Moving office advice
If things weren’t stressful enough when you move offices, you also need to consider what you do with your physical and online data. Yes, that’s right, your data still needs to be covered properly and in accordance to all the usual rules and regulations associated with the Data Protection Act (DPA) and GDPR.
But rather than looking at this as a negative, as most companies and businesses do, organisations should look at this as the perfect time to evaluate an area that is continually growing.
Some considerations are listed below:
- Spring Clean – by moving it allows you to review the data you already hold;
- Reduce your physical office data – instead of you storing the archive storage, let someone else manage this professionally, ensuring you are not holding data that should have been destroyed years ago;
- Retention Schedules – when you move offices there must be retention schedules in place listing all of the data you hold, including when it should be destructed;
- Data security – you must have adequate security processes in place to ensure no data is lost or mislaid, penalties for this can be severe;
- Improve your data retrieval processes – by scanning your documents rather than just moving them and storing them, you become more in control of your data, effectively safeguarding it, but also allowing ease of access perhaps via an electronic data and records management system (EDRMS) or portal;
There are regulations that govern the “moving” process - the principles of minimisation and storage limitations and these are referred to in both the Data Protection Act and GDPR.
Some of the regs can be complicated and quite detailed and you may need some help in this area.
That is where The Document Warehouse (TDW) can aid you at a stressful and difficult time. TDW can manage the full “moving data” process and put your mind at rest, allowing you to focus on the many, many other tasks to be completed during your office move.
Finally, by happy chance of doing this correctly, you could actually reduce archiving costs (destroying obsolete files that should not be stored) and also reduce the time spent looking for files, thus improving your effectiveness as a business – after all, time is money.
If you feel that you can benefit from help and advice in this area, then call The Document Warehouse (TDW) for some expert guidance and know-how!
