What is the most efficient method to deal with prolonged file retention?

Q: “An employer is seeking to transition from paper to digital employment files. They have a retention policy that is based on the type of each document, rather than a standard policy that permits them to retain everything for a set number of years following termination of employment or a period of time afterward. Their policy requires them to add metadata to each document so that documents that reach their retention date can be purged automatically by the system. “They would prefer not to increase the staff workload by requiring them to tag individual documents. Currently, they have two team members spend several weeks a year reviewing every employee file to purge documents that should be shredded. What is best practice here, and what have you seen other companies do to comply with the file retention guidelines of multiple laws and regulations?” – Maren, Virginia