Key areas to review!

Most Federal agency records officers or records staff must ensure that they have an adequate plan in tackling the convergence of such issues as litigation, controlled unclassified records (CUI), and essential records.

How one plan’s for their litany of requests at some agencies that get inundated with requests for discovery, or how to maintain certain unclassified records, and how their essential records are preserved and accessed is key.

The paradigm between information management and records management becomes even more evident.

So what’s the difference you may ask?

Information management is the strategic mapping and organization of electronic information throughout all areas of an organization.

While, records management initiatives are more day to day operations work, but are still planned for within the overall IM/RM strategic plan.

If you need more assistance or help in this area, please feel free to contact us at 202-780-1780 or at aladdinrim@gmail.com

 

Services we provide!

• Records & Information Management (RIM) Training

• Electronic Records Management (ERM)

• Records Management Application (RMA) Evaluation

• Digitization Planning Support

• File Plan Creation

• Records Inventories

• Schedule Development

• Lifecycle Management

• Disposition Management

• Regulatory Compliance Guidance

• Change Management

Private Sector can do it better…A76 outsourcing…and other complaints

The federal government has never been known to be the most cost-effective or efficient, most people equate government with red-tape logistics, and that everything takes so long to get approved.

Employment Experts is a national personnel employment agency headquartered in Dallas, Texas that is changing this course, by providing internal staffing solutions in various areas ranging from IT, clerical, administrative, record management, and information management services.

Often times an agency’s mission is not tackled as well as it should because the staff often deal with so many other issues including human resources and personnel management.

An agency’s primary concern is generating new business, informing customers on updates on services, and taking care of their customers – not hiring staff. In most cases,  agency staff are too busy establishing company policies that are in accordance with Federal, state, and local government laws to devote much time to recruiting and screening personnel.

By retaining the services of such personnel employment agencies such as Employment Experts,  agencies don’t have to worry about the hiring, firing, and training of personnel.  Personnel employment agencies such as Employment Experts have a large pool of experienced personnel from which they can draw on as, they are constantly recruiting, screening, and training personnel to stay in business. In the case of Employment Experts our staff go through rigorous records management training, followed up by NARA instructed training courses.

Our primary business is people. And if, for some reason or another, the person hired through our agency is not performing up to par, you are at liberty to ask for a replacement. Or, if there is a slowdown, the contract is merely terminated. There are no other penalties to worry about, such as dealing with the state’s unemployment agencies, social security, medical health insurance, or even payroll. We take care of everything, including paying the salary, long before it is paid by the agency.

This my friends is about providing cost-effective and efficient staffing, that eventually allows agency employees whether their mission is to defend or secure our borders, manage federal records, or regulate the banking industry to focus on the task at hand and not on the people business, which is our business.

Re: Federal Records at a crossing point…

With so many federal agencies moving over to electronic content and/or records management systems, the need to manage the remanent paper is important.

So many agencies are simply storing the paper, based upon their agency’s records schedule and the current disposition date, and do not realize the other options available to them.

If they are using DoD 5015.02-STD, now with the National Archives approving Version 3, it is incumbent to learn where the federal arena is on the issue.

The standard may be found here:

http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/html/501502std.htm

Here is the NARA bulletin approving Version 3, which more or less requires among things is that systems be allowed to intermingle and work with each other:

http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/bulletins/2008/2008-07.html

Agencies who do not have an ECM or RM system in place really need to do so. Often for most agencies they have an electronic system that allows them to carry out their mission or they are heavily paper based in their mission, and then usually print out enoromous amounts of paper to send to the Federal Records Center Program.

Other agencies who have held on to enormous amounts of paper do not realize that with the proper document conversion plan the oodles and oodles of boxes taking up quality workspace in their office could be converted digitally, uploaded to a secure and 24/7 accessible location online, with the digital version becoming the official record copy and the paper would be allowed to be destroyed after a designated period of time.

Employment Experts, Inc. currently supports various agencies in setting up document libraries for secure access from anywhere in the world 24/7.  The solution we use is economical and has saved our customer agencies time and money whether it is saving them money from excessive storage costs of the paper or the creation of additional office space.

Postings on records management happenings…

I will from time to time update those who are interested in records management and records operations. The need to have federal agencies and the public informed about a medley of issues from within the field is of great importance.

If you have any questions or would like for me to post on a particular subject please let me know.

Thanks,

Aladdin

ARCIS is coming…

For all records managers in the Southwest, ARCIS, which is NARA’s new portal for accessioning, requesting, and other records support services.

The Fort Worth Federal Records Center will begin implementing the service in July 2009.

As a former NARA employee involved in the testing process, the new system will provide greater improvement in response time in all FRC processes.

Here is the schedule:

October 2008 — Philadelphia
January 2009 — Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle
March 2009 — Dayton (both FRCs), Denver, Pittsfield
May 2009 — Riverside, San Bruno, WNRC
July 2009 — Boston, Ft. Worth, Lee’s Summit, Lenexa
October 2009 — NPRC (St. Louis)

Our company provides support services by phone and onsite to ensure that your migration to ARCIS will be smooth and seemless.

Hello world!

I have created this blog to share and pass along information that I comes my way within the federal records managnement realm. I look forward to providing everyone with updates and information on happenings, events, services, and any assistance that I may be able to provide.

Records and Information management varies so much among agencies but the National Archives is changing that slowly but surely with various offerings such as ARCIS, the new online web portal for all federal customer agencies.