Client overview
Pilgrim’s Shared Services Ltd (“Pilgrim’s”) was established in 2022 to provide cross-functional support – across finance, IT, HR, procurement, legal, treasury, and audit – to three sister companies within the Pilgrim’s Pride group: Moy Park, Pilgrim’s UK, and Pilgrim’s Food Masters. Together these businesses form one of the UK and Europe’s largest food producers, with a combined workforce of more than 20,000 people across sites in England, Northern Ireland, and beyond.
As the HR function supporting a workforce of that scale and geographic spread, Pilgrim’s is responsible for the custody, integrity, and accessibility of a substantial body of personnel records – information that is both operationally important and highly sensitive.
The challenge
Pilgrim’s held a legacy archive of paper personnel files distributed across twelve separate sites in the UK and Northern Ireland – a direct reflection of the group’s multi-site manufacturing footprint. In total, the archive comprised 324 crates containing 7,613 employee files. The files had accumulated over many years and across multiple predecessor businesses, with inconsistent filing conventions from site to site, mixed document conditions, and a wide range of formats bound together with staples, treasury tags, and ring binders.
The business had committed to migrating personnel records into its enterprise HR platform so that employee information could be managed centrally, accessed securely by authorised staff, and retained in line with modern data protection expectations. Before that migration could happen, however, the archive needed to be digitised to a consistent standard and indexed in a way that would allow records to be loaded into the target system cleanly.
The project presented several specific challenges:
- Geographic spread. Collections had to be made from twelve sites across the UK and Northern Ireland, each with its own operational constraints, contacts, and access arrangements, and with collections from Northern Ireland requiring additional transport logistics.
- Chain of custody. Personnel records are highly sensitive, containing personal data, contractual information, and in many cases medical or disciplinary history. Any loss or mishandling in transit would be a serious data protection incident.
- Variable document condition. Years of accumulated paperwork meant a significant proportion of files required physical preparation before they could be scanned reliably – removing fasteners, repairing tears, and unfolding documents.
- Accurate indexing at scale. With 7,613 files to process, each needed to be indexed against the correct employee and categorised by current status so that the output was immediately usable in the target HR system.
- Separation by site. Even though all records were destined for a single HR platform, Pilgrim’s needed the digitised output organised so that each site’s records could be identified and uploaded into the correct location within the client’s document management system (DMS).
The solution
Dajon delivered the project end to end – from on-site collection through to secure destruction of the originals – operating throughout within its ISO 27001 (information security) and ISO 9001 (quality) management systems.
Secure collection and chain of custody
Dajon’s team made scheduled collections from all twelve sites, including locations in Northern Ireland. Each of the 324 crates was barcoded before leaving site, establishing a tracked chain of custody from the moment the documents left the client’s premises through to arrival at Dajon’s secure scanning bureau. Secure transport arrangements, barcode scans at each handover point, and tamper-evident handling meant that Pilgrim’s had a clear, auditable record of exactly where every crate was at every stage of the journey.
Preparation and scanning
On arrival at the bureau, each of the 7,613 employee files was individually barcoded to link it to its source crate, site, and eventual index record. Files were then prepared for scanning: staples, paperclips, treasury tags, and bindings were removed; torn or fragile pages were repaired; and documents were unfolded and organised so they could be fed reliably through production scanners.
Scanning was carried out on Kodak high-speed production scanners, with image quality checks built into the workflow to catch issues such as skewed pages, poor contrast, or missed sheets before the file moved on.
Indexing and categorisation
Each digitised file was indexed against two core fields – employee ID and employee name – and categorised by employee status as either “live” or “leaver”. This distinction was important for Pilgrim’s: current employees needed to be accessible in day-to-day HR operations, while leaver records needed to be retained appropriately but held separately in line with the client’s retention policy.
Upload to the client DMS
Once indexed and quality-checked, scanned files were uploaded into Pilgrim’s document management system. Because each of the twelve sites required its records to land in a distinct location within the DMS, the upload process was configured to route files to the correct site folder automatically, using the barcode and indexing data captured during scanning. This preserved the site-level structure Pilgrim’s needed while still delivering a single, consistent digital archive.
Secure storage and compliant destruction
Following scanning, the original paper documents were retained in Dajon’s secure storage facility for an agreed hold period, giving Pilgrim’s time to validate the digital records and complete their migration into the HR platform with confidence. Once the client formally authorised destruction, the originals were destroyed to BS 15713 standards – the British Standard for the secure destruction of confidential material – with certificates of destruction issued back to the client for their records.
Results
The project delivered several clear outcomes for Pilgrim’s:
- 7,613 personnel files digitised from 324 crates across twelve sites, producing a clean, structured archive ready to feed into the enterprise HR platform without further remediation.
- Site-level organisation preserved within the DMS, so records remained easy to locate and manage in a way that mirrored the business’s operational structure.
- A single, auditable chain of custody across all twelve collection sites, documented end to end via crate- and file-level barcode tracking.
- Reduced physical storage burden, with paper originals securely destroyed to BS 15713 standards once the client was satisfied with the digital output.
- Improved data protection posture, replacing a dispersed, paper-based archive with a centrally managed digital record appropriate for modern UK data protection expectations.
Why it worked
Several factors contributed to a smooth delivery:
- A single accountable partner. Dajon handled collection, preparation, scanning, indexing, upload, storage, and destruction under one engagement, giving Pilgrim’s a single point of accountability rather than a chain of suppliers.
- Rigorous chain of custody. Barcoding at crate and file level, combined with ISO 27001-aligned handling, meant the client could trust that sensitive personnel data was protected at every stage – including during the Northern Ireland leg of collections.
- Attention to downstream usability. Indexing choices and the site-based upload structure were designed with the target HR platform and DMS in mind from the outset, rather than being bolted on at the end.
- Quality management throughout. Working within ISO 9001 processes ensured that image quality, indexing accuracy, and process consistency were controlled at each step across a geographically complex project.
Looking ahead
With personnel records digitised, indexed, and in the DMS, Pilgrim’s has the foundation it needs to complete the migration into its enterprise HR platform and to manage employee information centrally across the group going forward. The same chain-of-custody and bureau-scanning model can readily be applied to other record types – from finance and operations documentation to site-level compliance records – whenever the business is ready to take the next step.