Own a Business? 3 Paper Shredding Myths And How They Can Hurt You
As a business owner, it isn't always easy to save time and money. When you think about ways to stay efficient, you might lean towards moving tasks in-house so that you don't end up paying high premiums for professional services. However, outsourcing certain responsibilities, like paper shredding, can actually be better for your business.
Here are three paper shredding myths you should be aware of, and how doing things the wrong way could hurt your business:
1: "Having several shredders around the office saves everyone time."
In an effort to quickly destroy important documents, you may have purchased several paper shredders to keep around the office. If you are like most business owners, you probably figure that your employees will be able to quickly shred important files without any problems. Unfortunately, shredding documents is easier for some people than it is for others.
Small shredders are prone to motor problems, paper jams, and dull blades, especially if your business shreds thousands of documents each week. Although some employees are patient enough to feed sheets in one at a time or troubleshoot that stuck staple, many workers will simply give up and walk away without fixing the problem. Because in-house shredding has so many variables, it tends to take much longer.
Fortunately, mobile shredding services will come to you and shred all of your documents in a matter of minutes, while you watch. Powerful mobile shredding trucks can handle as much as 8,000 pounds of paper per hour, so your job probably won't take long. Also, because shredding experts do nothing but dispose of important papers day-in and day-out, they are highly efficient. You won't end up waiting around just because the office shredder jammed and nobody knows how to fix it.
2: "It's cheaper to shred in-house."
If you are like most business owners, you are more worried about your bottom line than how your employee feels about waiting to use a shredder. However, one of the best things about mobile shredding services is that they can save you a ton of money.
Have you ever stopped to think about how much money you spend on all of those office shredders? Studies have shown that by the time you calculate the cost of the machine, the equipment depreciation, and the labor expense for your employees to do the work, your shredder might cost as much as $97.58 a month to own and operate. However, having documents professionally shredded costs about 20¢ per pound.
To calculate if a professional shredding business could benefit your company, think about how many reams of paper you go through a week, and what percentage of those documents need to be shredded. For example, if you know that your office orders in 30 reams of paper each month, and you shred about 30% of the documents you create, you might be looking at shredding around 9 reams of paper each month.
Since a ream of paper weighs about 5 pounds, 9 reams of paper would weigh about 45 pounds, which would cost about $9 to dispose of the right way—less than a tenth of the cost of doing the job on your own. If you want to significantly reduce your shredding expenses, do the right thing and outsource the work.
3: "Our documents are secure."
Have you ever really thought about what types of things you are throwing away? Your trashcans might be lined with important personnel files, balance sheets, pay stubs, and company memos. Unfortunately, if these types of documents get into the wrong hands, it could cost you a lot more than you might think.
Preserving your intellectual property can keep your business afloat. If your competitors catch wind of an upcoming business merger or one of your employees finds out how much a coworker makes, you could end up dealing with failed product launches or lawsuits. Fortunately, mobile shredding offers you the opportunity to round up all of the protected documents in your office at one time and shred them immediately, before they cause issues.
Taking advantage of mobile paper shredding services can help you to protect your information, without wasting time and money. For more information, check out resources such as http://www.mobileshred.net.
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