Don’t risk reputation damage! Destroy old uniforms.

What happens when an employee is terminated and still has the company uniform?

In recent years, there has been a series of crimes committed by ex-employees still in uniform. Any individual wearing a brands uniform can be seen associated with that brand.

Whilst wearing a uniform, a former TOLL Employee was seen racially abusing a politician in a bar. This damaged the brand and a major client of the company in return, cancelled their account, heavily impacting the revenue stream.

This poses a severe risk to your business, even more so if the uniform falls into the wrong hands.

We securely destroy uniforms and have shared the top 3 reasons why old uniforms must be securely destroyed.\

These are our top 3 reasons why you should destroy old uniforms.

1. Brand Reputation

Whilst this can not only happen to current employees, the impact is usually more detrimental when it occurs with former employees.

Should an employee hold a uniform after completion of a role, a public incident that is filmed or posted online can tarnish the brand reputation. Even employees with great history cannot be trusted to respect the company integrity.

Brand reputation can be tarnished by a uniformed person engaging in a bar fight/incident, traffic incident, disorderly conduct or any political rally/protest.

2. Security Risk

For some businesses, simply wearing the uniform is secure enough to gain access to restricted areas. Especially on construction sites and medical facilities, it is very common for trust to be given to someone in uniform. This can be detrimental if the former employee gains access to your data, operations or equipment due to this security measure.

3. Identity Theft

Not only can a uniform give someone the ability to steal a former employees identity, it also allows them to be associated with your company. This can mean they can engage with a regular supplier, such as Bunnings, and place an order on the businesses behalf whilst in your branded uniform. Your business would be left to hold the bill by this simply identity theft technique.

It is crucial to have a plan in place when turning over staff. All ID Badges, Uniform items/apparel, branded merchandise and recognisable equipment should be secured and then destroyed professionally.

Avoid reputation harm to your business. We offer uniform destruction and strongly advise this for all companies no matter the size who have a uniform.

Visit our website and enquire today about how Metroshred can destroy your old uniforms.

Shred yourself? There’s hidden costs to be aware of

Handling sensitive information? Shred on your own? The average office shredder is actually risky and more costly than you may think.

Imagine if your office became victim to identity theft, fraud or another fraudulent crime. This can easily happen if you shred yourself and documents aren’t destroyed properly.

Shred! Hidden costs and risks of shredding documents in an office shredder:

  1. The shredder may have a fixed, relatively low up-front price tag but there are additional maintenance, replacement and cleaning costs to be considered. The shredding of large amounts of paper in-house can also produce a fine dust, affecting employee health.
  2. It’s only human nature to make mistakes but a mistake when shredding can be detrimental. Office shredding often leaves the decisions on what to shred up to the employees. Negligence on an employees behalf can cause significant threat to information safety.
  3. When shredding is done in the office, the employees responsible for the process, often do not have suitable training in document security, retention and disposal. There is also no proof of secure document destruction when shredding in-office
  4. What about time and productivity costs of employees when they must spend their valuable time shredding documents. Office shredders can’t handle paper clips and staples (so these will need to be removed by the employees) and documents need to be arranged into easy to shred portions then manually fed into the paper shredder. The employees will also need to empty receptacles and clean up…on the clock.
  5. Paper is often cut into long strips by office-grade shredders. These can easily be pieced back together and increase the risk of a security breach.

Benefits to using a reliable document shredding service:

  • Sensitive documents are removed from the workplace for shredding with industrial grade equipment so employees are not affected by fine dust.
  • Shred-it-all policy reduces the risk of human error and all documents provided to a reliable document shredding service like ours, are disposed under strict guidelines.
  • Staff have been cleared to a minimum required by the National Police Records Check
  • Certificate of Destruction is provided after every shred for audit purposes.
  • No need to remove paper clips and staples
  • Documents are cross-shredded and destroyed into fragments that cannot be reassembled 
  • Paper transferred to a paper recycling facility to be recycled into paper products

Ready to protect your business?

Metro Shred are 100% Australian owned and operated.

To learn more about how we can protect your documents and security, please contact us on 1300 677 074

Shred, shred, shred! The environment will thank you

Can you name a better feeling than safe-guarding your sensitive information and doing your bit for the environment?

MetroShred’s has an environmentally friendly process and approximately all of the material that is shred in our secure locations is recycled on a daily basis.

Recycled paper is paper that has been reconstituted into paper again. We have produced millions of tonnes of shreds that are fed into paper recycling. Documents are cross-shredded and reduced into tiny fragments before being transferred to a paper recycling facility where they will be recycled into new paper products.

Each tonne of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic meters of landfill space, 4000 kilowatts of energy and 7000 gallons of water.

In order for our process to work, businesses need to do their bit to ensure the paper they no longer need gets to us and their sensitive documents and information are securely destroyed to avoid consequences like identity theft and corporate espionage.

Research has found the location of your shredding bin has an influence on the rate of use. If your shredding bin is in an inconvenient location, it’s importance to employees will be less. It’s also a handy tip to locate your shredding bin next to or close by to a general waste bin or other recycling bin so that employees are inclined to make use of it as it is convenient to them.

Employers and businesses can also do their bit by ensuring staff and associated personnel are educated on the shredding policies in place and are also motivated to take part in the initiatives.

Try giving a ‘Shredding Hero’ award or perhaps feedback and acknowledgement at staff meetings on how the shredding collection process is going  to motivate the workplace to participate. 

Choosing us to shred your sensitive documents and information so that we can benefit the environment does not only make economic sense but it makes environmental sense. 

It’s simple to get a suitable shredding collection service from MetroShred to free your office from document clutter, boost it’s recycling capabilities and avoid a privacy breach or identity theft.

Phone us on 1300 677 074 to find out how we can remove the hassle and provide your workplace with the shredding tools it needs to get it’s shredding process up to scratch.

Sources:

https://businessrecycling.com.au/research/barriers.cfm

Take Care of Business with a Clean Office Routine

Death and taxes are famously quoted as the only certainties in life. An overlooked certainty however is the associated chaos left behind in an office after completing the end of financial year reporting. Tax Returns, Annual Reports and Superannuation statements but to name a few. While we like to think we work in a paperless world, at tax time paper seems to have a renewed sense of purpose.

Disorder in the office can become an accepted norm yet it can impact business productivity, employee health and security. Studies show worker productivity is impacted by up to 50% in a messy environment1. Also, two-thirds of employees are at risk of taking time off due to illness created by an unhygienic workspace2. If that isn’t enough to plan a clean up then add to this that 75% of people throw away waste paper that may compromise business security3.

Tips to creating a clean and orderly office include:

  • Disinfecting the desktop – Encourage staff to wipe down the desk, phone, PC, keyboard and mouse at least once a week.
  • Stowing away personal gear – Think hooks for jackets, racks for umbrellas and lockers for gym gear.
  • Setting limits for storage – As filing cabinets and shelves reach capacity, archive or discard files securely rather than get yet another cabinet.
  • Decluttering digital depositories – The main culprits being email inboxes, PC desktops and shared directory files.
  • Establishing a system for paper – What stays and where, what is archived and when and how to dispose of what is no longer needed safely and securely.

Following these simple techniques should keep your office orderly, clean and secure not only after tax time but throughout the year.

Metropolitan Document Shredding Service offers complete erasure of all sensitive information by a combination of comprehensive cross-cutting and final recycling. Our security is second to none, with all facilities security checked, and all staff handling documents cleared to a minimum of a national police record check.

Phone us today on 1300 677 074 to find out how we can take the hassle and guesswork out of your document destruction needs.

Sources:

  1. https://hbr.org/2015/01/why-a-messy-workspace-undermines-your-persistence
  2. https://www.printerland.co.uk/germs-in-your-firm-E412.aspx
  3. Newspoll Survey 2010

Top 8 Office Documents You Should be Shredding

Even in the digital age, paperwork in a modern office is substantial. Working within the walls of the business, paper documents may look like just more work rather than anything of outside value. Many businesses however dismiss the risks of identity theft and fraud that can occur from dumpster divers meddling with discarded waste paper. It can also expose your innermost company secrets to competitors.

Identity theft costs Australia over $1.6 billion each year1, yet over 75% of Australians throw away paper documents unsecurely which could compromise their business, or indeed their own identity2. Personal employee and customer information is likely well guarded, however many other documents can also leave the business and it’s owners exposed. Incidents of fraud are mainly detected by the victim. In a business setting, this may go unnoticed for some time increasing the scale of potential fraud.

The top 8 document types to keep safe and dispose of securely in your business are:

  1. Leadership documents – such as budgets, strategy papers and legal contracts.
  2. Operations documents – includes training manuals, processes and timesheets.
  3. HR documents – sensitive payroll data, performance reviews and staff medical records.
  4. Procurement – details on purchase orders and pricing information.
  5. Research – new product information, recipes, formulas, drawings or plans.
  6. Personal information – tax file numbers, bank account or credit card numbers.
  7. Accounting reports – balance sheets, profit statements and tax returns.
  8. Sales & Marketing – customer lists, pricing and advertising budgets and plans.

Having a safe, secure and responsible system for the proper disposal of these documents will ensure your company, your employees and yourself are not exposed to malicious behaviour.

Metropolitan Document Shredding Service offers complete erasure of all sensitive information by a combination of comprehensive cross-cutting and final recycling. Our security is second to none, with all facilities security checked, and all staff handling documents cleared to a minimum of a national police record check.

Phone us today on 1300 677 074 to find out how we can take the hassle and guesswork out of your document destruction needs.

Sources:

  1. Australian Federal Police: Identity Crime https://www.afp.gov.au/what-we-do/crime-types/fraud/identity-crime
  2. Newspoll Survey 2010

Recycling or shredding? Be green AND safe!

With our environment under increasing pressure, how we dispose of our waste is becoming ever more important. Recycling documents is one way we can reduce our ecological footprint, helping to preserve forests and minimising the amount of paper that ends up in general waste.

Most people use council recycling bins to dispose of documents and other paper. It’s an easy option, but one with serious downsides.

For example, we assume anything we drop into a yellow-lid bin will be recycled. Unfortunately it’s not necessarily so. Due to increasing problems of contamination with non-recyclables, as well as more stringent regulations in their home countries, overseas recycling operations are becoming reluctant to accept Australian waste. As a result, paper you place in a recycling bin could well end up in landfill, slowly releasing greenhouse gases as it decomposes.

The other major problem with relying on standard recycling for document disposal is privacy. There is no guarantee that your documents and any sensitive data they contain won’t end up in the wrong hands, exposing you and your customers to risks such as industrial espionage or identity theft.

Fortunately there is an easy way to dispose of paper documents that safeguards the environment, while keeping your sensitive data secure. With Metropolitan Shredding Service, your security is our top priority with all staff handling documents cleared to a minimum National Police Record Check. Our lockable security bins, tracked transport and approved sites ensure your private information stays private up until the moment it is destroyed.

You can also be confident you’re doing the right thing by the environment. All paper documents are comprehensively cross-shredded before being transferred to a recycling facility, where they are transformed into recycled paper products.

To find out more about secure and green document disposal or to book a service phone us today on 1300 677 074.

Paper documents in a digital age

You’d be forgiven for thinking printed documents are on the way out as we move towards the age of the ‘paperless office’. However, while transmitting and storing documents digitally is undeniably convenient, many of the most important (and most sensitive) documents we receive still tend to be in hard-copy form.

A recent survey in the US revealed that many people still prefer paper documents over digital. Around 70% of respondents found it easier to manage their finances with printed documents, while 65% preferred to receive both digital and hard-copy versions of important documents, like bank statements. Even people who opt for digital documents often print them out, either for greater readability or to file away.

With so much printed material still in use, security remains a major concern, especially as the kinds of documents still commonly received in paper form read like an identity thief’s shopping list: bank and credit card statements, driver’s licence renewals, insurance policies, council rates, details of shareholdings, expired passports and so on.

It’s not only printed documents that pose a potential security risk, even something as seemingly harmless as an old photo could help a criminal construct a fraudulent identity, especially when combined with other sensitive private details. So it’s essential that sensitive paper documents and other printed matter are not only safely stored, but securely and totally destroyed when no longer needed.

Metropolitan Document Shredding Service offers complete erasure of all sensitive information by a combination of comprehensive cross-cutting and final recycling. Our security is second to none, with all facilities security checked, and all staff handling documents cleared to a minimum of a national police record check.

Phone us today on 1300 677 074 to find out how we can take the hassle and guesswork out of your document destruction needs.

Privacy laws and your business

These days no business can afford to be careless with customers’ private data. Both consumers and lawmakers are focusing more and more on how organisations handle sensitive information, and failure to do so correctly can be devastating, both in terms of a business’s reputation as well as legal consequences.

Responsible handling of private information extends from the moment it is collected to the moment it is disposed of. When data is no longer needed, it must be completely destroyed to eliminate any possibility of it falling into the wrong hands.

If private data does go astray a business opens itself up to possible legal action. In Australia the handling of sensitive information is regulated by the Australian Privacy Act (APA). Fines for breaching the Act can go as high as $420,000.

While organisations with annual turnovers below $3 million are generally exempt from the APA, much stricter overseas laws can also impact on Australian businesses. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) covers any business collecting data from EU residents or even accepting payments in euros. Fines under the GDPR can exceed 20 million euros.

In this environment no business can afford to take shortcuts when it comes to destroying sensitive data. Use a professional, experienced document destruction service like Metropolitan Shredding Service to ensure total erasure of private information.

At every step of the process your security is our priority. Documents are taken from your premises to our facilities by secure transport. All staff involved in handling documents are cleared to a minimum of a National Police Records Check, and all of our disposal facilities have been approved to an accredited security level.

We service all capital cities across Australia, plus many areas of regional NSW. To book a bin delivery and document destruction service, call Metro Shred on 1300 677 074.

Bust clutter for an efficient and secure workplace

It’s amazing how quickly an office can become cluttered with loose, unfiled documents. They not only look untidy, but with identity theft and corporate espionage rife can be a real security problem.

Use these tips to declutter for a more efficient and more secure workspace.

  • Take a look at each document. Do you really need it? If not it should be discarded.
  • Digitising and storing on a cloud service (Google Drive etc) is a great way to save space while still having easy access to documents.
  • Create a logical filing system for storing and retrieving documents quickly. For tips on creating an easy-to-use filing system, check out this site:
    http://www.step-by-step-declutter.com/declutter-your-files.html
  • Don’t let clutter creep back into your workspace. Tidy up at the end of each day, and schedule a regular cleanup, say once a month, to check draws and other storage areas for hidden clutter.
  • To ensure documents you discard are totally destroyed, eliminating the possibility of sensitive data falling into the wrong hands, use a professional and experienced document destruction service.

Metropolitan Shredding Service provides 240-litre lockable Security Bins (minimum order of two), delivered to and picked up from your premises by secure transport either on a one-off basis or as a scheduled service. All documents are taken to one of our secure facilities where they are comprehensively cross-shredded into tiny fragments, then transferred to a recycling facility for final, total destruction. At the end of the process you receive a Certificate of Destruction, your guarantee that all data has been completely destroyed.

Phone us today on 1300 677 074 to find out how easy and cost-effective secure document destruction can be.

Document shredding: which service is best for you?

Disposing of sensitive documents in a completely secure, easy, cost-effective and environmentally responsible manner should be a priority for every business. Using a document-shredding service makes all this easy.

Here’s a simple checklist to help you find the right service for your needs.

Priority one: security

With the rise of identity theft, corporate fraud, industrial espionage and other threats, having sensitive data fall into the wrong hands can be disastrous.

Through the entire process of handling and destroying your sensitive documents, security is our top priority, giving you complete peace of mind.

  • We provide locked bins for secure on-site storage of documents.
  • Full bins are securely transported to our destruction facility.
  • All our destruction facilities are “approved sites” — this means they have strict guidelines on product handling document disposal.
  • We have comprehensive policies and procedures for the storage, transportation and destruction of all documents.
  • All of our staff handling document destruction are cleared to a minimum of a National Police Records Check.
  • Our entire process and all facilities are in full compliance with government regulations.

Ease of use

We take the hassle out of secure document destruction. Our locked bins are delivered to your premises, then collected by our security-checked personnel, providing you with a simple, headache-free process.

Scalability

Every business has its own needs, so the service you choose should be scalable to match your document-shredding requirements. We have a minimum order of two bins (for a maximum of two weeks), but if your requirements exceed this capacity we can scale up your order to match. You don’t have to keep the bins for the entire two weeks — when you’re ready for a pickup, just call. You can even load the bins as soon as we deliver, and away they go!

Cost effectiveness

With our secure document-shredding service there’s no need for you or your employees to waste valuable time disposing of sensitive documents, allowing you to be more productive where it counts.

Clean and green

With concern for the environment on the rise among both individuals and businesses, it’s important to minimise your ecological footprint. All recyclable documents we handle are reduced to tiny fragments through a comprehensive cross-shredding process, then transported securely to a recycling plant to be transformed into recycled products.

Contact Metropolitan Shredding Service today on 1300 677 074 to find out just how easy it is to enjoy the many benefits of secure document shredding.