Understanding the Hybrid Environment

An Introduction for Records Managers

Newsflash Records Managers:

The Hybrid Records Environment is here.

New to the term? Most records management

environments are a mix of paper and electronic

documents - what we call the “hybrid environment.”

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

*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.” *

And the U.S. EPA reports that the

average United States office worker uses

10,000 sheets of copy paper each year!

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

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.

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.

© AIIM 2011, www.aiim.org

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.”

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