An email retention policy should state its purpose, which employees are affected, what types of emails are included, how long to keep emails, and who is responsible for monitoring the policy. It should also be disseminated to employees and may be legally required.
To create an email retention policy, you must first state why you are writing the policy – to comply with legal requirements, retain evidence of business documents, or ensure that important information is not lost. The document should also explain which employees are affected by the policy and what types of emails are included. You also need to decide how long to keep your emails; you may be required to keep certain emails for a certain period of time. Assigning responsibility for monitoring the policy to an employee can help ensure that the policy is enforced correctly.
An email retention policy is a written procedure for how a company wants its employees to handle email communications. Email retention policies typically dictate which emails employees should keep, for how long, and how to archive the emails. In many jurisdictions, there are legal requirements for how long business communications, including emails, must be kept, so it’s important to have a clear email retention policy.
When writing your policy, explain which company employees the email retention policy applies to. Depending on the purpose for implementing the policy in the first place, it may not apply to all users in your organization. For example, warehouse employees who do not handle electronic correspondence may not be required to comply with the policy. Customer service representatives, on the other hand, may be required to keep most of their emails.
Describe which types of email correspondence fall under the governance of the email retention policy. For example, some companies write email retention policies that address emails dealing with administrative, tax, general, and ephemeral matters. Your company policy may specifically address emails that address matters that have legal requirements. Whichever email you choose to be covered by the policy, make sure you are clear and concise on the subject.
The policy should also describe how long emails are retained and how employees should store emails. For record compliance, you may be legally required to retain customer correspondence for a period of five years. In addition to being stored in an email archive on your server, the law may also require you to print the email and keep a hard copy in your customer file. Whatever the procedure for retaining these records, be sure to spell it out in detail when writing your email retention policy.
A good email retention policy should include the department or employee title responsible for monitoring requirements. Your company may have a compliance department or an employee responsible for making sure business processes comply with the law. This could be the natural person in charge of monitoring and enforcing the email retention policy. Clearly state who is responsible for managing the policy so employees know who to contact if they have questions or problems.
After creating the policy, one of the most important steps is to disseminate it. A policy cannot be enforced if the employees who have to implement it do not know it exists. You may want to hold a meeting or training session for affected employees as well. This ensures they receive the information they need to adhere to the email retention policy.
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