Thinking of Buying an In-house Shredder? Don’t: Here’s Why!
Every business in Manhattan, NYC, Long Island, Westchester and New Jersey handles paper documents that contain sensitive information. When those documents are no longer needed they must be shredded. You have a choice to do it yourself or hire a professional shredding service. While do-it-yourself shredding appears to be an easy and inexpensive way to destroy those confidential papers, you would be wrong. In-house document destruction can be significantly more expensive, and it’s not as secure as you may think.
The In-house Shredder
An office shredder may be inexpensive, but that’s for a reason. They are low end pieces of equipment that are not made for volume shredding which leads to maintenance, repair and replacement costs that need to be considered. Shredding large amounts of paper with an in-house shredder is not practical because they can only handle a few sheets of paper at a time. The in-house shredders also require prep work such as the removal of staples, paper clips, and rubber bands because the shredders are not powerful enough to cut through them.
Paper Jams
Inexpensive personal shredders will get jammed. It’s not a matter of if it will jam; it’s a matter of when. Even if you do everything that the manufacturer recommends, they will still eventually jam.
They Get Hot
The paper going through the shredder generates a lot of heat. Combined with the dust that is created by the documents going through the shredder, you will be at risk of a fire.
Employee Costs
When you destroy your documents on your own, you or one of your employees has to prep the documents and feed the shredder. That cost money in two ways; the first is the actual cost of what you are paying the employee, and the second cost is the opportunity cost which is the cost of what else the employee could be doing to generate business for your company. Remember they will have to remove paper clips and staples, separate documents so the shredder will not jam, empty shredders waste baskets, and put the shredded paper somewhere.
Employee Error
With in-house shredding, some documents may mistakenly not get shredded. Research has shown that employee error and negligence is a major contributor to an information security breach. The first thing you have to do is implement a Shred All Policy.
The Better Alternative
Hiring a professional onsite document shredding service will make the secure destruction of your business records safe and more cost-effective. A secure shredding service simplifies document destruction by providing locked security containers to be placed in convenient locations in your office, allowing for easy access by your staff. Then all you have to do is place your papers and whole files, staples and all into the containers. The shredding service will then come to your location on a regular schedule and empty and destroy the contents.
Create a Document Destruction Policy
You need to create a document destruction policy and put it in writing. Next, you will need to have your employees read it and sign an acknowledgement that they have been trained on it. This is where a Shred All policy will be best. Remove any question on what to shred or allowing anything to fall through the cracks. Require every piece of paper be shredded so the likelihood of error is drastically reduced.
Shredding: It’s the Law
Federal and state privacy laws impose fines and penalties against individuals and companies that fail to dispose of confidential documents in a manner that makes the information not retrievable. A secure shredding service will help you be compliant in a cost-effective manner. A professional service will destroy your files in a secure way that maintains a chain of custody that can be documented.
Time Shred Services is a local onsite shredding service that provides document destruction to the businesses and residents located in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island, Queens, Nassau County, Suffolk County, Westchester and New Jersey.
For more information give us a call or visit www.timeshred.com