When asked, 40% of consumers have said that they would stop doing business with a company or brand if that business had suffered a security breach in their past. This is something you want to avoid altogether in your business.
To prevent identity theft, fraud, and other data security issues, the first thing you need to be aware of is the risk of paper documents falling into the wrong hands. Even information you wouldn't think of as "sensitive," can be used against you. For that reason, it's integral that you have sufficient commercial paper shredders and high security paper shredders to keep your business safe -- as well as a protocol for using them.
If your organization has yet to roll out a document destruction policy for secure paper shredding, now is the time to set one up. Read on to find out how.
1. Create a Strategy
Employing secure paper shredding is the only surefire way to maintain confidentiality and security for your business and clients. Therefore, it's imperative that you develop a sound document destruction procedure that everyone in your facility will follow, at all times.
The first step to developing such a strategy is to decide whether your business will maintain a "shred all" policy, or a selective shredding policy. If you play it safe and opt to shred all paper documents after they are no longer needed, no matter whether they pose a security risk or not, you may find yourselves with a slightly heftier workload. However, you’ll enjoy increased security. If you opt for efficiency by establishing a selective shredding policy, you'll face the challenge of trusting everyone to recognize what data needs to be shredded and what doesn't. If your company has a high turn-over rate, this might not be a safe route to take.
2. Train Your Staff
Next, it will be important to train each employee to understand and follow the new secure paper shredding procedure. Make sure each staff member is given clear instructions for how to use the shredders and shredding bins, what materials and documents are to be shredded, when they should shred files, and create any document retention schedules.
3. Implement the Protocol
In order to implement your new secure paper shredding policy, you'll need to invest in at least one commercial paper shredder. Make sure you invest in one that has all the security features you need to be safe, such as cross-cut document shredding. You will also want to place shredding bins around the office or facility to minimize the amount of walking people have to do to correctly dispose of sensitive documents. Depending on the size of your office, and for added security and convenience, you should consider buying multiple shredders to place around your business.
Next to each shredder or shredding bin, post detailed instructions saying what can and can't be put through a shredder, as well as briefly detailing your data security policy for new -- or forgetful -- employees.
4. Maintain Your New Policy
The hard work of setting up a document destruction policy won't be worth anything if your supervising staff doesn't stay on top of the protocol. Someone should regularly check up on the procedure to ensure it is running smoothly. Touch base with employees to make sure they properly understand the new policy, and that they're following it to the letter.
Now that you have set up a clear, secure document shredding policy, you can rest easy knowing that a data security issue is that much less likely to occur. By following these steps, you will have made certain that your organization keeps up with industry standards for data security. When you're ready to invest in secure paper shredding machines, rely on Boston Business Printing today.
