Shredding is certainly not the most glamorous part of your job, but it is an important one. While it can be hard to keep sight of the importance of the job while listening to your shredder drone away for hours on end, shredding documents can protect you, your employees, your clients, and your company. Document shredding should be par for the course for most businesses, but inconvenience and time constraints often stop the job from actually getting done.
If you are still not entirely convinced of the importance of shredding, you have found the right guide. Here, we will cover some of the risks associated with neglecting to shred papers, details on the types of documents that should always be shredded, and a solution to the monotonous and often inconvenient job of being on shredder duty.
Why You Need to Shred
No matter where you work, you have likely spotted a shredder somewhere around your workspace. Shredding finished documents before disposing of them is a long-standing practice used by businesses and individuals alike to protect their private information. Since the invention of the paper shredder in 1909, more than 100 years ago, people have been tearing their sensitive documents to shreds to prevent prying eyes from taking their information.
Now, it should be standard practice for most commercial businesses to shred sensitive documents containing customer, employee, or business information. Shredding is done to prevent thieves and con-artists from stealing financial, personal, and business information or using it for the purpose of accessing funds, further personal information, documents, and so on. Shredding makes documents unreadable, tearing them into tiny strips and mixing them to eliminate the risk of personal information being found.
Types of Documents to Be Shredded
Though all documents with sensitive or personal information should be shredded before being disposed of, there are certain types of documents to take extra care in ensuring they are shredded.
Account Records
Information regarding the financial standing of your business should always be shredded. Guarding this information is vital not only for the privacy of your company but for the safety of your accounts. Account records typically include routing numbers, account numbers, usernames, addresses, deposit information, and other sensitive and private pieces of knowledge that should be kept safe.
Client Lists
Shredding client lists will prevent prying eyes from getting their hands on the information entrusted to you by your clients. As a business, you have an obligation to protect the information willingly given to you by your clients, something that will also help you ensure the trust and loyalty of your customer base; if they feel safe and secure, they’ll keep coming back. Shredding client lists will help keep personal information about your clients safe, and help prevent competitors from poaching your clients.
Credit Card Information
Any credit card or bank account information that has physically been recorded should be shredded immediately after use. Leaving credit card information intact can allow for identity thieves, dishonest employees, and con-artists to access personal financial information, putting your clients in an uncomfortable and financially complicated situation.
Employment Applications and Information
Employment applications and employee information should always be shredded before being discarded to prevent possible identity theft. Employment applications and files include social security numbers, bank routing numbers, full names, addresses, personal details, and more. Considering the extensive amount of information present on employment applications, these documents should always be treated with discretion and shredded before being thrown away.
The Trouble With Document Pickup Services
If you have ever sat in front of a shredder trying to shred hundreds of documents, you know how tedious and time-consuming this can be. The solution to this problem has traditionally been document-pickup services. These services arrive at your business, pick up documents, then transport them by truck to a shredding facility.
Though this kind of service has improved shredding convenience, many business owners worry about the possible risks of letting documents leave their businesses intact. Documents falling out of trucks, dishonest shredding facility employees, or possible missed documents could still leave customer, employee, and business information vulnerable.
On-Site Mobile Commercial Paper Shredding
If you don’t want to spend hours shredding by hand, but don’t trust regular document pickup services, we can help. Our commercial paper shredding services come right to you, and not one document leaves your facility without being properly shredded. Rather than asking you to trust us with your sensitive information, we show you that we take your privacy seriously by shredding on the spot.
Our commercial paper shredding services are the safest, most convenient way to keep your information safe without wasting time shredding documents yourself. Shred photos, receipts, resumes, financial reports, payroll records, legal documents, and more. Our team arrives with a commercial paper shredding truck, fully equipped to handle your paper shredding needs on-site. Keep sensitive documents locked away from prying eyes, then bring them directly to our truck for immediate shredding.