Future Proof – Protecting our digital future

At the Records Managers Forum on March 2, Michael McMullan from Housing NSW spoke about the project he has been running to roll digital recordkeeping out across the organisation.

You can listen to Michael’s talk and view his Powerpoint slides at our podcast series page (Episode 7). Housing have been on a pretty significant path of change over the last couple of years with this project, working towards a wholly digital way of working, from client records being scanned ‘at the boundary, in service centres, to Housing staff saving their emails, documents and other records electronically and making use of action tracking to ensure documents are moved efficiently around the organisation.  Throughout the project so far, the team has taken a practical approach and listened to the needs of the business in order to make sure the new system solves problems, rather than adding additional administrative burdens for staff.

Michael’s key lessons learned were:

• We knew the culture change would be huge;
  well, it is even bigger than that
• Integrate TRIM into Business Process and train
  that way
• Train all users
• Backscanning is a good idea – include it at least
  in discussions

It was encouraging to hear Michael say that “Once people come on board they love digital records” – for example when it means they have the right information for a client in a timely way without having to have bits of paper shuttled all over the State!

Many thanks to Michael for such an interesting and inspiring presentation.