If you are anything like me, which in the most general of terms is not that bad, you have a huge stack of mail on the designated “mail cabinet”. This monumental pillar of correspondence is built from many different building blocks like:
- Magazines of which I should have canceled the subscription a long time ago.
- Empty envelopes and their content somewhere in there as well.
- Leaflets telling me to sell my old gold (which I don’t have).
- This week flyer from the nearby supermarket (and lasts weeks, and the five weeks before).
- A couple of books (how did those even get in there?)
Now let me paint you a word picture when I am looking for something there, let’s say a letter from the doctor with an appointment for a flu shot. Imagine a soft rustle from the hallway followed by loud clattering and some curse words that are not suitable to put here. Expect to hear things like: “Where is it, it was there when I didn’t need it” and “Ah this is it….. No this is not it”. If you would look around the corner you would see me standing the content of a pile, now spread out over the floor, frantically searching through it. Not the most practical approach, I assure you. But why do we do it? And now, of course, I am not talking about your pile of mail at home, but something far more serious. Our personnel files, the personal data of our employees of which we are responsible for. Many would say: “Of course we can improve but it is not as bad as your mail”, to which I say: “My mail might be a mess, but it is stored safely, only I can access it, there are no legal terms to which I have to comply in storage (and throwing away!) and I am not responsible for all the people who work with me, suck on that”. Because let’s be serious here. Aren’t these the problems we face every day? HR document management is a necessary evil, on which we aren’t as precise and critical about as we should. While digitalising over a 100.000 personnel files spread over 500 locations, I was shocked to learn how much improvement is possible.
Magazines of which I should have canceled the subscription a long time ago.
How many employee personnel files way past their expiration date, that should have been thrown away a long time ago do you have? First of all, if you are not part of the lucky few with digital files, you run into storage space problems. Second of all, finding the right document causes more and more trouble. Because of the storage of out of date and/or irrelevant documents. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, the legal repercussions can be huge. Not even always because of bad maintenance, but possibly because of changing laws. Throwing documents away can be a legal minefield, though canceling some magazine subscriptions proves to be even more difficult, and is a complicated process. It is unsafe, irresponsible and most of all illegal and most be approached with the highest degree of care.
