Should You Shred Your Old Pay slips?

“Should you shred your old pay slips?” is a question that likely haunts many individuals as they attempt to declutter their home office or manage their personal records. They seem to collect dust so it’s no wonder why so many businesses are going paperless.

For many companies, however, they still choose to go the paper route. Should you, as the employee, keep every slip you get or should you throw it away, or, more specifically, shred them?

Reasons To shred your old pay slips

There are many reasons shredding your old pay slips is a good idea. The first is, obviously, that they carry confidential information.

Even if you simply throw the pay slips in the bin, it could mean your address, bank account number and any other sensitive data could fall into the wrong hands.

Not to mention that, by shredding confidential waste, you actually create less waste and protect the environment. Sounds unusual, but it’s true!

Reasons Not to shred your old pay slips

If you’re a meticulous record-keeper, the idea of shredding your old payslips might make you shudder. How are you supposed to keep track of all your ingoings and outgoings?

That’s the one thing shredding payslips does that is a definite drawback – once it’s shredded, it’s never coming back. Record-keeping will then become impossible if you have not got another copy.

Conclusion

While we encourage people to protect themselves against any data breaches, we do recognise why not everyone would want to shred their old payslips.

Our advice would be to keep a second copy somewhere, preferably on your computer in an encrypted file, so that you have a record even if you have to dispose of the paper copy.

We also advise not having anything from more than three months prior. If you want to keep things secure, you should keep the risk at a minimum.

How can CDDL Help Shred your old Pay Slips?

If you do decide to shred your pay slips, CDDL can help you with that! With confidential waste services across Kent, we can help you safely and securely shred your old pay slips. For more information contact our team today.