Modern workplace technology is constantly evolving. For decades, organizations had to manually file their documents. These days, paperless technology has allowed for organizations to maintain their files without the hassle of file cabinets and archives. While electronic documents have risen in popularity in recent years, many offices still have a high volume of physical paper documents. Additionally, many organizations including banks, law-firms and medical offices have documents that are subject to compliance, regulation and retention. Poor document management increases risk for document security, while lost documents can be disastrous for any organization. To ensure that your physical and digital documents are safe, here are a few tips:
Maintain Document Organization: Ever walk through the office and notice a large pile of papers lying around? Have you ever leafed through a file cabinet only to find that everything is out of order? These are not good document organization practices. Physical documents need to be stored in a secure location, with access given only to those qualified to handle them.
Know Who Has Access to Documents.
Be sure to classify which employees have access to certain documents. If you leave important documents with an employee who is not qualified to handle them, you can put your important documents at great risk.
Change Password Regularly: Your passwords to access your electronic documents should be strong and should be changed regularly. In 2015, “1234”, “ABCD” and company names are not sufficient passwords. Your password should be long and should include uppercase letters, lowercase letters and numbers. Also, to maintain consistent security, you should update your passwords every so often.
Implement Authorization Procedures: With E-forms, you have the ability to decide which employees have access to documents. You need to determine which employees you give access to. Determine if they are qualified and competent enough to handle sensitive documents.
Educate Your Employees: In order to maintain consistent document security, it is important to regularly discuss document safety with your employees. Talk to them about document security procedures in the office that they should follow. Email them regularly with document security tips.
Go Paperless: Converting your physical documents to e-forms is the one sure way to increase document safety and reduce risk. Converting your documents to e-forms and storing them in the cloud, means that your document won’t be subject to the high security threats of normal paper. Once your documents are converted, you won’t have to worry about them getting lost, torn, stained destroyed or ending up in the wrong hands.