What should you be shredding as a business?
The safest answer to the question of what you need to shred in terms of business documents is probably: everything. New compliance requirements make it more important than ever before to ensure that the way you handle documents and media has the protection of customer data at heart. The more sensitive and confidential information your business deals with, the more crucial it will be to have tamperproof shredding procedures in place. That means ensuring that everyone in the business understands what needs to be shredded and using services, such as on-site shredding, that minimise the potential for data exposure.
Documents to shred – by department
Every part of your business is constantly generating documents containing data that could be compromising, either for the business or an individual, if it ends up in the wrong hands. Although this is not a comprehensive list, these are just some of the documents you’ll need to consider shredding for each part of the business to keep the whole entity secure.
R&D
Crucial documents here include feedback, monitoring and evaluation reports, as well as technical drawings and plans that have been created for new products.
HR & payroll
Your HR team has access to all your employee data so all documents that are generated here need to be properly disposed of, especially corporate records. It will also be important to ensure that any data relating to suppliers, such as supplier records, is securely shredded.
Sales & marketing
Contracts are probably the most crucial documents to ensure are shredded, alongside NDAs and any documents filled with all that customer data that your team works with. Training information and marketing collateral should be shredded to protect your business’ processes and investments.
Management
Your managers will regularly be creating a wide range of documents that require safe disposal, from strategy reports to business plans and management accounts. In the wrong hands this kind of data could disadvantage your business and give power to competitors so it needs to be protected.
Procurement
In the procurement part of the business, the wealth of documents that will require secure disposal could include everything, from tribunal documents and disciplinary information through to medical records, appraisals and your internal employee policies.
Operations
Your business operations could be the key to distinguishing you from competitors and will also involve dealing with vast volumes of data that could create compliance complications if not properly dealt with. Documents covered could include IT audits, monitoring information and training information, as well as memorandums relating to contracts and sales.
If you don’t currently use an on-site shredding service and need to work out the value of doing so, a useful starting point is often to audit the way that your company disposes of documents to see how secure it really is. Sort through the non-confidential bins, for example, and you may be shocked at just how much sensitive information is being unwittingly placed into the public domain.
On-site shredding is a simple and effective solution for any business keen to protect itself when it comes to disposal of documents and data – contact us to discuss your requirements.
Author: Mark Coombes, Follow me on Google+
