After a couple of false starts with Freedom Day, office workers are slowly making their way back into the workplace.
Has your office been closed for the last sixteen months? Is your company now working with a hybrid model of flexible hours split between working from home and in the office? And are you looking around the office thinking “my kitchen desk is so much tidier!”.
With this new era of working smarter and safer, our team at Total Shred has come up with some tips to make your working life smarter and safer; both from home and office.
Before returning to the office
Do you have a pile of paperwork that has built up whilst you have been working from home? If the paperwork is no longer needed and needs to be disposed of securely why not schedule a Residential Paper Shredding slot. Total Shred will come to you at a designated time and destroy any sensitive information that you have. And remember, we take care of all the paperclips, staples and plastic wallets too!
If you are local to Total Shred in Stanmore, we have introduced a Drive Thru Shredding Service to better serve our local community. This service is scheduled every fortnight at our premises so that local residents can keep on top of their paper clutter.
You could bring the papers back into the office for shredding, but we wouldn’t want them found in a file on a train now, would we? Keep your data secure and don’t risk a data breach.
Returning to the office
Before your staff get stuck into their day, get them to declutter their desks. Many staff may have left their desks in a hurry when the pandemic first hit in March 2020 and may have documents that are outdated and need to be disposed of correctly. Now could be the ideal time to declutter the filing cabinets too. Total Shred can scan all your relevant documents onto a secure drive and will then take care of the rest with our One Off Shredding Service.
Once you have decluttered and given the office a major post-COVID clean you will want to keep it that way so get in touch and talk to one of our experts who can design a bespoke regular shredding service to meet your needs – encouraging staff to keep on top of their documentation both at home and in the office.
Hybrid model and hot desking
It has been reported that many companies will only expect their staff to be in the office two days a week – with three days working from home (or two if they are lucky enough to work with a company that has gone to a four-day week!).
Now is the time to give your office space a shake too, preparing it for the likelihood that your staff will either be hot desking or moving from home to office with laptops, paperwork, computer drives and USBs.
Did you know that you should also destroy any hard drives that are no longer required as these also pose a security risk? So, as you redesign desk space, maybe making desktops and towers redundant as more staff use laptops – remember to ensure the destruction of your data files as necessary.
Ensure that you have a secure area for the removal of documentation; in this age documents should not really be shared or left around on hot desks or unmanned staff desks. We have a new way of working and as an employer you have to educate your staff so there are no data breaches whilst keeping themselves protected from a potential COVID outbreak.
It used to be a pot plant on your desk; now it’s hand sanitiser and anti-viral spray – remember to spray down the desk every evening ready for a colleague to use tomorrow.
Good luck with your return to office plans – we’re here to help that transition.