Using Paper Shredding to Manage Your Documentation
Offices depend on documentation. Information can flow through businesses almost without stop; your staff communicating with each other and with clients, suppliers and others by email, the postal service and telephone. New contracts and invoices are dispatched and archived. Hiring and firing staff in itself can build up a sizeable amount of information. Each new project embarked on as a business venture generates its own amount of documentation, from background material, project parameters, client-facing material to internal and external communication.
Whether documentation relates to old, existing or new clients, projects, staff or suppliers, much of the material may need to be archived. Having an office clear-out, where paper documents are collected, securely transported and either scanned and archived or shredded can be a major benefit to your ability to perform well as a company. A well-ordered, uncluttered office tends to concentrate minds and boost business efficiency.
Care must be taken when deciding what to dispose of; it can be extremely frustrating, as well as detrimental to your business, to find that you have destroyed or disposed of documentation that you suddenly require access to. Before considering document disposal therefore, it is always best to consider document archiving. Nonetheless, disposing of documents can have major benefits. Paper documents, for example, can take up a lot of office space.
Even when the mass of this documentation is archived in a low risk, high security, off-site storage facility, it can occupy significant shelving space. This may not be the most cost-effective way of dealing with this material. Another possible downside of keeping paper documentation is that the information contained within it is hard to go through. It can thus be time consuming for your staff to find the information they need if they rely on a growing archive of paper information. This then impacts your staffing costs and business efficiency.
Paper shredding services may be the best method of dealing with your archived information. Naturally, shredding your paper documentation does not necessarily mean that you lose the information contained within it. Before shredding potentially sensitive information, you may consider scanning and digitising it. The obvious benefit of this is that it saves a lot of storage space. Information can also be indexed and easily searched through, often through a web portal. This saves on the amount of time it takes for you or your staff to get to the required information.
The shredding service entails collection, destruction and recycling. All shredded paper documents are recycled as a matter of course. The process is fully compliant: you will receive a certificate of destruction that helps you meet all the necessary regulations. To ensure security and compliance with data protection regulations, documents are shredded to BS8470 level 4. This means they cannot be reconstructed.
Secure shredding services mean you are safely guided through the data protection legislation and confidential records management regulation by fully trained, dedicated professionals. This leaves you and your staff free to focus on moving your business forward.