Are you finding managing electronic and paper records in the same environment to be a challenge? You aren’t the only one. The increasing emphasis on electronic records in our field is undeniable. A recent TAB survey found that over half of the respondents had replaced at least 20% of their files with electronic records, at a time when paper record volumes continue to grow. In the same survey, 20% of organizations reported that over 60% of their record collections were a hybrid between paper and electronic records. This “hybrid” environment is creating a two-headed beast that presents new records management challenges, and this presentation will help you begin to understand what it entails.

1. Understanding the
Hybrid Environment
An Introduction
for Records
Managers

2. Newsflash Records
Managers:

3. The Hybrid Records
Environment is here.

4. New to the term? Most
records management
environments are a mix of
paper and electronic
documents - what we call the
“hybrid environment.”

5. Today a large percentage of an organization’s records consist of Word
documents, spreadsheets, image files, and many other electronic
formats. At the same time, the continued expansion and access to
printing and copying has helped paper file collections grow.

6. A great example of what
is driving this hybrid
environment comes from
an article written for the
Pew Charitable Trust.
Melissa Maynard, a staff
writer, comments that
when lawyers bring a
case before the Texas
Supreme Court, they
don’t just have the option
of filing their documents
electronically; they are
REQUIRED to do so.
Why is paper
still growing?

7. This hasn’t been easy! Some of the judges still insist on taking the
electronic documents and printing them out to read…
PAGE BY PAGE.

8. A recent AIIM survey
conducted by the four
largest Electronic
Content Management
developers
determined that staff
members lack
confidence in the
accuracy, accessibility
and trustworthiness of
much of their
electronic information.
Confidence in the
accuracy,
accessibility and
trustworthiness of
electronic
information has
remained at 40%.
”
“
- © AIIM 2011, www.aiim.org

9. And for all the
talk of a
paperless office,
resistance to
change by the
user community,
along with the
relative ease
with which
documents can
be distributed
and printed has
served only to
increase paper
creation in many
organizations.

10. *Source: ForestEthics, member of Environmental Paper Network
In fact, “According to ForestEthics, a member of the Environmental
Paper Network, the number of pages of paper consumed in U.S.
offices is growing by about 20 percent each year.” *

11. And the U.S. EPA
reports that the
average United States
office worker uses
10,000 sheets of copy
paper each year!

12. It’s clear that paper records are
not going away any time soon!

13. Electronic content
is expanding. But
simultaneously the
volume of paper
files and other
physical media
shows no sign of
decreasing. So
what we end up
with is the current
environment of
hybrid records.

14. This is reflected in the recent AIIM survey (next
slide) that showed over two-thirds of
organizations would require their ECM system
to provide management of physical (paper)
records as well as provide a repository for their
electronic records.

15. © AIIM 2011,
www.aiim.org

16. Managing electronic
and paper records in the same
environment can be a challenge.
If you are encountering this in your
organization, you are not the only
one! Most organizations are
facing the “hybrid challenge.”

17. So how can you tame
this growing hybrid records
MONSTER?
For tips on how to manage the
hybrid records environment, check out our
Hybrid Records Management Toolkit:
www.tab.com/hybrid