Does your business need an email retention policy? If you’re in finance, healthcare, government, or any other heavily regulated industry, you do. But if not, you still might want to consider implementing one if you have a need to balance retaining important communications with your capacity to store them. 

In this blog, I’ll explore why email archiving and retention are important, why more organizations should consider implementing best practices, and what your policy should contain. 

When and Why Is Email Backup Needed?

Not every business needs email archiving, but in my experience, more organizations should be thinking about these tools than currently do. Here are a few hypothetical scenarios to consider. 

“The Delivery Dispute” 

A logistics company receives a complaint from a new customer saying that their supplies are not being delivered as agreed. They claim to have negotiated a custom solution via email. Unfortunately, that sales rep is no longer employed by the logistics company. Fortunately, because the logistics company used an email archiving tool, they could quickly reproduce the emails and prove that they were in the right. 

“The Coverup” 

The owner of a larger retail company starts to suspect that an employee in procurement is accepting bribes from a vendor. The employee denies it, of course. But an investigation is launched, and the company’s IT team is tasked with going through the employee’s inbox. They find that several key emails appear to have been deleted. Without an automated archival tool, it’s far more difficult to prove the employee’s guilt. 

What Does Email Archiving Do? 

Email archiving tools like Office 365 Archiving, Google Vault, and Barracuda will automatically capture and store email communications for your organization, creating a searchable email library that uses less storage space. 

Why Do You Also Need an Email Retention Policy? 

Not every business has the same risks. Your policy will inform how your email archiving tool is used, not just regarding how and when data is stored, but also in how it may be retrieved. 

Here’s what you should think through: 

• Is your business required to follow certain email retention guidelines? 
• When should emails be automatically archived? 
• How long should various email types be stored? 
• Who should be able to access archived emails? 
• How would you like to be able to retrieve archived email content?
• When should emails be purged permanently? 

The Benefits of Archiving Your Emails 

If your business is required to archive emails by a regulating body, you could face financial and legal consequences for failing to do so. But as I mentioned earlier, organizations that aren’t heavily regulated still might want to consider investing in an automatic archival tool for a few key reasons. 

Better Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery

Unfortunately, cybercriminals have discovered that since email systems are vitally important for many businesses, attacking email servers along with other critical business systems can make their ransomware attacks more devastating, and therefore, more profitable. 

Using an email archival tool can help you recover from cyberattacks and other causes of data loss. 

Increase Server Efficiency 

The average person gets 121 business-related emails a day. And that’s not counting the number of emails that they send. All of those emails take up space, and having an automated system that can archive and compress that data can help you free up space and improve the performance of your servers. 

Preserve Knowledge 

When employees leave your organization, they often leave a knowledge gap behind. Email archival tools can help smooth transitions, and provide much-needed context around important decisions, client relationships, and processes. 

Minimize Insider Threats 

The hypothetical retail scenario I mentioned earlier is a good example of how a good email archival tool can make it harder for unscrupulous or disgruntled employees to hide. 

Not only can you restore deleted emails, but depending on the archival tool you use, it might also help you detect the use of certain keywords or anomalies, like an employee sending emails with sensitive attachments to an external address. 

Best Practices for Implementing Effective Email Retention Policies

Here are my recommendations. But keep in mind that your email retention policy is just one component of proper email security. 

1. Review Your Requirements 

Identify any requirements that pertain to your industry or your location. You may need to include provisions for removing personal data upon request or having different retention periods for different types of data. 

2. Think Through Your Needs 

If your email retention policy isn’t regulated, you still may wish to keep some types of data — like important contracts or communication around litigation or intellectual property — longer than others. Think through the business value of different types of emails and choose their retention period accordingly. 

In most circumstances, I recommend keeping routine emails for just 1 year, and financial records for 7. 

3. Be Specific in Your Policy 

Proper data governance should include how all forms of digital communication are managed, but your email retention policy should be more specific — not just about retention periods and types of data but also clear procedures for archiving, retrieving, and deleting emails.

4. Secure What You Retain 

If your emails are important enough to save, they’re important enough to encrypt. I’d also recommend restricting who can view and restore archived email data. 

5. Use a Good Email Archiving Tool

Even with a clear policy, relying on human beings to regularly archive and delete emails isn’t a great way to ensure compliance. A good tool can make complying with your new policy easy. Also, make sure your new tool is able to operate seamlessly regardless of device or platform and can integrate with any other record-keeping systems that you use. 

If you already use Microsoft 365, adding archiving may require a plan upgrade. If you also need to update other components of your email security, Barracuda email protection may be a better option. We’ve formed a strategic partnership with both Microsoft and Barracuda to make sure we can offer our clients better deals than they can get on the open market. 

6. Audit and Review Your Policies

Your needs might evolve over time, and an email retention policy is an easy thing to forget about. Conduct regular audits to make sure your policy is being followed and that your archiving and deletion timelines are still aligned with your goals. 

7. Train Employees on Your Policy and Tool

Educate your staff on why email retention is important and how to use your new tool. Make sure they understand the consequences of non-compliance — for your organization and individual staff members. 

8. Add Email Restoration to Your DRP

A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is only as good as its accuracy and thoroughness. Once your tool is up and running, don’t forget to add instructions for restoring your email system to your plan. 

How To Make Email Archiving Solutions for Small Businesses Easier 

Not every organization needs email archiving. However, every organization should have a disaster recovery plan, email protection, and a good backup and restoration solution. If that’s not what you have — and this is starting to feel overwhelming — we do offer comprehensive application and data security solutions that can make protecting your data much easier. 

Click the link to browse our solutions page!