A document manager leads the document management team, hires and trains team members, oversees the development of company-wide document management systems, selects tools for digital document management, and ensures company-wide compliance with approved document management processes.
Additionally, they oversee data governance and ensure regulatory compliance, safeguarding critical business information.
Why Do Companies Need a Document Management Department?
Companies are structured so that work is divided between departments that carry out specialized functions like HR, finance, IT, and administration. Organizational goals are divided into departmental goals, which are then divided into individual goals for members of the respective departments.
With hundreds or thousands of employees, numerous departments, and multiple physical locations nationwide or globally, any company could not function without defined processes and procedures.
Companies must also comply with the laws and regulations of the territories and countries. Regulatory and legal documents have special requirements regarding storage and access.
Furthermore, employees produce documents during their daily work. A document management department’s responsibility is to ensure that all documents are accurate and reliable. This is only possible if documents are created, stored, accessed, and distributed according to defined standards and procedures.
Technology can streamline these processes, increase efficiency, and improve security measures in modern Document Management Systems (DMS).
Document Manager Responsibilities to Ensure Compliance
The following is a list of responsibilities for a typical document manager job description:
- Managing a team of document management professionals
- Hiring and training team members
- Creating operating procedures for the department
- Reviewing and updating departmental operating procedures
- Developing document management plans, procedures, and processes
- Reviewing and updating document management plans, procedures, and processes
- Ensuring the security, accessibility, and proper distribution of organizational documents
- Ensuring a documented and approved review-and-approval process
- Ensuring the security, accessibility, and distribution of organizational documents
- Ensuring audit trails for office documents
- Ensuring the confidentiality of sensitive information and documents
- Selecting digital content management and document management tools
- Working with IT to ensure the smooth operation of digital tools
- Ensuring the integration of digital tools into daily processes
- Assigning user privileges for digital tools to team members
- Ensuring procedures for access approval and access control
- Automation of business workflows
- Implementing document disaster recovery through document archiving
- Ensuring compliance with the quality management systems (QMS)
- Conducting meetings and presentations related to document management
- Meeting with management to update and inform them of the documentation schedule, standards compliance, and documentation progression
- Providing tools to manage documents
- Using a file manager app to organize and view various document formats
Document Manager Skills for Technical Documentation
The skills you need as a document manager vary from company to company. The following is a list of common skills:
- Management skills
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Presentation skills
- Project management skills
- Experience with document management procedures, systems, and standards
- Familiarity with productivity tools such as Microsoft Office
- Familiarity with Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS)
- Familiarity with file management systems
- Familiarity with your employer’s needs and the market
- For highly technical fields such as IT and engineering, familiarity with the terminology
- Familiarity with the document management standards
- Familiarity with industrial, national, and global standards for quality and control
- Familiarity with national and industrial regulations and legal requirements
Document Manager Education Requirements
The qualifications needed for document manager roles vary.
Smaller companies with a few employees may require a high school diploma and familiarity with computer systems.
Companies working globally may require an associate’s or Bachelor’s degree.
Companies in highly specialized fields may require you to have degrees in a subject relevant to the industry in which they operate.
A credible certification will equip you with everything you need about document management.
In addition to education, document managers need relevant experience managing teams and systems. Prior experience as a technical writer, senior technical writer, or document control specialist is also valuable as it provides document managers with insight into the required skills and capabilities of team members they manage.
As a document manager, you must be competent in using electronic systems for document management. Being familiar with multiple tools and proficient in the tools relevant to your industry is also advantageous.
Document Manager Salary
The salary for document managers depends on several factors, such as:
- Industry
- Location
- Experience
- Qualifications
The average hourly rate for a document manager is approximately $40—the annual salary ranges from $49,000 to $137,000, with an average of $75,200.
Document Manager Jobs
As more companies implement electronic document management systems, the demand for professionals who can implement and manage those systems increases.
A key feature of these systems is a robust PDF reader, which allows users to open, read, search, scroll, zoom, print, and share PDF files.
Apart from the technical knowledge related to document management, a document manager needs leadership and management skills. Based on your prior experience in document management and with some relevant certifications, you can transition to other fields like project management, cost control, or corporate training.
Conclusion
The role of document managers in companies is critical. As leaders of the document management department, they establish and ensure compliance with company-wide document management systems.
Today, most companies use electronic files—such as PDF files—and electronic systems for document creation, management, and storage. The role of electronic systems in document management will only increase in the future, as will the importance of digital skills for document managers.
FAQs
Here are some frequently asked questions about document managers.
How does a document manager organize file lists?
A document manager organizes a file list by allowing users to manage and edit various files such as PDF, Word, Excel, and others. It provides features like searching and sorting the file list and managing and organizing documents in a folder structure view, which helps users efficiently locate and handle their documents.
How can you become a document manager?
There is more than one path that you can take toward becoming a document manager.
Gain experience as a technical writer or document controller, move on to a senior role such as a senior technical writer or document administrator and acquire additional knowledge through certifications and training. When you have accumulated sufficient knowledge and experience, you can take on the role of a document manager.
Acquire degrees in highly specialized fields such as computer science and engineering. Get certified and trained to gain insight into the industry you want to work in and document management.
Does a document manager need a Bachelor’s degree?
A Bachelor’s degree is preferred but not required for a document manager role.
Let’s take the hazardous chemicals industry as an example. Hazardous chemicals risk health, safety, property, or the environment during transportation. Certain chemicals pose risks even when not being transported.
Occupational health and safety are major concerns for this industry. To ensure personnel safety, the necessary safety-sensitive information must be distributed appropriately. Furthermore, outdated or incorrect information about safety-sensitive subjects needs to be removed and replaced.
Organizations dealing in hazardous chemicals require the maintenance of safety-related documentation—such as injury records, safety certifications, and chemical information—as part of the safety practices necessary to comply with relevant occupational safety standards.
People working in document management in such a specialized industry need to
- Understand the industry-specific terminology
- Understand the requirements of relevant safety standards
- Understand the reasons behind the threats to human life posed by dangerous chemicals so that they can minimize the risks.
Many skills related to document management can be learned on the job. However, for industries such as hazardous chemicals, prior knowledge and a theoretical background go a long way toward ensuring that the personnel working on documents and systems are well-equipped. This is where a degree in a relevant discipline proves highly useful.
Does a document manager need experience with Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS)?
Experience with Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS) is essential for document managers. All companies use computerized systems for online documentation. As many companies work to become paperless, expertise in electronic document management systems will become even more important.
What is the difference between Document Management and Document Control with Version Control?
Document management concerns the storage, location, updating, and sharing of files. Electronic document management systems convert paper documentation to electronic format with tools and apps such as a PDF converter, making document storage, location, updating, tracking, and sharing easier and more efficient.
Document control refers to reviewing, approving, and ensuring security across folders. It uses standardized procedures and workflows to ensure that documents are properly reviewed and approved before distribution, proper security protocols are followed to prevent unauthorized access and distribution, and version control is implemented to ensure that the latest document version is used and older versions are available if needed.
Document control creates auditable records of document creation, modification, and exchange and removes inaccurate or obsolete data.
Most software-based document management systems provide document management and document control features.
If you are new to document control management and are looking to learn more, we recommend taking our Technical Writing Certification Course, where you will learn the fundamentals of managing technical documents.
