If you are like most business managers or owners, you may use the services of a document destruction company for paper shredding, hard drive destruction and more. Your primary goal to accomplish through the use of secure document shredding services may be to give your employees a fast, easy and secure way to dispose of documents containing vital or sensitive information.

When such information falls into the wrong hands, it could wreak havoc for your customers, your employees or your business because of identity theft, fraud and other related issues. However, the use of document destruction services is only effective when your employees know which documents to shred and when they make a concerted effort to do so. Proper education in this area is critical.

Understanding Which Documents Should Be Destroyed
The reality is that many criminals use advanced techniques and methods to steal valuable information from companies. They may look for any small sliver of information they can find about a company or an individual, and they may use this with malicious intentions. Everything from a full stack of loan documents on a specific individual to a small post-it note containing a simple phone number, birthdate and social security number can be used with damaging results.

Employees should be educated about the ways even a small amount of information can be used with damaging results. Through their education in this area, they will be able to better determine on their own which items should be destroyed. You should educate your employees to shred an item if there is a question of whether it can be used or not, as this will ensure all private information is not shared.

Educating Your Employees on the Importance of Document Shredding
Even when employees know which items should be shredded, some may unfortunately not always follow through on this action. In many instances, this becomes a case of the employee thinking that shredding is simply not important. It may be helpful for you to arrange a training session on the dangers and damages associated with identity theft and fraud. Such issues can be costly for your business to contend with, and they can be devastating for individuals as well.

While education and training are critical in the area of document destruction and security, every business should have a written policy regarding the handling and destruction of sensitive or private information. You may encourage your employees to be diligent in this area, but your policy essentially requires them to follow through. By making this a company-wide policy, you are able to take action against an employee who fails to destroy documents according to company policy.