Latest News Stories

Information management problems waiting to happen: breaking health and safety rules

09 May 2013

Document storage has important and potentially costly health & safety implications that all employers are well-advised to heed.

The devastating effects of injury in the workplace

Official statistics make sobering reading. According to the Health & Safety Executive figures, falls, slips & trips account for more than half of all reported major injuries and almost a third of injuries that involve employees needing three days or more off work.

Handling injuries are the most commonly reported as well as the most frequent cause of absences lasting three days or longer – and the fourth most often reported category of major injury.

In total, an estimated two million working days are lost annually due to handling injuries, falls, slips and trips.

Risks to your staff caused by storing and destroying records

Despite these salutary statistics, it’s all too common for businesses to place boxes of files on office floors, where there is a risk of workers tripping over them.

There is also a danger of staff injuring themselves lifting and carrying heavy boxes of documents as office space becomes more and more congested.

A third, equally concerning health & safety issue is ensuring that staff are properly trained to insert sensitive documents into shredding machinery. If they are not, serious injuries could result from hair or an item of clothing getting caught in the shredding mechanism.

Removing dangers of injury by tackling the underlying issues

As information management problem solvers, we can remove these risks by tackling the source.

By outsourcing your document storage and records management to IBEX, you can radically reduce the danger of staff injuries resulting from slips, trips and heavy lifting. Our off-site records management facility and on-site records management consultancy service frees up office space, while ensuring swift retrieval of records when they are required.

Meanwhile, our secure destruction service means you needn’t buy your own shredding equipment and spend money on training staff to HSE standards in order to use it. We also give you complete confidence that your information has been destroyed in totally secure conditions.

To find out more about how your business or organisation can benefit from a fully integrated information management system, contact IBEX – the problem solvers on 01772 563146 or contact us via our online enquiry form.

IBEX helps house and manage documents for housing provider

03 May 2013

IBEX, the information management and document storage problem-solvers, recently helped design a tailored service for a north west housing provider.

Problem:

The client, which manages paperwork for over 10,500 council homes, required a solution to its documentation storage issues while making the management process more efficient.

The team at IBEX ran a consultation with the client and found that the filing system in place was time consuming and the current database needed to be managed correctly to ensure up to date locations of specific files were recorded. The clients records kept at the site took up a large amount of much-needed office space.

In fact since the transition across to IBEX it is estimated that 500sq ft of office space has been reclaimed.

Solution

The solution was to develop a bespoke records management service which would work for all staff.

What IBEX delivered was a bespoke solution involving different access levels, a time efficient approach in the way documents were archived, a destruction service and a full on-line audit trail for each and every file which had been archived.

The new system now in place allows every member of staff the ability to know exactly what files need to be stored, how the files can be recorded for easy retrieval, and which files can be destroyed.

A tiered system has also been developed to set different user level permissions to guarantee sensitive information is kept secure and only available for retrieval to staff with access approval.

Outcome

Bringing in a new process to document management has helped the housing provider acknowledge the management aspects which proved heavy on time and resources and bring in a new cost-effective, easy to manage system.

The new process is already driving results – the tenancy and service manager at the housing provider said: “Since taking on the information management service at IBEX we have seen an increase in productivity, plus we are safe in the knowledge that we adhere to stringent security policies set by the government”.

“Following the recent transition of our records management, we’ve estimated that IBEX has helped us reclaim around 500 sq ft of office space too.”

IBEX works with businesses across the UK providing solutions to common document storage and records management problems both on a physical paper basis, along with scanning and digitisation, secure destruction and back-up media storage services.

For further information on how the problem solvers can help you, contact a member of the team on 01772 563 146 or fill in your details on our online enquiry form.

Information management problems waiting to happen: office manager taking media tapes home

29 Apr 2013

Welcome to the first in our ‘information management problems waiting to happen’ blog series. Today we concentrate on office managers taking media tapes home, the consequences and how we can help businesses improve the internal information management process.

Office managers are individuals whose job hinges on high levels of personal diligence and sound organisational abilities.

Even so, the practice of taking home that day’s media tapes is surprisingly widespread – and we have even heard reports of office managers putting media tapes in their desk drawers overnight.

This is not so much a problem waiting to happen as a catastrophe-in-waiting.

The importance of keeping your back-up secure

The logic behind back-up media tapes – which often contain business-critical and commercially sensitive material – is to ensure the total security of electronic data over a set period.

Clearly this wouldn’t happen if the media tape had been left in a desk drawer and the office was damaged by fire, flooding or another type of disaster.

True, the act of taking the media tape home means the office manager is effectively spreading the risk. But what if his or her house was burgled? Or the bag with the tape inside was snatched by a mugger? Or lost during the commute home? The list of possibilities is worryingly long.

If disaster strikes, the world will keep on turning – and so must your business

As information management problem solvers, it’s our job to comprehensively remove these concerns.

We understand how regulatory requirements and the potential loss of crucial information make it vital to properly protect your electronic data.

Our secure, off-site back-up media storage and rotation service delivers an integrated solution to managing this risk. This means that – should the worst happen – our expert staff will quickly locate the back-up media located within our specialist fire retardancy unit and deliver it securely to a recovery site of your choice.

To find out more about how your business or organisation can benefit from a fully integrated information management system, contact IBEX - the problem solvers on 01772 563146 or contact us via our online enquiry form.

Top five common business mistakes when it comes to information management

04 Apr 2013

1. Not having a standard method of recording what information is kept. Without a systematic and structured knowledge-base, you will lose vital documents with potentially damaging consequences for your business or organisation.

2. Giving archiving work to office juniors. It may seem like a sensible use of their time, but they will make mistakes, especially if they don’t have a sound understanding of how important your records are.

3. Being unaware of where your records are actually held. Security is clearly crucial to information management, but it’s no good having your records under lock and key in a location you can’t get to in the time you have available – which, in an emergency, will not be much.

4. Not implementing a rotational system for information management. This enables you you get rid of the records you don’t need to keep, while ensuring you hang onto those you do. It’s all too easy to build up a mountain of redundant information which makes it much less easy to locate current records.

5. Failing to set up an archiving procedure as part of your quality management system. If you aren’t methodical in the way you go about your record keeping, you will won’t be able to access records when you need them. At best you will give an impression of sloppiness; at worst you will leave yourself open to allegations of negligence.

To find out more about how your business or organisation can benefit from a fully integrated information management system, contact the information management gurus on 01772 563146 or fill in our online enquiry form.

Four things that keep office managers awake at night

05 Mar 2013

1. Are all your records organised and boxed up in a safe and accessible location? If not, and you need a vital document fast, you could be in deep water.

2. Have you been keeping a close enough eye on how long your records must be kept? If important documents have been disposed of before the regulatory period has elapsed, your finances as well as your reputation could suffer.

3. Can you access the information you need, when you need it? Having a reliable information management supplier to do all the running around will take a load off your mind.

4. Is your information in a safe place and are you happy with the location and security measures? Unless you are 100 per cent certain that there’s no risk of a breach of confidentiality, it’s worth speaking to a professional information management company.

To find out more about how your office management can benefit from a fully integrated information management system, contact Ibex on 01772 563146 or contact us today.

Information management challenges faced by housing associations

19 Feb 2013

Housing associations must manage enormous volumes of important information that requires long term storage – in particular, deeds and maintenance records. The challenges are stiff, but can be managed with a professional approach.

The importance of keeping your deeds in the right place

Deeds are vital for legal as well as regulatory purposes and must be kept securely and indefinitely. For this reason they can’t be stored in a standard filing cabinet in a back office.

When choosing to outsource the records management, many housing associations opt for a fire retardant storage facility which gives them complete assurance that the deeds are in a totally safe offsite location.

Ensuring instant access to your maintenance records

Repair and maintenance records are crucial because housing associations must be able to prove they have kept their properties in good order for the benefit and safety of their tenants.

If something does go wrong in a property, access to repair and maintenance documentation is essential to resolve an issue as soon as possible. If there are legal proceedings, the housing association must be able to produce documentary evidence that it carried out relevant repair or maintenance work to required standards.

For this reason, many housing associations opt for digital scanning of maintenance records because this gives them complete security and immediate access over a long period of time.

Cost-effective solutions are at hand

To find out how your housing association can benefit from a fully integrated information management system, contact Ibex on 01772 563146 or fill in our enquiry form.

Must-know facts about digitising paper records

13 Feb 2013

Q: Is it costly to convert paper records to digital ones?

A: Yes it is – and this means you should be very careful when deciding exactly what documents you are going to convert to digital.

Q: We have a bewildering body of of records – how do we decide what to digitise and what not?

A: The first questions to address are access and retention. At Ibex we are happy to discuss these issues with you and design a tailored system that meets all your needs.

Q: What sort of issues need to be considered when deciding whether to digitise or not?

A: Cost and value are the obvious factors at work here. For example, of you want to digitise a box of invoices, it might cost you £100, whereas for £35 you could have the paper copies stored for the required regulatory period. HR records are a whole different story. They must be constantly accessible and kept for as long as the employee is with your firm – often for many years.

Q: Does the nature of my workforce make a difference?

A: Very much so. If most of your employees are field-based, remote workers they are going to need access to server-based information and in this case, digitisation is probably advisable. However, if your workers are office-based and physical access is not a problem, digitisation might not be cost effective.

If you would like further information, give our team a call today on 01772 563146 or use our enquiry form.

Trio of new contract wins for IBEX

22 Jan 2013

Information management and document storage specialist IBEX has banked three new major contract wins as it continues to expand in the professional sector.

New business wins include; Linder Myers Solicitors, Manchester, Cobains Solicitors, Blackpool and Thurnhills, Preston.

IBEX works with businesses across the north providing document storage and records management, scanning and digitisation, secure destruction and back-up media storage and rotation services.

Thurnhills, a family-run law firm with offices across Preston has not only opted for standard storage for its records but has also chosen a more tailored service by selecting to place documents in the unique fire retardant facility.

Sue Tait, practice manager, Cobains Solicitors said: “In our profession it is vital to keep confidential files for a varied number of years, but it is often hard to strike a balance between finding a suitable location which covers stringent safety requirements and allows access when required.”

“Previously we stored our documents at an off-site storage unit, however when we needed to access the files in certain time scales, we had to send a member of staff to retrieve the files which is time consuming and not cost effective.”

“Outsourcing our document management to IBEX gives us the perfect solution – we have the confidence that they are stored securely but we can also retrieve files quickly.”

The new contract wins will result in up to 3,000 boxes of confidential data being stored at the IBEX site, Essex Street, Preston.

Lorraine Birch, managing director at IBEX, commented: “In no other sector than the legal sector is it more crucial to manage the protection, storage and destruction of important information. We understand the need of professional firms for swift, efficient and completely secure document storage and records management and this knowledge has been key to our success in this area.

“Law firms need sophisticated programmes involving different levels of authority. We offer a system that restricts access to sensitive documents, but allows quick access for authorised individuals and this has helped a number of firms organise how they manage their files resourcefully.”

Although IBEX remains a specialist service provider for the legal and accountancy sectors, the firm has recently acquired clients across the broader business community, including social housing providers, insurance businesses, car dealerships, private hospitals, and telephone answering services.

How a fire retardant storage facility can make a huge difference to your business

08 Jan 2013

Q: Why should I fork out hard-won profits to store dusty old documents?

A: Certain documents are critical to the ongoing operation of your business, the security of its contracts, and its long term future. Leaving them in an unprotected environment could expose your business to potentially ruinous risks.

Q: What sort of documents are we talking about here?

A: ‘Critical documents’ cover a wide span of business activities, but typical documents that are highly important to your business include wills, deeds, historical records, business continuity plans, commercially sensitive material, and records that you no longer want to keep on your server.

Q: These documents have been gathering dust in our store room since time began. Why should we spend money on them now, when times are difficult?

A: Just because nothing has happened to your documents so far is no guarantee for the future. But more importantly, which is more cost-effective? Spending large amounts of time, resources and energy trying to recover lost information? Or spending that little bit extra on ensuring it’s protected in the first place?

Q: In that case, wouldn’t fire proof storage be a better option than fire retardant?

A: Full fire proofing storage for a large area is not viable or available. However, the interim measure of fire retardant facilities guarantees documents are safe for four hours after a fire has started, giving ample time to retrieve the undamaged material.

Key reasons why outsourcing document storage can save you money

02 Jan 2013

1. You can use the space for more productive purposes – for example a room used to store archives could accommodate two or three employees who are making money for your business, as opposed to standing still and doing nothing – like stacks of boxes of records.

2. Consistency of records management means you don’t have to train and retrain members of staff in how to manage your records. This reduces your overheads and raises your bottom line performance.

3. Consistency of approach also involves less use of internal resources to handle your documents. If your archive is full of material that is simply there because you haven’t had time to remove it, your staff will take even longer trying to locate records. Ultimately, this might mean managers becoming embroiled in a search – and the loss of even more time and energy.

4. Having an information or records retention policy in place means you don’t keep documents for any longer than you absolutely need to. As a result, you get less ‘grit in the works’. This frees up space for more productive activities and leads to more effective access and retrieval.

If you would like more information on how you can start to manage your records and documents effectively, call our team today on 01772 563 146. Alternatively fill in our online form.