Developing Records Retention and Disposal Schedules

A records retention schedules is a systematic plan g how long information must be kept for legal and operational requirements and the guidelines for how to dispose the information. This provides effective and efficient control of an organization’s records and information. Record retention schedules help to ensure that important and valuable documents/records that have legal, fiscal, administrative or historical value are identified, protected and made accessible, while those that are not required are systematically destroyed.

Yet many organizations still struggle to establish credible retention-disposal schedules. A common symptom of this has been failure to dispose of records in time because of the fear of unknown, resulting to piles of documents/records occupying useful physical or digital spaces. In this five-day intensive workshop, we experience a practical hands-on training on how to develop effective retention-disposition schedules. The training scope:

• Dynamics of retention-disposal scheduling
• Conducting effective records inventory
• Determining retention periods
• Aligning to records management policies and procedures
• Aligning to regulatory and legal requirements
• Aligning to standards and best practices
• Determining disposal strategies
• Selecting records destruction approaches
• Constructing the retention-disposal schedules
• Maintenance of retention-disposal schedules

Target audience: Records and archives officers, archivists, ICT officers, knowledge management officers, information officers, communication officers, documentalists,