Your Employees are Working From Home. What’s Happening to Their Documents?

The Shred Right team was on a call recently with a partner of ours, and the topic of working from home was brought up. Each person had a story about working from home, and as the conversation led back to shredding and Shred Right, our President, Craig Mandery asked our partner what they were doing with their shredding now that they were no longer in the office. There was a long pause followed by, “I don’t know, we haven’t really thought about that,” our partner said.

If our partner isn’t thinking about their shredding, we’re guessing a lot of our clients who are working from home haven’t given their employees direction or a solution for documents that should be securely destroyed.

Are your employees are tossing their documents into their recycling bins in an effort to avoid the landfill?  There’s no telling who has access to those documents once they’re at their curb.

According to identityforce.com, “In 2019, 14.4 million consumers became victims of identity fraud — that’s about 1 in 15 people. Overall, 33 percent of U.S. adults have experienced identity theft, which is more than twice the global average.” Think dumpster diving is a thing of the past? As recently as 2017 Statista.com reported that 13% of Americans admitted to going dumpster diving. What are these people looking for? The average person’s identity is worth about $31,000 a year according to idtheftauthority.com. What kind of pricetag would you put on your company’s data?

If your employees are using home shredders, there’s an issue most businesses aren’t thinking about. Most people assume they can just put their shredded material in their recycling bins, and it goes into the recycling stream. Wrong. Most municipalities in the Twin Cities have equipment that cannot handle processing shredded paper. Therefore, it is sent to the landfill.

Your employees can avoid nosy neighbors, dumpster divers and filling their recycling bins if they are encouraged to stop by your office as needed to deposit their documents into your secure shredding containers. Our Shred Right team is still servicing all our customers whenever their schedule allows. Your employees may even be relieved when you tell them they still have a way to handle their shedding needs securely, in a familiar way!