Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Information Worker

🎯 Role Definition

The Information Worker is a mid-level operational role responsible for maintaining and optimizing the organization's information lifecycle: capturing, validating, storing, indexing, retrieving and protecting digital and physical records. This person ensures data accuracy and accessibility across shared platforms (e.g., Microsoft 365, SharePoint, enterprise content management systems), supports process automation, enforces retention and compliance policies, and partners with business units to translate information needs into efficient workflows and reporting. The ideal candidate blends strong technical proficiency (Office 365, SharePoint, basic SQL, DMS/OCR) with excellent organizational and stakeholder communication skills.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Administrative Assistant or Office Coordinator transitioning into information and data-centric responsibilities
Data Entry Clerk or Records Clerk with experience managing structured and unstructured content
Junior Knowledge Management or Document Control Specialist

Advancement To:

Information or Records Manager responsible for policy and governance
Business Systems Analyst focusing on content systems and integrations
Knowledge Manager or Content Strategist leading taxonomy and search optimization
Data Analyst or Reporting Specialist with a focus on information-driven insights

Lateral Moves:

Project Coordinator for content migration and digital transformation projects
Business Operations Specialist supporting process improvement and automation
User Support/Training Specialist for collaboration platforms and DMS

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Maintain accurate, up-to-date digital and physical records across enterprise content management systems by applying consistent naming conventions, metadata tagging, and document version control to improve findability and reduce retrieval times.
Perform high-volume, high-accuracy data entry and validation for transactional systems, CRM updates, invoices, and client records while meeting daily SLA targets and minimizing rework.
Administer SharePoint sites, Microsoft Teams channels, and OneDrive spaces including site provisioning, permission management, library configuration, and lifecycle maintenance to ensure secure and organized collaboration workspaces.
Implement and manage metadata taxonomies, retention schedules, and classification schemes to ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, supporting audits and e-discovery requests as needed.
Design, build and maintain document routing workflows and approvals using Power Automate (Flow), Nintex, or DMS-native workflow tools to reduce manual handoffs and accelerate processing times.
Conduct routine data quality checks, deduplication, and reconciliation across systems (CRM, ERP, content repositories) to ensure authoritative sources remain accurate and trusted.
Scan, OCR-process, index and ingest paper records into the digital repository, ensuring searchable content and accurate metadata capture for historical and compliance records.
Lead or support content migration projects from legacy systems into modern platforms; create migration plans, map metadata, validate migrated content, and coordinate user acceptance testing.
Produce and maintain operational documentation, SOPs, naming standards, and user guides for content management procedures to promote consistency and reduce onboarding time for new users.
Provide frontline user support and training for information systems (SharePoint, DMS, Office 365, CRM), resolving access or content issues, and escalating complex incidents to IT or system owners.
Configure and maintain access controls, role-based permissions and audit logs to protect sensitive information and enforce the principle of least privilege across content platforms.
Create regular reports and dashboards (Power BI, Excel pivot reports) on content usage, storage metrics, data quality KPIs, and retention liabilities to inform stakeholders and support capacity planning.
Coordinate with legal, compliance and records teams to respond to subpoenas, legal holds, regulatory inquiries and internal audit requests by preparing and delivering accurate, timely information sets.
Optimize document templates, forms and standard content assets (contracts, policies, procedures) to reduce variability and ensure corporate branding and content consistency.
Support continuous improvement initiatives by analyzing manual processes, identifying automation opportunities, and piloting low-code solutions that decrease processing time and manual error rates.
Monitor storage use, archiving schedules, and content lifecycle health to proactively manage costs and performance of content platforms, initiating retention or purge actions in accordance with policy.
Index and tag multimedia content, mail records, and non-standard file types ensuring accessibility and searchability across the organization’s knowledge base.
Facilitate cross-functional workshops and stakeholder interviews to gather content requirements, prioritize content projects and design user-centered information architectures.
Manage vendor relationships for scanning, records storage, DMS licensing, and content migration services; create statements of work, coordinate deliveries and validate vendor quality.
Support change management for content and collaboration platform rollouts, creating communication plans, training materials and adoption metrics to increase end-user engagement.
Execute periodic records retention reviews and disposition cycles, preparing disposition lists, obtaining approvals and coordinating secure destruction or archiving of records.
Maintain confidentiality and follow data protection best practices when handling PII, financial records or proprietary content, including secure handling, transmission and disposal.

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 pilot projects to evaluate new DMS/CMS technologies and recommend adoption strategies based on total cost of ownership and user impact.
Act as a content steward for assigned domains, triaging issues and championing best practices among business users.
Help coordinate cross-department retention training and refresher sessions to ensure ongoing regulatory compliance.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Advanced Microsoft Excel (VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, pivot tables, data cleaning, macros) for reporting and data manipulation.
SharePoint Online administration and site management (libraries, lists, permissions, content types, metadata).
Experience with enterprise content management systems (e.g., OpenText, Documentum, Alfresco, Box, M-Files).
Familiarity with Microsoft 365 ecosystem: Teams, OneDrive, Outlook, and configuration for collaboration and governance.
Power Platform fundamentals: Power Automate (workflow automation) and Power BI (reporting & dashboards).
Basic SQL or query experience for extracting and reconciling records across systems.
OCR and document scanning workflows, including image processing and text recognition tools.
Knowledge of records management, retention schedules, and compliance frameworks (GDPR, HIPAA, SOX as applicable).
CRM or ERP experience (Salesforce, Dynamics 365, SAP) related to maintaining accurate master data and customer records.
Experience with metadata schema design, taxonomy governance and search optimization best practices.
Familiarity with document security controls, access auditing and encryption concepts.
Experience with content migration tools and techniques, including content mapping and verification scripts.

Soft Skills

Strong attention to detail and commitment to data accuracy and completeness.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills for documentation, training and stakeholder collaboration.
Problem-solving mindset with the ability to propose practical process improvements.
Time management and prioritization skills to manage competing requests and SLA-driven tasks.
Customer service orientation when supporting internal stakeholders and responding to incidents.
Confidentiality and ethical handling of sensitive information.
Ability to work both independently and collaboratively within cross-functional teams.
Adaptability and comfort with change during platform rollouts and process re-engineering.
Analytical thinking to interpret usage metrics and derive actionable recommendations.
Project coordination skills to manage content initiatives, migrations and vendor deliverables.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:
High school diploma or equivalent; certification in records management, Office 365, or related tools is beneficial.

Preferred Education:
Bachelor’s degree in any of the following is preferred: Information Systems, Library & Information Science, Business Administration, Computer Science, Data Analytics, or a related field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Information Management / Library Science
Business Administration / Operations Management
Information Systems / Computer Science
Data Analytics / Business Intelligence
Records & Archives Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:
2–5 years working in records management, document control, information administration, or related operational roles.

Preferred:
3–7 years of progressive experience administering content management platforms (SharePoint, DMS), supporting enterprise teams, and owning information lifecycle processes; prior exposure to compliance, digital transformation or content migration projects is highly desirable.