Shreding Office Documents

Nelson

We are bringing in a shreding company to help us dispose of office paperwork that may or may not contain confidential infomation. At any rate, these documents will contain financial data that we would not want just anyone to see. We need to draft a policy on how our office staff should bring the papers to a central location. We don't want office staff to shred these documents at will. We need to have control on what is being shredded.We would then have a scheduled day for shreding. How do others control the disposal of paperwork?

HRinGA

We found out the hard way that your "scheduled" day for shredding never happens when it's scheduled. I am guessing this is a really small operation, otherwise, who is going to inspect what is being shredded? You mentioned that you didn't want employees shredding at will so does that mean someone will inspect whatever it is they are shredding? We have a service. Our larger departments use it and they are trusted to put what needs to be shredded in the bin. (Our problem is employees don't shred what needs to be shredded!) The service stops by and actually shreds on site.
Our smaller depts, like us (HR) simply have shredders at our desk.
Unless you're small enough to have someone review documents, I don't know that you'll have so much control over what gets thrown in the bin.

Dutch2

About the same here. HR has its own shredder and all other employees are have a seperate and "special" plastic trash can at their work station. This trash can is were all the items to be shredded are placed. At night the clearning crew places all the too be shedded papers in much larger bins in the basement. Then once every couple of weeks we have an outside source drive up. The back of their truck is a huge shedder that will chew up 'bout anything you thorw in it from larger phone books to large hard plastic 3 ring binders. Occassional somone will bring a document to HR that they want to ensure is shredded right away.

Whirlwind

Our service provides us with a large rolling bin (like a big curbside garbage can) that has a lid with a padlock (to which only they have the key) and a slot to put paper through. Whenever we fill it up, they come and take the contents and provide us with a certificate of document destruction. It's pretty cheap - about 30 bucks each time they come to empty the bin. I highly recommend it. Way less work and no opportunity for staff (custodial or otherwise) to view the contents while the stuff is waiting to be shredded. BTW, our service is a non-profit program to employ people with disabilities. A for-profit company would probably cost more.

TN HR

The outfit we use provides us with a highly secure locked cabinet with a slot. They come on their scheduled day, we insert our key, they insert theirs (a la safety deposit box), remove the liner with documents to shred, step outside to their shreding truck, pulverize our documents and then they provide us with a certificate of destruction.

Gene

gismo

We are a financial institution and have a big shredder at one of our locations, we have EE's use a seperate trash can for shred and trash. Our cleaning crew puts the shred in a seperate bag for one of our EE's to shred when time allows. One of our other locations also brings their shred to our office to have shredded. Another branch has a company come in and shred their paperwork.

I agree with the other's, I don't know how you would be able to schedule a certain day, doesn't seem to work, and I don't understand how you are going to have one person go through all the shred to make sure it should be shredded!!! Maybe I misunderstood but that would be a job in itself.