Changing Workplace Technology – Decentralization

In our records consulting practice, FreeDoc ® has documented the enterprise record-keeping practices of more than 70-organizations ranging from 20 to 20,000 employees.

This experience has shown that the ‘Modern Office’ is mostly a massive hedgerow of shared drives (on-prem, or cloud) filled with unstructured information.  Most files use very few naming standards, and there are fewer processes to remove old and out dated information that is no loner relevant.

Everyday, 1000’s of people waste hours of time looking for information, and not finding it.  The result is people are non-productive and not excited about coming to work.

How this Happened

Before 1990 records ‘filing’ was done by a trained file clerk as a centralized discipline.  The appearance of network PCs erased that overnight, turning filing into an individual task done with no training or oversight.  Standardized file naming disappeared overnight.  With every retirement the problem gets worse.

Loss of standardization makes it difficult for people to find accurate information.  The drag on productivity is substantial.  Research done by IDC in 2000* and verified by McKinsey in 2012* showed the average person spends 30% of every paid workday searching information filed by someone else, only to find it doesn’t meet their need.  Or, they just lose time in other ways.

Payroll is the highest expense within an organization.  Reducing this productivity loss by re-assigning even ten-percent can increase huge performance gains, and reduce turnover!

Benefits of Standardization

• Increased employee satisfaction and tenure
• Increased service to the public market
• Increased security to the enterprise

In this light-hearted presentation given to Seattle ARMA Washington State employers, FreeDoc ® Managing Consultant Peter Frix shows the relevance and benefits from structuring records into a serialized data base.

* IDC (2000); McKinsey (2012).

** Disposition Authority Number (DAN) – Washington State Common Records Retention Schedule (CORE).