Records Management in Ontario: Key Benefits for Human Resource Departments

Records management in Ontario helps human resource departments avoid drowning in paper. Processes such as recruiting, hiring, employee reviews and benefits management create tremendous amounts of paper. Without a digital backup, companies risk losing this crucial information.

Compliance also becomes a major issue for records management in Ontario. Regulatory acts affecting human resource departments include the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). To ensure compliance, all employee documentation must be properly managed and secure from all threats.

The Overwhelming Volume of Paper

Few departments, if any, within an organization manage such an enormous amount of paperwork as human resources. This overwhelming volume prevents human resource personnel from working on more important tasks. Instead, HR staff often becomes consumed with managing paper.

For example, it’s not uncommon for an employee personnel file to contain dozens of records. From the date of hire, an employee file continues to grow. The longer an employee stays on the job, the bigger the personnel file. Examples of some of these records include applications, resumes, recruiting, insurance, benefits, workers compensation, performance reviews, payroll and more.

Records Management in Ontario Boosts Department Performance

The goal of records management in Ontario is to lessen the paperwork burdens so human resource professionals can focus instead on managing people. In addition, records management creates meaningful benefits that enhance department operations, including:

• Cost reductions. By using electronic formats, records management in Ontario, eliminates the need for physical storage space. Associated storage costs are eliminated or reduced and the space can be put to more productive use.

• Time improvements. When employees need to track down paper documents, they waste valuable time. However, records management in Ontario creates digital documents that can be retrieved in seconds.

• Security enhancements. Access to sensitive human resource documents can be better controlled through records management in Ontario. Access can be granted or revoked quickly as needed.

• Compliance improvements. To comply with regulatory acts, records management in Ontario safely stores documents and makes them readily available to demonstrate compliance.

Transitioning to Records Management in Ontario

The first step in transitioning to a records management system in Ontario is to assess the applications and processes currently in place. Any new system should easily integrate within your current environment. It’s important for any new system to allow records transfers to be conducted efficiently and accurately.

You should not have to recreate entire department processes to fit a new system for records management in Ontario. In other words, a records management system should fit within your human resource operating environment. You should not have to change how you do business to adapt to a records management application.

Records management in Ontario creates a more efficient human resource department with less paper shuffling. By reducing the time employees spend on low-level tasks, automated records management allows personnel to work on more essential things – like finding and keeping the best employees, meeting compliance standards and managing time-sensitive payroll processes.