While destroying documents that are no longer needed may not seem like the most pressing issue for a business, serious repercussions await if it isn’t given the attention that it needs. Without a reliable process for destroying documents, your business is all but guaranteed to become over cluttered with old records, which can disrupt the day-to-day workflow.
What’s more, not having a process for getting rid of documents that contain sensitive information can leave your company in danger of running into legal problems or losing critical information to the competitors.
So, what can you do to make sure that your document shredding process is up to par with the best practices in the industry?
Well, to get you started, here are a few things that you can implement.
Have a Clear Process
The process of document shredding may seem pretty straightforward – you just shred the documents that are no longer needed and dispose of the pieces of paper, right?
Well, in practice it’s a bit more complicated than that.
When you have to deal with hundreds or even thousands of documents on a regular basis, you need an established system for ensuring that all the materials that need to be destroyed go through the shredder and not one piece of sensitive data gets lost.
You should establish a regular shredding schedule and should strongly consider implementing a shred-all policy which ensures that every document that’s no longer in use get destroyed.
Make Sure You Do it Securely
Security is a major concern when shredding documents – while the main goal is disposing of the excess paper documents, you still need to ensure that the information contained in those documents doesn’t fall in the wrong hands.
Once the documents are shredded, they must be disposed of in a way that ensures that no documents (or even pieces of documents) will fall in the wrong hands.
Today, simply throwing the paper pieces in the recycling bin is not enough, so to guarantee that the documents are not used for ill purposes, you should know exactly where the disposed of documents go when they leave your facility.
Find a Professional Shredding Services Provider
As you’ve probably gathered, document shredding is much more complicated than it may seem initially, so if you want to be sure that your document shredding goes smoothly, it’s a good idea to find someone who specializes in document management.
Hiring a document shredding services provider can help you get ahead of any potential issues and develop a document shredding process that’s secure as well as efficient.
A competent and experienced document shredding services provider will not only be able to ensure that your shredded documents are handled with care, but can help you establish more eco-friendly practices that minimize the waste that your office produces.
And if you find a document scanning company that can take over your document management, they can also help you digitize the documents that you want to preserve and help you reduce your storage needs, developing a more efficient strategy for handling your records in the process.