Off-boarding Employees: Records Management

The DES Records Management Policy states:

The employee’s supervisor will work directly with the employee to make sure that records are retained and managed to provide continuity for the agency and its business needs. Employees leaving their position will make sure that all documents, portable storage devices, and email pertaining to their position and job duties are accessible by their supervisor.

Below are items to keep in mind when an employee leaves.

When completing the SAR

1. Check “Yes” under “Do Email and Network Files Need to be Reviewed? (i.e. I drive, home folder)” if you are unable to work with your employee to transfer and organize their emails and files prior to their departure.
   
   
2. If the employee’s records are subject to an ongoing litigation hold or public records request, check “Yes” under: “Does Employee have records subject to Current Legal Hold or Public Request?”

Reviewing emails

1. Be sure that at least one of the emails in the employee’s inbox is labeled with the appropriate retention policy label from the list below (for instructions on applying retention labels, see Applying Retention Labels to Individual Emails). Retention labels will protect the emails from being deleted after the employee's account has been deactivated; however, they will no longer be accessible.

Saving Emails

If any of the employee's emails will be needed for reference ongoing projects in your unit, you can:

• Copy the emails to a Network Drive, Teams, or SharePoint site.
  • Select the emails to move and copy and paste to the new location.
  • Please note that only emails can be copied out of Outlook. You will have to select all emails in a folder or inbox (Ctrl + A) and move them to a new folder in the location you want to save them to.
  • If you *cut* and paste emails to a new location, be aware that you will be responsible for the retention of those emails in the new location, even if you have applied retention labels to the emails in Outlook.
• Move the emails to a shared mailbox.
  • Individual emails and/or folders can be cut and pasted into the shared mailbox or drag and dropped.

*You will still need to ensure that retention labels are applied to the emails in OUtlood.*

OneDrive and C Drive

Move the types of files below to the appropriate shared folders used by the workgroup:

• • Work completed as part of the agency’s role or function
  • Finalized documents and master copies
  • Program records
  • Administrative records
  • Finalized meeting records
  • Active draft documents currently open to comment from colleagues
  • Policies and procedures master files
  • Reports

Do not move these:

• • Supervisor’s employee files
  • Files used for reference only
  • Drafts and superseded documents
  • Personnel records (e.g., copies of the employee’s evaluation, PDF)
  • Files that have no retention value (e.g., duplicates/copies)

Tip: Never name a shared folder with an employee’s name (e.g., Sara_Salter). All folders should be named and organized according to function or role (e.g., Popcorn_Program_2015 or Popcorn_Director_2015) so that active records can be easily found and used by others, and quickly identified when those records have met their required retention period and are eligible for destruction.

OneDrive

For any files that are moved from OneDrive or that will remain in OneDrive, be sure that the appropriate retention labels have been applied. See: When to use your OneDrive for information about applying retention lables in Onedrive.

Further questions

If you have further questions, contact your records management coordinator or the DES Records Officer (rachel.thompson@des.wa.gov)