A policy in essence is a set of guidelines, procedures and incentives that dictate the behavior of the entities or activities it controls. As a disciplinary measure, a policy prevents occurrence of an event that can damage or compromise a company’s interests/objectives. Read more.

1. Blog2: Irch.com
Document Retention Policy Outline – An Overview
A policy in essence is a set of guidelines, procedures and incentives that dictate the behavior of the entities or
activities it controls. As a disciplinary measure, a policy prevents occurrence of an event that can damage or
compromise a company’s interests/objectives. In the context of records retention, a well-defined policy can prove to
be an efficient control over the company’s informational aspects.
There is quite a bit of research required to formulate the framework of a good record retention policy. The policy
needs to provide guidelines to direct the following behavior/flow of information in an organization:
 What kind of data needs to be retained?
 For how long does the retention hold for which type of information?
 Who is allowed to access this data?
 What is the accessibility freedom of this data?
 How flexibly can this tool accommodate frequent changes?
 Can this record retention schedule work well with the procedures and processes of the concerned
organization?
 To what degree is automation of processes in this tool allowed?
Apart from the issues listed above, the policy formulator needs to pay special attention to research about the
organization itself. A workable document retention policy template can be developed if additional information about
the firm’s history, culture and prospective position is known. Information regarding daily working procedures, audits
and dealings etc. can help add weight to the effectiveness of the ultimate policy.
Knowledge about how the organization’s gear-train turns enables formulation of very strategically optimized
business record retention schedule policy.