When it comes to discarding sensitive business documents, even the tiniest oversight can be catastrophic. There are two ways to eliminate paper waste—shredding at the business address or hiring a professional shredding service. Let’s individually assess their aspects to discover which option is perfect for you.
Advantages of In-House Shredding
When you decide to perform onsite shredding, the documents are handled in-house. There are no confidentiality leaks where you can blame the inefficiencies on hired services. Any leaks can easily be traced as only the company staff was present at the shredding.
The main advantages are ;
- Companies only take up in-house shredding with time to spare or enough resources to allocate for professional shredding. The process requires trained staff and a specific setting, which is not primarily available to every business. These services are only available for smaller organizations or single-owned businesses with limited resources.
- Shredding documents will also eliminate the cost of hiring expert services. The option is perfect for companies that do wish to avoid the expensive cost of hiring professional companies. In-house shredding is perfect for companies with minimum paper waste too.
- The money saved from hiring professional shredding services can be invested internally by hiring experts to grow the business which is more long-term use of funds. Therefore, think wisely before hiring.
When you are shredding at the business location, you can shred anytime whenever requested. The most confidential documents can be instantly shredded, where the rest can be collected in a pool for later. The ease minimizes the timeline of security risks shared with the competitors, getting lost, and using against the business.
Professional Shredding Services
- Organizations have a lot going on in their daily routine. Therefore, they hire professional shredding services to save time and focus on matters closer to their cause. Of course, it also contributes to efficiency and wise time usage. The staff can focus on their job description. If the job requires continuous paper use, a professional shredding service is the best option.
- Furthermore, their staff is also specifically trained in the act of shredding. There are specific laws a shredding service must follow at a provincial and federal level. These provisions provide how to get rid of paper documents and electronic storage devices. Failure to adhere to these laws will result in the company and the professional shredding service being held liable. Their license may be revoked while facing heavy fines too.
- The professional shredding service will also perform environmentally friendly work. The services specialize in recycling the waste, whereas local businesses will either burn or throw out their paper trash in the landfill. The fumes can contribute to the greenhouse effect, while the landfill paper will take years to decay to become one with the earth!
When a business hires a professional service, none of the waste reaches the landfill. You are indirectly saving the planet and your business too. Planet preservation is about individualistic efforts that become whole collectively when everyone does their part.
The Drawbacks of Shredding at In-House
- You would be surprised to hear not many businesses produce enough waste or shred it independently. Almost every business has contract professional shredding services in one capacity or another. Businesses with many departments have double or triple the paperwork load. They would instead hire someone to comb through the documents rather than do it themselves.
- You would think employing an office shredder is the same as hiring a professional service, but that is not the case. A shredder from the local department store cannot handle the burden or the capacity to shred thousands of documents every day. These shredders are built for convenience and not for day and night office use. The local shredders employ a strip cut that is not safe for shredding sensitive documents. The information is still readable, and you have wasted utility and workforce on shredding with nothing to show for it.
- The in-house shredding gives the organizations complete control regarding shredding activities. However, the employees are not provided training to perform the shredding professionally. Furthermore, the employees will not shred blindly. They will peruse the documents and identify business secrets that are on a need-to-know basis. Furthermore, this will increase maintenance costs as well.
Professional services bring in their industrial grade and strong shredders that are too expensive for the smaller business. However, if you wish to invest in these industrial-grade shredders, say bye-bye to hiring professional shredding services to save cost. Furthermore, it will require training the employees too.
Professional Shredding Services
- Paper shredding services do not come cheap. Are they usually affordable by businesses that are enjoying economies of scale? These are the benefits companies experience when they can employ specialist resources in their operations. Therefore, before you decide to hire shredding services, run a cost comparison to decide whether it is feasible for the business or not.
- No doubt the services will send over trained employees. Their guidelines require allotting a separate room for shredding. This will add to the running cost of the hired business and does not necessarily eliminate the security thread. Human error is still very much a reality. Sometimes it is unavoidable if you discover the shredding employees are reading the documents too. Therefore, observe them closely with a trained eye to ensure untrained staff has not been sent to handle your sensitive documents.
- There are numerous rules and regulations present that clearly highlight the procedure to shred sensitive documents. However, there are no controls present for successful implementation.
The shredding laws do not mention the procedure for efficient safety management. Furthermore, not all services will adhere to every law in the book. Therefore, extensive due diligence is advised since the act involves your business’ sensitive information.
The Criterion for Shredding Services
A professional shredding service will provide flexible services to business clients. These businesses are fully licensed and registered with the relevant authorities. However, clients are advised to read customer reviews for a more in-depth analysis of their operations.
