This post is part of The Datamation Guide to Managing School District Records.

As your school district’s human resources director, you have an immense amount of paperwork that passes through your office, much of it vital to the district’s critical functions and all of it sensitive in nature.

Whether its employee files that include results of criminal background checks or drug tests, information about the districts pension fund or 401(k), or disciplinary matters these important documents must be handled with care. Furthermore, you never know when you will need to access the information you’ve received.

With full access to the best programs on the market, Datamation’s education specialists will work with your HR office specifically to design a software system that meets these diverse and important needs.

Here’s what you can expect from all of our solutions:

Going paperless saves time and space

If your district is still relying primarily or entirely on paper record keeping, Datamation can revolutionize your HR workflow and create a paperless archive of everything you have on file. From there, we can work with you to design a software system that automates much of this workflow, saving your employees time.

That means the file room teeming with records can be cleaned out, and there will be no more tedious half-hour trips to hunt down a piece of paper from 10 years ago. Instead, you’ll have fast and reliable access to all your HR records.

Privacy and security

Datamation understands one of the most critical responsibilities of any human resources department is securing the private information of your district’s employees. From health records to a personnel file, these files need to be safe and secure.

Datamation works with districts who prefer cloud storage and those who maintain their own on-site database to help ensure these files are protected. We will design a system that ensures only the appropriate employees in your district have access to the files you keep.

Compliance with state and federal regulations

School districts are required to keep more paperwork on file than your average private sector business. That includes things like required teacher evaluations, paperwork related to public sector unions, and pension and retirement fund contributions to name but a few.

Failure to maintain these records can turn up in periodic state audits and cause public concerns if regulators find your office is not in compliance.

Datamation will work with you to create a human resources records processing system that meets all state and federal regulations for record retention. Our education specialists understand those rules and the best way to navigate them. That way, when auditors come knocking, you’ll be able to wow them with the ease and organization of a well-kept HR database.

Document retention and disaster recovery

There are two parts to maintaining a top-flight HR database: making sure the information you need is safe and purging the documents you no longer have to keep on hand. An electronic database of HR records can help with both.

There are any number of ways important information can be left inaccessible. Poor filing habits are an obvious culprit, but even the most studious clerks can’t prevent documents from being damaged in the event of a flood, fire or another natural disaster. Your district doesn’t have to be in the path of a major hurricane for important information to be put at risk.

And then there’s the other problem: keeping too much information you don’t need. Failure to purge old records takes up space and improper disposal of those documents can expose your district and its employees to identity theft and other forms of fraud.

An automated HR database solves all these problems. Cloud storage or off-site database backups are the most secure way to prevent records from being lost, damaged, or destroyed. And that very same database will tell you when records are able to safely be deleted.

Ready to learn more? Contact Datamation today!