SHOULD YOU HIRE A PROFESSIONAL SHREDDING SERVICE?

For many companies, the disposal of large amounts of paper causes major logistical problems. When there are simply too many paper documents that frequently need destroying, doing so with the use of regular office shredders can eat up valuable time and effort. As a result, the companies in this position often rely on professional shredding services to cut corners and save time. These services use industrial-grade shredders to quickly and securely destroy documents in large batches. The shredders are often built into large trucks which travel between several different companies to ensure maximum efficiency. But are professional shredding services right for your company, and how can they benefit your business?

CUTTING COSTS

Outsourcing your shredding will ultimately save your business money. When shredding your documents in the office you need to consider the cost of equipment, parts, maintenance and utility bills. Such costs can quickly rack up in your monthly expenses. Professional shredding services take care of these costly tasks for you. They own the shredders, they maintain the shredders, they run the shredders, and most importantly, they do the shredding.Shredding is probably not what you are paying your employees to do in the working day. Professional shredding services allow you to release your staff from doing menial tasks so that they can operate more effectively in their roles. Sure, you could try and cut costs by investing in an industrial-grade shredder with the ability to destroy documents in large quantities. But they don't come cheap, nor will they slot neatly under your desk! Stop paying your employees to shred documents in their valuable working hours. Instead, delegate that cost to a professional service who will get the job done cheaper and quicker.

SAVING TIME

Shredding documents in the office is a time-consuming manual task. It eats up a lot of your employee’s valuable working hours. Conventional office shredders have a low throughput level. This means they cannot handle more than a few sheets at a time, so they are only able to shred documents at a slow pace. Documents need to be cleared of staples and straightened, shredders need to be emptied and oiled, and waste needs to be safely discarded. This process can leave your employees lacking the energy and time they need to effectively do their jobs.When companies outsource their shredding to an external company, they regain the time it takes to do these menial tasks. Professional shredding services will take care of the whole process from beginning to end. Documents are simply placed in a box for safe keeping until the shredding company picks them up and takes over the entire destruction process. Companies can then rejoice when the productivity of their staff increases!

EFFICIENCY

Due to these money and time saving benefits, professional shredding services are much more efficient than in-house shredding efforts. Why would you keep using clunky office shredders and paying your workforce to do hours of menial work when you can hire outsourced shredders to take over the whole process?Industrial shredders are more efficient than office shredders. Documents are quickly pulverised by heavy-duty rotating blades so they don’t have to be shredded in small batches over an extended period of time. Indeed, smaller shredding machines are simply unable to handle shredding large amounts of documents without breaking. Office shredders can also only take a small amount of paper per pass. Whereas industrial shredders used by external shredding companies can handle large batches of paper in bulk.

SECURITY

Security and data protection are among the main factors to consider in the shredding process. Shredding confidential documents in the office leaves open the possibility of them being stolen, reproduced, or otherwise compromised. Around 58 data records are lost or stolen every second, and 8% of data breaches in the first half of 2017 occurred as a result of ‘malicious insiders’. Therefore, the importance of securing your documents from theft applies to the storage of shredded paper within your company premises. Many thieves look through company bins used for recycling and waste for sensitive information and confidential documents. Here at Flexible Storage, we make sure to safely transfer your documents from secure steel stores to our high grade industrial shredders. These both shred and pulverise papers down to a fine grain which cannot be reconstructed. This type of shredding ensures a level of security that cannot be offered by the strip-cut and cross-cut shredders found in most offices. We issue a certificate of destruction for each batch of documents. This means you can keep track of your company’s documents throughout the entire shredding process.

ECO-FRIENDLY

Professional shredding services ensure that all of the paper that your company disposes of is recycled and has a minimal impact on the environment. For instance, all of the paper shredded through our services are recycled and pulped at a paper mill for reuse in the form of household paper products. This process helps to reduce the number of trees being harvested and the amount of landfill space being used up.This will not only ensure the the use of more eco-friendly practices throughout your business. It will also help your business stay compliant with environmental legislation in the UK. Employees and customers will see that your company cares about its environmental impact. This helps bolster your reputation as a greener business.Furthermore, the security risks associated with leaving shredded paper out in recycling bags are removed altogether. Outsourcing your shredding guarantees that the recycling process takes place in a secured location without the possibility of sensitive data being stolen and compromised.