Policy: Why It’s Important & How You Can Ensure That Yours Is Effective

Aug 13, 2019

Being a common practice in many professional workplace settings for decades, document shredding has become a proven effective solution for any organization that works with sensitive information. With a wide variety of shredding services available depending on your needs and budget, shredding has also never been easier, more flexible or more convenient; but the effectiveness of document shredding doesn’t just rely on the service provider quality of service.

Organizations need to know what to shred and be sure that it ends up being shredded. Our team of shredding technicians will shred any documents that you and your team designate for shredding; it is vital to ensure that you not just designated the right documents, but all of the right documents.

 

Employee Knowledge and Compliance is Critical

Employees need to know which documents need to be shredded and understand the importance behind making sure they are shredded. For this reason, it is typical for many workplaces to implement shredding policies that designate one or more of the following things:

  • Which documents need to be destroyed
  • Which documents need to be saved
  • How long documents should be held onto for
  • How to designate documents to-be destroyed

 

There are not particularly any right or wrong answers for how long documents should be kept and designated for destruction; this can vary widely between organizations depending on the nature of the information and its usage. Some examples of documents that should be destroyed when they are no longer needed include:

  • Invoices / receipts
  • Void checks
  • Expired boarding passes
  • Medical records
  • Bank statements & atm receipts
  • Expired credit cards, drivers’ licenses and health insurance cards

 

Implementation is the key

It’s one thing to put together a policy that seemingly covers all of the important bases, but it’s another to actually implement it and encourage / ensure that employees are complying with it. There are some things you can do, and should keep in mind when communicating your policy:

  • Put it in writing for employees to refer to
  • Use language that is clear and concise to minimize confusion and misunderstandings
  • Explain to employees why this policy is important, and why it needs to be followed
  • Leave written bulletins outlining the policy rules and conditions in accessible locations

 

We’re Here to Help Make Sure that Your Policies are Meaningful

Now that you have a policy that is effective and does what you need it to do, you need a shredding partner that will ensure that your designated documents are destroyed thoroughly, regularly and on-time. ShredPro Secure offers many different document shredding services to fit your needs. No job is too big or small for our team!

Maintaining NAID AAA Certification, you can trust our team to get the job done right the first time; every time. Talk to us today to get started on putting together a solution that works for your business!

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