With the COVID-19 pandemic pushing life further online, the way we collaborate and communicate has been altered forever. In addition, the volume and variety of information and content grows exponentially by the day, making effective Data Governance a tough task for many companies.

As work-from-anywhere policies become the norm, it has never been more important for companies to deploy an information management solution to ensure governance is achievable, efficient, and effective. These solutions have quickly become the foundation of the hybrid workforce, letting people better communicate and collaborate no matter where they are, as well as govern their content, act on the insights contained in their data, and use them to propel their business forward. 

Even in today’s digital world, knowledge workers are still often bogged down with manual governance tasks or sluggish reviews and approval processes. Every minute that staff spend trying to make sense of the business workflow – or trying to get third-party technology add-ons to work as expected – is a minute they are not acting on the insights contained in the data. 

With these concerns in mind, companies are turning to a “set it and forget it” strategy to automate and advance their Data Governance within their intelligent information management solution. Here are three of the main benefits of a “set it and forget it” governance strategy:

• Organizations can maintain consistent records management policies: Effective Data Governance makes it easier for organizations to manage their content from creation to archival or deletion. By using a “set it and forget it” strategy, documents can be added to a governance workflow by a ruleset where records can be disposed of or retained according to policy or knowledge workers can review batches of documents designated for a certain disposition. This provides organizations with a simple solution for managing retention policies and securing sensitive data, while also maintaining Data Quality and reducing human error.

• Content can be governed in all repositories, including external ones: Metadata-driven architectures within information management solutions allow companies to govern content in external repositories and view it in context alongside content stored inside the organization, providing a full 360-degree view of their information. Both internal and external files that match specific criteria can also be automatically added to the company’s workflow through metadata. This ensures that the information in all repositories across the organization is standardized with common governance standards, without the need for knowledge workers to actively intervene. With this strategy, knowledge workers no longer need to transfer important information like records or compliance documents to a separate repository. This helps organizations avoid costly migration projects and drive quicker ROI from their intelligent information management solution.

• Knowledge workers can maintain productivity and concentrate on the tasks that matter most to drive business forward: Companies can use AI to locate and establish the value and context of content and metadata to tag each file so a document can be easily found based on what it contains. As a result, knowledge workers can simply enter a few words to indicate the content they are trying to find and get connected to the information that is meaningful to them in seconds – no matter where it lives in the organization. By making information easier to find and automating and simplifying governance tasks with a “set it and forget it” strategy, knowledge workers become more efficient, as they no longer need to rely on error-prone manual entry and can focus on highly skilled work that generates revenue and keeps assignments moving forward.

As the shift to hybrid work continues, data remains the most valuable asset in an organization. Companies need to move away from outdated governance systems that rely on knowledge workers to execute elaborate federation strategies by hand to be effective and move into a fully automated approach to information governance. By establishing a “set it and forget it” approach, companies can break down data silos, enabling information to move freely across the organization. Rather than forcing employees to use a plethora of different tools just to complete daily tasks, organizations can leave the time-consuming and mundane governance tasks to their information management solution, allowing knowledge workers to focus on the more important tasks that fuel growth and momentum.