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<\/p>\nA well-structured records management program is essential for compliance, efficiency, and risk mitigation, but there are clear signs that indicate when outside assistance may be helpful or even necessary. If your organization struggles with growing backlogs of unorganized records, frequent compliance violations, or difficulty responding to audits and legal requests, these are red flags that internal resources may not be sufficient. The emergence of new regulations, evolving data security threats, and the increasing complexity of digital records management can also signal that external expertise is required to ensure your program remains effective and legally compliant as the landscape shifts. Here are three critical indicators that your organization could benefit from outside help with these issues.<\/p>\n
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Limited staffing and budgetary resources can impede the proper management of records. \u201cThe records management community . . . has the same challenges that every other area within the federal government has,\u201d Ron Swecker, Program Manager at U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Co-Chair of the Federal Records Officer Network,\u00a0told\u00a0Federal News Network<\/em>. \u201cAnd those are budgetary constraints. So I hear a lot of, we just don\u2019t have the budget to move fast enough or to meet specific deadlines.\u201d<\/p>\n Outsourcing allows organizations to leverage specialized expertise without the overhead costs of hiring and training new personnel. Outsourcing can get you access to better tools and better expertise at economy-of-scale pricing. Even just moving to a cloud-based records management platform can yield enormous budgetary benefit. Advisory firm Accenture\u00a0estimates\u00a0that moving applications and workloads to the cloud can decrease the related Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by 30-40%.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are able to accomplish much more with much less, which is something that gets passed back to the citizens in a multitude of ways,\u201d\u00a0agrees\u00a0County Clerk Juli Luke in comments to GovOS.<\/p>\n Another type of resource constraint that\u2019s worth calling out on its own is insufficient technological capabilities, especially in the face of a rapidly digitizing government. If your organization lacks the technology to digitize and manage records effectively, it may hinder efficiency and accessibility. Partnering with a provider that offers advanced records management technology can bridge this gap.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to move on beyond just digitization and provide automation into the processes themselves, and in managing those records,\u201d Swecker\u00a0says. \u201cI think that\u2019s where the convergence of the traditional records and information management discipline comes together with other disciplines like data management.\u201d In other words, modern demands on records managers requires more domain expertise\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0technological capabilities than may be readily available within the records management function.<\/p>\n When the accumulation of records surpasses the capacity of your current system, leading to storage issues and retrieval delays, it\u2019s a clear sign that external help is needed. The\u00a02023 SAORM reports\u00a0make clear this is very much an issue for many federal agencies. For example, the Department of Energy (DOE)\u00a0writes\u00a0in its own report, \u201cDue to the volume of temporary paper records and the lack of available resources, DOE will not meet [NARA\u2019s digitization] requirement.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just the conversion to digital records that\u2019s falling behind. The number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests has surged over the past several years even as the ability of government agencies to comply with these requests has fallen. \u201cWe looked back over the last decade looking at data from 2013 up through 2022, and we found that backlogs government wide have nearly doubled to a little bit over 200,000 at the end of fiscal year 2022,\u201d Jay McTigue, the U.S. Government Accountability Office\u2019s Director of Strategic Issues,\u00a0told\u00a0the\u00a0Federal News Network<\/em>. \u201cThis reflects a long-term trend, a persistent challenge for federal agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n Outsourcing and the adoption of\u00a0advanced Electronic Records Management (ERM) platforms\u00a0can provide scalable solutions to manage\u2014including organizing and retrieving\u2014large volumes of records efficiently.<\/p>\n By monitoring key indicators like those described above, your organization can make informed decisions about engaging external expertise. Outsourcing records management not only addresses these challenges but also offers additional benefits, including cost savings, access to specialized knowledge, and scalability. Ultimately, partnering with external professionals can ensure your records management program remains robust and effective in an ever-evolving landscape.<\/p>\n For a guide on where and how to find qualified help, read our guide on the topic: \u201cHow to Find an Effective, Trustworthy Records Management Technology Vendor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A well-structured records management program is essential for compliance, efficiency, and risk mitigation, but there are clear signs that indicate when outside assistance may be helpful or even necessary. If your organization struggles with growing backlogs of unorganized records, frequent compliance violations, or difficulty responding to audits and legal requests, these are red flags that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinedemoserver10.com\/james-mcgriff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinedemoserver10.com\/james-mcgriff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinedemoserver10.com\/james-mcgriff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinedemoserver10.com\/james-mcgriff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinedemoserver10.com\/james-mcgriff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/onlinedemoserver10.com\/james-mcgriff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1934,"href":"https:\/\/onlinedemoserver10.com\/james-mcgriff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions\/1934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinedemoserver10.com\/james-mcgriff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinedemoserver10.com\/james-mcgriff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinedemoserver10.com\/james-mcgriff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinedemoserver10.com\/james-mcgriff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}You\u2019re Running into Technological Limitations<\/h2>\n
You\u2019re Drowning under an Overwhelming Volume of Records<\/h2>\n
Recognize When to Seek External Assistance<\/h2>\n