixing this problem requires several different strategies including:
- promotion of recordkeeping rules and tools, and explaining the benefits of the rules and tools for users (for example, using the new collaborative workspace means that all team members have access to the information and decisions about the project)
- training programs for management and staff
- providing a help desk service to assist users
- reviewing systems and tools to ensure that they are user-friendly, and
- integrating recordkeeping systems and tools into work processes, so that they aren't seen as an onerous 'add-on' to work tasks.
How to know if recordkeeping systems are performing
- Check that the recordkeeping requirements of all recordkeeping systems have been identified.
- Assess systems against recordkeeping requirements and defined functionality: Is the system capturing records of [name of function] transactions, are unique identifiers assigned to records?
Note: This is likely to involve interviews with both system managers and business managers. - Monitor system downtime (electronic systems).
- Check that records have unique identifiers in the system. Check that the metadata automatically applied by systems is correct. For example, ensure that data such as date and time, record creator information and unique transaction numbers are being captured correctly.
- Check that records are able to be accessed and retrieved from the system.
- Confirm that migrations of records from one system to another are controlled and documented, and that metadata remains linked to the record when it is migrated.
- Check that records managed, stored or returned by outsourced service providers are complete and accessible.
- Confirm that recovery and restoration processes for digital records and recordkeeping systems function correctly and that records can be recovered and restored after a disaster.
How to know if you are providing quality records management services
- Set up a user group to gather feedback on program performance, for example, the records management software system, tools such as the thesaurus, training courses or material.
- Monitor levels of use of the services. If these drop, it may indicate a problem either with the service itself or promotion of the service.
- Survey customers regularly. Make these purposeful and concise so as not to annoy users.
- Set and monitor service delivery targets.