Help Remote Employees Stay Compliant with Document Destruction

While people have worked remotely for a long time, the concept was not popular with workplaces until the Covid-19 pandemic forced businesses deemed non-essential to close down or find alternative ways to keep running. Luckily for many offices, they are mostly digital, so remote employees could keep the business going.

However, with remote employees come problems with data security. Businesses that went remote had to figure out ways to ensure the employees stayed compliant with data protection.

What is a Remote Workplace?

A remote workplace is usually a home office. However, it can be wherever an employee decides to set up to work for the day, including a coffee shop or a library. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the remote workplace was often a spare bedroom or the dining room table in the employee's home.

As long as all work was digital and the employee used a secure work computer, employers were pretty safe. However, if the employee printed out documents or used a home computer for sensitive work product, security could have been compromised.

Data Security in a Remote Workplace

Remote workplaces help immensely, as businesses have found once they were forced to use them. Even when the pandemic was over, some employers and employees preferred to continue using remote workplaces. As long as the employer and the employee work together to keep the data from getting into unscrupulous hands, the arrangement has many benefits. The employer saves on office real estate, and the employee saves gas, time, and wear and tear on his or her vehicle.

Data destruction in a remote workplace is as important as in the work office. The laws you have to abide by for confidential information also apply to remote workers. When you have remote employees, you should implement strict rules regulating the work computer and document shredding. You can contact Gilmore to discuss the shredding services you need for your office and your employee's home office.

Data security is more difficult in remote workplaces. Your employee's family members, relatives, and friends come and go from the home, even during a pandemic. While you might trust your employee, you cannot trust those you do not know, not even family members, even if your employee trusts them.

Implementing a shredding policy of shredding all work-related documents and provide your employees with locked shred boxes minimizes the chances of unauthorized people seeing your clients' personal and confidential information.

You should also emphasize that the employee should use a separate room for his or her home office, if at all possible. This keeps documents and the work computer away from most prying eyes. If your employee has no choice but to work at the dining room table, she should keep the work computer closed when she is not at the computer. The employee should also have a locked shred box where she can deposit printed documents and hand-written notes as soon as she no longer needs to refer to them.

Contact Gilmore

If you had remote employees and would like to give them the benefit of continuing to work from home, contact Gilmore to discuss your company's shredding needs. If you are not currently using a shredding service or are not happy with your current shredding services work, contact the office to discuss shredding services for your company.