This piece is the fourth installment of a seven-part series, “Leveraging Remote Records Management Talent to Optimize your Digital Transformation Roadmap.”

Records Management Training is Key to Implementing Effective Information Governance (IG)

Regardless of how well designed an IG program may be, its tenets – including the foundational elements of records and information management (RIM) – must be understood by your employees to be effective and compliant with internal policies and external regulations. The truth of the matter is we can’t implement IG effectively single-handedly. We rely on end users – our employees – to identify organizational information assets, categorize appropriately and manage them throughout the information’s lifecycle. Without employee training, IG can become the Wild, Wild, West with everyone rolling his/her own way, leading to dark data, inappropriate destruction/retention and, ultimately, information loss. These risks are amplified when many employees are teleworking, some for the first time. It is clear that organizations must mitigate these information risks by training their employees in the rules of managing and protecting their information assets.

Some questions we often receive are, “what are the tangible benefits of training” and “How can we cost effectively improve our training program?”

Benefits of Records Management Training

Training has long been viewed as an investment in an organization’s employees, providing direct benefits (employees learning aspects of their job, understanding the organization’s culture, etc.) as well as indirect benefits (offering a sense that they are valued and worth training/growing/developing while fostering a sense of shared community). During remote work, these benefits have become necessities. Training offers a sense of connection to the organization as well as a medium for communicating how to manage and protect the organization’s information assets. Training must also be relevant, written in a clear and persuasive manner, be easily understood, and offered in a manner that is readily accessible to users.

Remote Records Management Training Options

Remote training is not a new concept – the first computer based training platforms came out 40 years ago (in the 1980’s)! What is new is the urgent need for access to remote training and the plethora of options available. Training can be distributed through methods ranging from a simple email blast of PowerPoint Slides to sophisticated, interactive Online Learning Systems that can deliver training via virtual reality, gamification or augmented reality segments – accessed via computer desktop or mobile apps. (See below for access to a virtual office training segment Cadance Group presented at ARMA 2019 InfoCon).

When deciding how to deliver training, it is important to understand the target audience, including the resources they commonly use (and potential Internet bandwidth issues) and how they consume content.

Content is still King

Once you have decided the training method, you can then focus on content. Here it can be helpful to create a training plan to consider short-term and long-term goals. Questions to ask include:

• What needs to be immediately communicated to your staff? This can range from how to access information remotely, how to protect the organization’s information from outsider threats or how to report problems with accessing information.
• What are the new procedures for common business processes? A good example is employee onboarding – how do your employees process I-9 forms (which require multiple proofs of identify) remotely and still protect the personally identifiable information contained in the paperwork?
• How are paper and electronic information supposed to be managed for on-site employees?
• What is the new normal when the company re-opens? Will some of the processes change back to the original processes? Will others stay the same?
• Long-range goals can look to Information Governance goals – how do you effectively communicate the program to your staff?

Need Help Improving Your Records Management Training Program?

Cadence Group’s experienced group of consultants can help improve participation and your employee’s retention of your content by first assessing your organization’s training needs and recommending specific solutions to take your training program to the next level. Whether it is delivering virtual training live for new employees, designing an annual refresher course or launching interactive e-learning courses that run on on-demand through Learning Management Systems (LMS), we will leverage our expertise to design the solution that meets your organization’s training goals.

Visit us at www.cadence-group.com to learn more!

Want to see a pdf of Virtual and Augmented Reality Training – The Basics? This is a short presentation based on the Virtual and Augmented Reality Training – 101 presentation we delivered at ARMA’s Annual International Conference – InfoCon 2019.
Members of the Cadence Group team will be speaking again this year at InfoCon 2020, so be sure to subscribe to our blog and stay up to date!

If you’re interested in our e-learning capabilities, check out our Records Management Training solutions page or request a free demo.

What’s Next in our Series

Is R.O.T. (Redundant, Outdated, Transient information) infesting your electronic repositories, making the important information you need difficult to access? R.O.T. not only frustrates your search results, it also increases costs and presents significant information risk such as unprotected PII and expired records subject to eDiscovery.
Our next blog, “Clean-up Clean-up – Everybody Everywhere! Cleaning Up those ROTten Information Repositories – Remotely,” shares best practices for approaching your electronic records cleanup project in a legally defensible manner.

About Cadence Group

Cadence Group, a certified woman owned small business, is a user-centric information management consulting firm with 30 years of experience in information management services. Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, with an office in Washington, D.C., Cadence Group provides services to corporate, non-profit, and government clients. By creating structured, compliant, and sustainable information management strategies for web and content management, records and information management, libraries, collaboration and knowledge management, technical assistance and training, and information technology, Cadence Group helps clients develop digital transformation strategies that optimize information assets and maintain compliance. For more information, contact us or visit www.cadence-group.com.