Top 5 Common Mistakes with Personal In-House Paper Shredding in the Office

Here are Proshred^®’s top five avoidable personal in-house paper shredding mistakes in offices:

1. Inadequate Shredder Maintenance—Most shredders need to be oiled regularly to keep in good working order.  Additionally, shredders must be emptied, and the contents disposed of frequently to prevent build-up. In many cases, employees are not aware of the maintenance requirements of their company’s paper shredder and it falls into disrepair.

2. Improperly Shredding Non-Traditional Materials—Advances in personal in-house paper shreddinghave equipped shredders with the ability to accept materials like staples and CDs. However, many shredders, even ones claiming to be able to handle these materials, tend to jam, especially at high volumes. These materials—paper clips, staples, credit cards, and computer disks– can lead to serious damage to your shredder, causing delays in your business’s shredding schedule.

3. Over-Shredding—Only certain shredders are designed to handle continuous shredding, and a large number of sheets at any one time. Shredders without thermally-protected motors will break with overuse. Also, using too much paper, especially irregular paper like cardstock, will harm the motor and lead to frequent jams.

4. Poorly Scheduled Personal Paper Shredding—Offices that do not set a regular shredding schedule, and follow it closely, will frequently find themselves overwhelmed with the number of documents they need destroyed. Such a build-up leads to the improper handling of confidential documents and takes employees’ time away from their regular work.

5. Shredder Accidents—When any of the above problems occurs, an employee’s immediate response may be to try and correct the mistake by “fixing” the shredder or getting the office back on its shredding schedule. Hasty corrections can cause personal in-house paper shredding accidents which harm the employee, the shredder and the office as a whole.

If your business is choosing to opt out of a personal shredder, or just needs some help keeping up with the quantity of documents that are to be shredded, Proshred^® can help! Proshred^® Security is equipped to handle all your paper shredding needs, both safely and effectively.