Records Management for Compliance Officers Training Course

Course overview

Compliance officers are often asked to demonstrate that policies, investigations, approvals, contracts, communications and regulated business records are complete, authentic, retrievable and retained for the right period. The difficulty is rarely a lack of documents; it is uncontrolled duplication across shared drives, email, collaboration platforms and business systems, unclear ownership, inconsistent classification and disposal decisions that cannot be defended. This course equips compliance professionals to turn records management into an auditable control rather than an administrative afterthought.

Participants examine the full records lifecycle, from creation and capture through classification, retention, legal hold, retrieval, secure disposal and evidence of destruction. They learn to build a records inventory, apply ISO 15489 principles, translate legal and regulatory obligations into retention rules, define metadata requirements, assess repositories and test whether records controls operate effectively. The course also addresses electronic records, email, Microsoft 365 content, privacy constraints, investigation records and the evidential requirements of audits and enforcement reviews.

Teaching combines instructor-led analysis with practical workshops using realistic compliance scenarios, including a regulatory request, an internal investigation and an over-retention remediation programme. Participants produce a role-relevant records compliance action pack: a records inventory, retention-schedule extract, legal-hold workflow, control-testing checklist and 90-day implementation plan. This gives both the attendee and sponsoring manager a usable set of artefacts for improving governance immediately after the course.

The programme is designed for experienced compliance, risk, governance and information-management professionals who need to own, assess or assure records controls across a business function or enterprise.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Map a regulated records lifecycle using ISO 15489 concepts from capture through defensible disposal
• Build a records inventory that identifies record series, business owners, systems, sensitivity and regulatory obligations
• Create a retention-schedule extract using legal, operational, tax, privacy and limitation-period requirements
• Define metadata, classification and file-plan rules that improve retrieval and evidence integrity
• Design a legal-hold workflow covering trigger assessment, preservation notices, suspension of disposal and release
• Assess Microsoft 365 and shared-repository records controls against retention, access, audit-trail and disposition requirements
• Test records-management controls using an evidence-based compliance assurance checklist
• Produce a 90-day records compliance remediation plan with priorities, owners, milestones and control measures

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Compliance Officers — who must demonstrate that regulated records are retained, retrievable and disposed of defensibly
• Compliance Managers — who oversee compliance frameworks and need reliable evidence for audits and regulatory reviews
• Records Managers — who translate retention requirements into classification, disposition and governance controls
• Risk and Internal Control Officers — who assess records-related control gaps across business processes and systems
• Internal Auditors — who test whether retention, legal-hold and records-disposal controls operate effectively
• Data Protection Officers — who must reconcile storage-limitation duties with legal, regulatory and litigation retention needs

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience in compliance, risk, records, legal operations, audit or information governance, and should understand their organisation’s basic policy and control environment. Familiarity with terms such as retention period, personal data, audit trail, access control and legal hold is helpful. Participants should be able to review policy documents and work with spreadsheets; basic Microsoft Excel competence is assumed for the records-inventory exercise. Prior administration experience with Microsoft Purview, SharePoint or another electronic document system is useful but not required. This is not a records-archiving course for complete beginners with no exposure to organisational controls.

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor-led briefings to establish records-management principles, followed by guided analysis of policies, retention rules and control evidence. Participants work in small groups on a simulated regulated organisation with records dispersed across email, SharePoint, shared drives and a case-management system. Workshops cover inventory building, retention decisions, legal-hold notices and assurance testing. Facilitated peer review challenges assumptions and strengthens documentation. On day five, each participant converts course outputs into a practical 90-day application plan for their own compliance environment.

Course outline

Day 1: Records governance and compliance obligations

• Records, documents, data and evidence: operational distinctions
• ISO 15489 principles for authentic, reliable and usable records
• The records lifecycle from creation to disposition
• Compliance obligations mapped to recordkeeping requirements
• Records governance roles, accountability and RACI design
• Risk-based prioritisation of high-value and high-risk record series
• Records-management policy architecture and control statements

Workshop: Participants map a selected business process and produce a lifecycle diagram showing its records, owners, repositories and key compliance risks.

Day 2: Classification, inventories and retention schedules

• Functional classification schemes and file-plan structures
• Records inventory fields: owners, systems, sensitivity and volume
• Metadata schemas for retrieval, disposition and audit evidence
• Retention triggers, event-based rules and fixed-period rules
• Legal, tax, employment, privacy and sectoral retention sources
• Retention-schedule design and approval governance
• Handling duplicates, transitory content and non-record material

Workshop: Using a case organisation, participants build a records-inventory segment and draft retention rules for five record series.

Day 3: Electronic records and defensible preservation

• Electronic records risks in email, chat, shared drives and cloud platforms
• Microsoft 365 retention labels and retention policies
• Microsoft Purview records management and disposition review
• SharePoint document libraries, content types and version history
• Access controls, audit logs and chain-of-custody evidence
• Legal-hold triggers, preservation notices and custodian acknowledgements
• Managing investigation, whistleblowing and regulatory inquiry records

Workshop: Participants design a legal-hold workflow and preservation notice for a simulated misconduct investigation involving Microsoft 365 records.

Day 4: Assurance, audits and disposal controls

• Records-control objectives and testable control activities
• Control design versus operating-effectiveness testing
• Sampling approaches for retention and disposal assurance
• Evidence collection from repositories, logs and disposition approvals
• Assessing gaps in retrieval, access, metadata and audit trails
• Defensible disposition and certificates of destruction
• Audit findings, root-cause analysis and remediation tracking

Workshop: Participants conduct a tabletop controls review, complete an assurance checklist and write two evidence-based findings with corrective actions.

Day 5: Implementation and compliance remediation

• Records-management maturity assessment models
• Prioritising remediation by regulatory exposure and business impact
• Target operating model for records governance
• Stakeholder engagement with legal, IT, privacy and business owners
• Change controls for migration, system replacement and decommissioning
• Key risk indicators and management reporting metrics
• Ninety-day implementation planning and executive briefing

Workshop: Participants assemble and present a 90-day records compliance action plan containing priorities, accountable owners, milestones, metrics and escalation points.

Tools & standards covered

ISO 15489-1:2016 Records Management, Microsoft Purview Records Management, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Excel

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions