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time taken to process a file in response to a subject access request; amount of space used to store HR personnel files; amount of space used to store HR files in Schools and Divisions; amount of paper destroyed during project and therefore extent of future scanning costs reduced.
By assessing the net cost and non monetary benefits of the pilot project it would also be possible to provide evidence to enable the Director to determine whether to continue the project on the remaining personnel files and to therefore seek further funding. 3.
Methodology
The University Records Manager carried out audit visits with staff from each team in the Human Resources Division and with a selection of managerial staff in Schools and Divisions. A survey was also carried out on a selection of personnel files to try and capture a true list of the types of documents on file. The information from the audits and file survey was used to draw up a detailed records retention schedule covering the personnel files and all other records series generated by the Human Resources Division and managerial staff in Schools and Divisions in human resources management processes. The records retention schedule was sent out for consultation and amendments were made. As the schedule was lengthy it was signed off in stages by the Director of Human Resources, Safety, Health & Environment and the Director of Registry, Governance & Students. Once the first section of the schedule pertaining to the Human Resources personnel files was signed off two temporary staff were employed for eight weeks. Temporary staff with previous Human Resources experience were employed to ensure that they would be familiar with the processes evidenced by the documents in the files. The temporary staff weeded the files in accordance with the schedule and placed the records in date order. At the beginning of the project it was anticipated that the temporary staff would also classify the documents within the files in order to aid the future scanning exercise. However after discussions with the Cardiff People project team it was decided that as so little was known about the possible future document management system and scanning implementation it would not be possible to apply extensive classification. It was therefore decided that the temporary staff’s time should be used to concentrate on appraising as many files as possible and to apply minimal classification by labelling any documents from particular categories with stickers. It is hoped that by using optical character recognition on the stickers it will be possible to identify documents to which access should be restricted in line with the security settings for the corresponding electronic information in the current information management system. The temporary staff targeted files of employee’s who had worked for the University for five years or more as their files were likely to be larger and contain documents no longer required. 3.1
Data Capture
3.1.1 Predictive Data In order to provide the HR Director with substantive estimates of the cost and impact of continuing the pilot project until all of the HR personnel files had been completed the impact calculator was used predicatively. The average number of files being cleansed each week was calculated and the number of files to have been completed by the end of years one and two forecast. It was predicted that all of the HR personnel files would have been cleansed by the end of the first month of year two. 3.1.2 Time taken by HR staff to access information from an HR file In order to measure the time taken to find information, staff in the HR Advisory team and the HR Advisory administration team were asked to complete a form each time they searched for information on a personnel file. These results were then averaged. The staff were subsequently asked to log how many times they picked up a personnel file to look for information in a week.