Many of us are starting to realise the benefits of remote working; a better work-life balance, increased productivity, time and money savings and a positive environmental impact. More and more businesses are embracing the work from home revolution. However, with this new way of working comes increased risk of a security breach and managing your documents.
Keep in control of your documents and staff by following these simple steps:
Prepare guidelines
Set clear guidelines for remote working as well as the secure destruction of confidential information. Create easy guides with rules to follow for your team to ensure GDPR compliance whilst working from home.
Use off-site storage
If you no longer have an office to store all your files, you may ask yourself where are you going to put them all and are they going to take up room in your home? An easy solution is to store your files off-site. A secure facility ensures your files are safe and an online portal allows a quick request for retrieval of the files you need.
Go digital
Having too many paper files lying around the house can be stressful and they’re easy to misplace. Scanningyou and your teams’ files can allow you all to work collaboratively while being remote. Having access to all your files in once place, that can be accessed at any time and any place.
Train your employees
Ensure your employees know the best practices in secure information management and destruction. Ensure all employees understand what confidential information is and the consequences to the business if a data breach were to occur.
Limit access to confidential data
Check your employees’ files have the right access to the files they need. Scanning all your hard copies allow you to set password protection and user accesses permissions to ensure your files are only accessed by the correct people.
Secure digital devices
All files, laptops and internet connections need to be password protected with a secure password and activated security settings and firewalls.
Secure remote working
Encourage employees who regularly work from home to have a lockable storage box or filing cabinets in their home office to keep important and confidential documents safe.
Secure paper documents
If the business still has an office, ensure employees drop off confidential documents regularly to be securely shredded or stored off-site. Home shredding is an option for those who have chosen to close the office for good. A secure shredding service can be arranged as a one-off or on a scheduled regular basis, depending on your business needs.
It’s not just about paper
Security breaches can come in all forms of confidential waste, not just your paper files. Protect your brand by ensuring all your staff understand the need to securely destroy anything branded or out-dated products. This type of waste can be securely destroyed and collected from your home, protecting your brands reputation.
Hard drives can also be handled securely by shredding all the data from any old hard drive/electronic waste. Think twice before discarding an old hard drive in your home recycling bin as the data can easily be recovered, leading to a data security breach.
Allow our team to help protect your data whilst remote working, contact us for a quick quote.
