Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Information Administrator

🎯 Role Definition

The Information Administrator is responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining information and records management practices across the organization. This role blends data governance, records lifecycle management, metadata and taxonomy design, information security controls, and operational support for enterprise content systems (ECM/SharePoint/data catalogs). The Information Administrator ensures that information assets are findable, accurate, secure, and compliant with internal policies and external regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, FOIA), enabling business users and stakeholders to leverage trusted data for decision-making.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Records Clerk / Records Coordinator with practical exposure to document control and retention schedules.
Data Analyst or Junior Information Analyst who has worked with metadata, catalogs and data quality routines.
Library Technician or Document Control Specialist with experience in classification, cataloging and retrieval.

Advancement To:

Information Manager / Records Manager responsible for strategy and cross-functional programs.
Data Governance Lead or Data Steward Lead managing policy and governance at scale.
Knowledge Manager or Enterprise Content Manager overseeing taxonomy, search, and knowledge discovery.
Director of Information Governance or Chief Data Officer in larger organizations.

Lateral Moves:

Compliance Analyst focused on regulatory record-keeping and audits.
Systems Administrator for ECM/SharePoint or Content Services Platform.
Business Analyst or Process Improvement Specialist working on information flow and documentation.

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Develop and maintain enterprise records and information management policies, retention schedules, and disposition procedures to ensure legal compliance, risk mitigation, and efficient information lifecycle management.
Design, implement, and administer taxonomy, metadata schemas, and classification models to improve searchability, discoverability, and automated tagging across SharePoint, ECM, and cloud content services.
Lead information governance initiatives including data ownership assignments, stewardship models, and cross-functional governance councils to align business needs with compliance requirements and data quality goals.
Manage records retention and disposition programs, including legal hold processing, preservation workflows, and audit trails to satisfy litigation, regulatory requests, and internal investigations.
Configure and administer content management systems (e.g., Microsoft SharePoint/OneDrive, OpenText, Alfresco) and document repositories to support versioning, access controls, and lifecycle automation.
Perform regular information audits, gap analyses, and compliance assessments to identify risks, remediate non-conformances, and drive continuous improvement of records practices.
Implement and manage data classification and labeling frameworks (sensitivity, confidentiality) to enforce security controls, encryption, and access restrictions across systems and endpoints.
Coordinate with legal, privacy, security, and compliance teams to operationalize GDPR/HIPAA/industry-specific requirements, handle subject access requests, and document regulatory responses.
Develop and deliver training programs, user guidance, and adoption plans for employees on records handling, metadata entry, retention policies, and secure sharing practices.
Create, maintain, and publish information architecture documentation, including folder structures, naming conventions, and use-case driven guidelines for content creators and curators.
Oversee migration projects for legacy records to modern platforms, including scoping, metadata mapping, extraction, validation, and post-migration reconciliation to preserve integrity and accessibility.
Monitor and enforce access controls, role-based permissions, and segregation of duties in content systems; escalate and remediate privilege violations and orphaned accounts.
Establish and track KPIs and metrics for records compliance, data quality, search performance, and content inventory to report status to stakeholders and inform roadmap priorities.
Execute data quality checks, deduplication routines, and record normalization processes to maintain a single source of truth and improve analytics readiness.
Support eDiscovery and FOIA/subject access request processes by identifying, collecting, and delivering relevant information in controlled, documented manners.
Integrate information management capabilities with ERPs, CRM systems, and data catalogs through APIs or ETL processes, ensuring metadata consistency and lineage tracking.
Manage vendor relationships for third-party records storage, scanning, shredding, and cloud content services, including SLA negotiation and compliance verification.
Implement data loss prevention (DLP) patterns for sensitive content, including monitoring, alerts, automated quarantines, and user remediation workflows.
Maintain backup and retention configurations for critical records and ensure recoverability and business continuity of core information assets.
Draft and maintain standard operating procedures (SOPs), process maps, and runbooks for records handling, audits, and exception management to support operational continuity.
Provide day-to-day operational support for information requests, escalation handling, permissions changes, and ad-hoc reporting to business stakeholders and executives.
Coordinate cross-functional projects to standardize content creation processes, templates, and approval workflows, driving consistency and reducing compliance risk.
Conduct regular stakeholder consultations to capture evolving information requirements and translate them into system changes, taxonomy updates, or policy revisions.
Maintain an up-to-date inventory of information assets, classification labels, and data lineage to support compliance reporting and data stewardship activities.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Assist in forensic analysis and incident response related to unauthorized access or content exfiltration.
Support procurement and onboarding of information management tools, running pilot programs and ROI assessments.
Mentor junior information staff and manage short-term contractors for records projects.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) administration experience (e.g., Microsoft SharePoint, OpenText, Alfresco, Documentum).
Records and retention policy development with hands-on retention schedule implementation.
Metadata design, taxonomy development, and controlled vocabularies for search optimization.
Knowledge of data governance frameworks, data stewardship practices, and stewardship tooling (data catalogs, MDM).
Familiarity with privacy and compliance frameworks (GDPR, HIPAA, SOX, FOIA) and legal hold workflows.
Experience with eDiscovery tools and processes, preservation, collection, and chain-of-custody procedures.
Basic scripting and automation skills (PowerShell, Python, or similar) to automate repetitive content management tasks.
Proficiency with SQL and data interrogation for inventorying records and validating migrations.
Data quality management: deduplication, normalization, validation routines and reporting.
Information security fundamentals: DLP, encryption, access controls, IAM integration and authentication protocols (SAML/SSO).
Experience integrating content systems with business applications (APIs, ETL, connectors).
Familiarity with cloud platforms and storage (Microsoft 365, Azure, AWS) and cloud governance best practices.
Reporting and visualization skills (Excel advanced, Power BI, or Tableau) to deliver governance dashboards.
Vendor and contract management skills for third-party records and archiving services.

Soft Skills

Strong written and verbal communication skills for policy writing, training and stakeholder engagement.
Excellent attention to detail and an analytical mindset to detect compliance gaps and quality issues.
Proven project management and prioritization skills to manage concurrent initiatives and migrations.
Collaborative team player who can operate across IT, legal, compliance, and business units.
Change management and user adoption experience to drive consistent application of records practices.
Critical thinking and problem-solving skills in high-pressure or audit situations.
Confidentiality, integrity, and ethical handling of sensitive information.
Instructional ability to create clear user guides, training modules, and quick reference materials.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Information Science, Library & Information Science, Records Management, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree in Information Management, Library Science (MLS/MLIS), or Business Administration with a concentration in information systems.
Professional certifications such as ICRM Certified Records Manager (CRM), ARMA, Certified Information Professional (CIP), or Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP).

Relevant Fields of Study:

Information Management / Library & Information Science
Records & Archives Management
Computer Science / Information Systems
Business Administration / Management
Legal Studies or Compliance-related disciplines

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3 - 7 years in records management, information governance, or enterprise content administration roles.

Preferred: 5+ years managing enterprise information lifecycle programs, leading cross-functional governance initiatives, or administering ECM/cloud content platforms in regulated environments.