Email Management

Considerations for Employee Separations

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With election season upon us, many offices will see elected officials and other employees separate or retire in the next few months. During this transition, offices must coordinate the transfer of records and working documents under ORC 149.351. This includes paper and electronic records, including email. An orderly transfer will prevent operational disruptions and help offices comply with Ohio’s Public Records Law.

Each office should designate locations for electronic records, such as a shared network, document management system, or government cloud. Designating these areas provides ease of access to records of the office as well as records retention compliance. However, employees may also keep electronic office records in unstructured personal systems. Departing employees should review the following areas to ensure records are transitioned appropriately:

  1. Email Accounts – Review government-owned email accounts. Delete transitory messages, non-records, and messages that have met their retention requirements. Move emails that require long-term retention to a record-keeping system so others can access them. For more information and email best practices, see the OhioERC Email Management online training module.
  2. Personal Drives – Offices may assign employees personal drives, such as OneDrive in Microsoft 365, to store work related files. Often, only the assigned employee can access the drive. Offices should require employees to move office records to a shared record-keeping system. They should also consider limiting storage capacity to discourage record hoarding and state that personal drives serve convenience purposes only.
  3. Local Drives/Desktops – Saving records to a computer’s local drive or desktop prevents others in the office from accessing them. It also creates security and disaster-recovery risks if the device is lost or fails. Employees should move office records from local drives to the office’s record-keeping system.
  4. Portable Media – Departing employees should return office-issued CDs, flash drives, portable hard drives, and other media. These devices may contain thousands of government records. Offices should inventory issued storage media to track who has it and how they use it.
  5. Personal Computers/Accounts – Before leaving, employees who use personal computers or accounts, such as personal email, should transfer all government records from them. Records remain subject to public records requests and litigation requirements whether employees store them on government or personal devices. This may also interfere with the office’s compliance to ORC 149.351.

Additionally, work with your IT team to identify automated policies that affect record retention. For example, determine whether the system deletes an employee’s OneDrive account a set number of days after separation. Automatic deletion could destroy records that the office must retain. This risk becomes especially serious when litigation holds apply concerning anticipated or active litigation. Deleting an account under a hold could expose the office to spoliation claims. To reduce this risk, consult with your legal department to determine if any holds apply.

As always, reach out to [email protected] if you have questions.

Yes, Email Can Be an Official Record

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As the State of Ohio begins its 136th General Assembly of the Ohio Legislature, the Ohio Electronic Records Committee would like to remind newly elected State Legislators of our Email Management Online Training Series. Training courses include Email As A Record; Email Clean-Up Strategies; Email Filing and Organization; and Microsoft 365 Outlook Email Management.

In these online courses, one will learn several things including, that “email itself is not a record series but should be retained based on the content of the message.” If the email serves as a record that “documents the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the office,” [ORC 149.011(G)] then it needs to be retained. Examples of records in email format can include: correspondence, personnel documentation, or project working papers. Often emails have attached documents with them. This training series helps one determine what is necessary to keep (email, email and attachment, or just the attachment) for different circumstances.

The amount of email one receives can be quite overwhelming. The Email Clean-Up and Email Filing and Organization training courses are both helpful and informative and can guide one through this difficult process in an efficient manner. Lastly, many governmental bodies, organizations, and businesses are now switching to Microsoft 365 Outlook Email. Steps for applying retention rules for Microsoft 365 Outlook emails are demonstrated using desktop and web applications in the training program, Microsoft 365 Outlook Email Management.

Please take some time to review these very informative courses. Good luck as you begin your endeavor in email management.

OhioERC Available Trainings

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Stay up to date on best practices in electronic records! The OhioERC has several trainings available for free.

  • Electronic Records Day Presentation: “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”: This presentation compares document management systems and digital preservation systems. We discuss major workflows used to future-proof permanent and long-term electronic records and their essential metadata. In addition, a Records and Archives Management case study from Greene County is shared to bring to light essential differences between document management and preservation systems.
  • Email Management Training Series: This email management training series provides information and best practices on managing email. The training series is divided into four sections: Email As A Record, Email Clean-up Strategies, Email Filing and Organization, and Microsoft 365 Outlook Email Management.
  • Social Media: The Records Management Challenge: This course provides an overview of social platforms and how government entities use those platforms; the records management aspect of social media; unique challenges associated with capturing and disposing of social media content; how to manage and respond to citizen interactions with government social media and the balancing act of being both of public employee and private citizen on social media. 

View our trainings/events page for these trainings and more!