2020 Refresh: Why It’s Important to Get Rid of Workplace Clutter

A workspace without clutter is good, not only for productivity, but for mental health as well.

While working in a cluttered space, it may even be difficult to recognize the significant costs:

Time: Searching through stacks of papers for a specific document or for an email in an inbox can take up valuable work time. It may seem insignificant but add all of that time up and it’s surprising how much productivity can be increased.

Money: Rather than focusing on responsibilities, employees are forced to dedicate portions of their time to seek out and gather information or find files. Not only is money lost for lost productivity, but with a cluttered workplace also comes the financial risk of a data breach. Lost or stolen documents have the potential to cost companies thousands of dollars.

Reputation: A cluttered office sends a message of disorganization to employees and visitors. Whether privacy laws are being followed or not, people may have concerns about compliance simply because of appearance. Additionally, not only do data breaches have the potential to cost money, they can also have very negative impact on organizational reputation.  

Stress: Having a cluttered workplace has been linked to higher levels of stress. A more organized workspace is optimal for a culture of productivity and success, while a cluttered workspace can cause feelings of anxiety and disorder.
 
Making Decluttering Simple

To reduce clutter, implement a Clean Desk Policy so that an organized workspace is established as a best practice throughout the organization.

Partner with an Expert

Another common strategy to reduce clutter and better protect the workplace is to partner with a secure document destruction expert. The two types of shredding services are: regularly scheduled service and occasional (on-demand) purges.

A few of the benefits or regularly scheduled service are:

• Peace of Mind: The shredding company takes care of everything including scheduling, providing locked consoles (for the collection of documents), and security-trained professionals who remove documents for secure destruction on- or off-site.
• Storage: Data doesn’t accumulate – and require storage – between shreds (which happens with infrequent purges).
• Organization: Reduced clutter in the office overall
• Efficiency: It is more efficient to have a service contract rather than having to reach out each time for occasional service. It is more convenient to have a service contract rather than to have to call for occasional service.
• Price: Regularly scheduled service is more cost efficient in most cases.
• Compliance: There is proof for customers and third parties who are increasingly demanding this kind of information security from any company they do business with.  

To dispose of clutter on an occasional, on-demand basis, a one-time shredding service is also an option. Any amount of clutter can be disposed of, as one-time services will collect anywhere from a few boxes of paper to a full storage room of documents.

Learn more about how we can protect your documents and hard drives by contacting us to get a free quote and security risk assessment.