The New Year is upon us, and it’s time for a few resolutions. People are taking up jogging, gyms are packed and cigarettes and chocolate sit untouched on store shelves. This is a time when we all try to make changes for the better. But we shouldn’t restrict those changes to our personal lives. Your email retention procedure could use some positive changes there too.
Review Your Email Retention Policy
If you only make one resolution this year, it should be to review your email retention policy. Policies, no matter how well written, fall out of date. They fall out of date because industries change, regulations are altered and email data traffic increases. You need to ensure your email retention practices keep your business in compliance and assist with eDiscovery requests.
Categorize
There are a few day-to-day changes you can make that would improve email retention procedures if implemented by everyone in your company. One of those is the effective categorization of email. By actively categorizing every email you receive you make your emails easier to search and review. It also helps you to define which emails are not required for retention.
Delete
Improving email retention isn’t really about retaining more email. It’s about identifying the emails that need to be retained. A great way to do that is to delete redundant email. The better each individual manages their email, the better the company manages email. If you identify and delete spam, duplicate or irrelevant mails you can help build more efficient email retention processes.
Educate
A great resolution for any department, in any industry, is to educate more. Your knowledge and understanding of compliance and eDiscovery requirements and retention procedure can help build a more efficient organization. You should ensure that all departments are properly educated in email retention best practice. All it takes is improper procedure in a single department to cause problems for an entire organization.
Email Archive
If you haven’t implemented an email archiving solution the New Year is a great time to implement one. Email archives act as the perfect backup to your standard email retention policy. An archive will retain all your email in a compliant searchable format. Ensuring that your organization can comfortably deal with compliance and eDiscovery requests.
The New Year isn’t just about a leaner, healthier you. It’s also about a fitter, more efficient organization. Start that process with better email retention.
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