The principal message of this article is a simple one: you should not shred your own documents! However, as with so many things in business, it is not as straightforward as it appears. For one, documents are pervasive in business and so the mere task of getting rid of them can be a mammoth undertaking. For another, there are multiple reasons to consider why you should not be shredding your own documents, some obvious and others less so.
Before commencing with the reasons why you should not shred your own documents, we do acknowledge this: handing over documents to a third party for destruction can make you uneasy. That’s understandable. Many business documents are inherently confidential or sensitive for a variety of different reasons, from the commercial to the legal.
We recognize that entrusting their shredding to an outside company can feel odd, even counter-intuitive. All the more reason then for us to provide compelling reasons why shredding your own documents is not a good idea.
Security
The issue of security is possibly the most important reason why you should opt for an external, professional shredding service. There are hardly any documents within any business that cannot be considered ‘sensitive’ or ‘confidential’ in some way. Even years-old invoices from vendors or outdated sales charts should be considered potentially business-sensitive and, thus, requiring proper shredding.
And that is not to mention the myriad personal and business data that you might have of customers and other parties, officially referred to as personally identifiable information (PII). You could actually incur serious legal risk for you and your company should this type of PII be inadvertently ‘discovered’ due to inadequate shredding, Why take such risks?
Using your own shredding machine is no guarantee that you will shred all of your business papers in a comprehensive manner that ensures they cannot be reconstructed in the wrong hands. For example, remember this: many paper shredding machines shred documents into strips, rather than into particles. Unfortunately, although they look ‘shredded beyond recognition,’ strips can in fact be painstakingly reconstructed. Furthermore, in-house shredding can be a very time-consuming and onerous task for employees. As a result, documents needing to be shredded can start piling up, which in itself is a security risk. The security of ‘data awaiting’ destruction is all too often where data breaches may occur.
It therefore makes sense to use a professional shredding service that will shred your documents comprehensively and securely. However, it is of course beholden upon your company to ensure that the shredding service you use is reputable and adheres to strict security-related protocols. And on that point, see the next reason why you should not do your own shredding.
Certification
Allied to the issue of the security offered by an external shredding company is the equally important factor of certification. An excellent way of ascertaining whether you can trust a professional shredding service is to find out to which certifications they have. Accreditation provides you with the assurance that your documents will be properly and securely shredded. Accreditation is very telling because:
- it is typically for an internationally-recognized or UK-approved certification standard;
- the accreditation means that the company has been successfully benchmarked against that standard; and
- getting accreditation is not a simple or ‘easy’ process. It usually requires a lot of effort, time and even cost for the company being accredited.
That is why accredited companies will go out of their way to ‘show off’ their accreditations – it is an accomplishment to be proud of and reveals a commitment to high standards. Some of the certifications to which companies are accredited that you should look out for include:
- ISO 9001:2015: this standard, as issued by the Swiss-based International Organisation for Standardization (ISO), is the world’s most recognized and respected quality management system (QMS) standard. It proves that a company has attained a high standard of quality service for clients.
- BS EN 15713:2009: This British standard relates specifically to the secure destruction of confidential materials. This ensures that a company so accredited has all the requirements in place to ensure the management and disposal of confidential data. This is clearly one accreditation you want to see on an external shredding service’s website.
- ISO 27001:2013: Also issued by ISO, this standard relates to a company’s Information Security Management System (ISMS), which includes document-related security measures, such as the secure disposal thereof. It is a wide-ranging certification that is notoriously tricky to attain.
- Information Commissioner: It is important to also find out if the shredding service is registered with the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (which is a non-departmental public body which reports directly to Parliament as per the provisions of the Data Protection Act of 1998). This is actually required of any organisation that processes personal data, so do look out for this one too.
Productivity
Paper shredding can be a very tedious and, worse still, very time-consuming activity. Feeding all those documents through a shredder may seem a simple task, but it can be mind-numbingly dull and take a lot more time than presumed. Then there are those pesky, further time-consuming paper jams, not to mention having to remove staples, paper clips and anything else that may also jam a shredder.
Outsourcing the shredding of documents means that your employees can spend that time doing other, more valuable work for your company. When productivity needs to be the primary focus for UK businesses, especially for those with tight margins or in ultra-competitive sectors, then it is a compelling reason to switch to external means of destroying your docs.
Reliability
Office shredders are notoriously unreliable. You may have to contend with breakdowns or issues with a shredder for which your business is not equipped to service. The types of maintenance issues that can arise either during the shredding process or even whilst the machine is idle can include:
- Non-working inner components which are difficult to access
- Overheating due to over-use or a malfunctioning fan
- Dulled shredding blades
- Paper jams that are not easily resolved
Why go through all this hassle, when you can opt for a professional shredding service instead? With that option comes reliability and the comfort of knowing that the maintenance and upkeep of shredding equipment is their issue, not yours.
Getting rid of documents is a difficult undertaking, full of potential risks. Shredded paper can itself be a nuisance for your company to dispose of. Even local councils in the UK don’t really want to handle shredded paper as part of their normal household recycling service, as their collection and further disposal can be highly problematic!
Small and medium-sized companies have good reasons to outsource the shredding of their documents, from (very real) security-related concerns to saving costs by having employees do more productive work than shredding. Good customer service principles also require it. As UPS states: “Smart small business owners know how important it is to protect sensitive information and keep it out of the wrong hands.” That of course must include how information gets disposed of.