Records Liaison
A person within a business unit, office, or program who serves as the local point of contact for records management — coordinating with the records officer and helping colleagues create, file, and dispose of records correctly.
A records liaison (sometimes called a records coordinator or records custodian for an office) is an employee embedded in a specific business unit who acts as the bridge between that unit and the organization’s central records program. Rather than running the program, the liaison applies it locally: distributing the file plan, answering day-to-day questions, helping staff apply the retention schedule, flagging records for cutoff and disposition, and relaying litigation holds or transfer instructions from the records officer.
This role matters because recordkeeping breaks down at the edges, where records are actually created. A central records officer cannot know every system, shared drive, or workflow in each department; the liaison supplies that local knowledge and accountability. For example, when a retention schedule changes, the records officer issues the update, but the HR liaison is the one who knows which folders and inboxes the new rule touches. The distinction is one of scope: the records officer owns policy and authority across the organization, while the liaison ensures that policy is followed within one unit.