To anchor or not to anchor? That’s the modern business’s question. Surprisingly, it doesn’t come up that often, so you’ve found one of the few resources on it. Let’s talk about some of the situations where it’s appropriate to anchor your file cabinets to the wall: 1. Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornados, and Hurricanes Anchoring file cabinets is most important to consider in areas where earthquakes are likely to occur. The file cabinet could fall over and crush an employee or client, leaving you potentially liable for their medical costs. If things go slightly better, the file cabinet could fall over and spill out all its files. It costs you time and money to reorganize, and possibly recreate those documents. Tornados and hurricanes are less likely to cause this type of damage, but they can still produce winds with speeds of over 300 miles per hour. Anchoring your file cabinets is a good, added safety measure that could save a lot of stress and difficulty if one of these natural disasters were to occur. 2. To Protect Children from Getting Crushed You can never be too safe when it comes to cases involving liability for personal injuries. Children are curious and if they get away from their parents, they may open those drawers on your file cabinet. Then it becomes unstable, and has a high potential of falling. Yes, there’s probably a very low risk of that happening, but anchors don’t cost a lot and aren’t hard to install. How to Install Anchors You can ask if your CRN team will do this for you. You might also have a handy employee who can do the same. Here’s how to do it:

1. Anchors should be attached to the top of the cabinet, and one of its sides
2. All anchors should be fastened to a stud
3. Simply screw in sheet metal screws through the anchors and into the file cabinet
4. Use lag bolts to attach the clip to the wall or expansion bolts for concrete walls
5. If you have multiple cabinets you want to stand next to one another, use top clips and sheet metal screws to fasten them to one another. Then use clips near the bases of the file cabinets.
6. For additional safety, use latches or locks to keep drawers shut and fill each drawer from the bottom up if the cabinet isn’t already full

Bet you didn’t know there was so much to file cabinet safety! None of these things are hard, but they do make a big difference in the right situation.