How do you set a retention policy when the company wants to keep everything?

Start with an approved records retention policy, not an IT guess at a cutoff date. Bring in legal, HR, finance and whoever owns the business records. Have them define categories, retention periods and who can authorize disposal, then get leadership to sign off.

Requirements vary by jurisdiction, industry and record type. Insurance or other obligations may matter too, so a single seven or ten year rule is not something I'd apply across the board. Check what policies applied when older records were created as well.

Separate backups from archives. A backup is there to restore data after a failure. An archive is meant to preserve records you may need to find later. Keeping every backup version forever doesn't necessarily give HR an easy way to locate that old policy.

Ask what records need long term access and how people will find them. Then set backup retention around recovery needs, while making sure the overall setup meets the approved records policy.

Put a price on indefinite retention. Show leadership the current storage, expected growth and backup costs, plus how often anyone needs the older material. If they still want to keep it, document that decision and the budget alongside the policy.

Keeping everything has a risk side too. Data you still hold may have to be reviewed and produced in legal discovery, so deletion isn't just about saving disk space. Ask counsel to help set a consistent disposal process and identify any legal holds before anything gets deleted.

Don't try to classify every collaboration space on day one. Start with clearer groups like finance records, HR records and corporate policies. Agree on owners and retention rules for those, then work through the messier shared sites with the people who use them.