Going Digital: Boosting Office Efficiency By Going Paperless
We now live in a digital age. Everything that we once relied on in the analog world can simply be stored and accessed by a click of a mouse or a tap on the screen. While many offices have continued to honor the tradition of managing hard copies of files, storing them, shredding them, and spending countless hours finding them, others have jumped feet first into the age of digital archiving. If you are not ready to jump all in, here are a few ways you can at least dip your toes in and why it will boost efficiency in the workplace.
Save Time
If you add up all of the hours it takes to handwrite copy, create folders to store them, move them from one room to another when they are no longer needed immediately, the time it takes to find that one piece of paper that you filed two years ago but forgot how you categorized it, make copies for distribution and deliver them to appropriate mailboxes, and then the time it takes to dispose of them, that adds up to a lot of man hours wasted on paper. Hours could easily be saved with just a few seconds of work if the correct digital software and storage were utilized by your company. What used to take hours to find can be located by a search word in moments. The man-hours saved can now be utilized for important and creative tasks in the office. Utilizing technology will create more efficiency in every process of paper handling.
Save Money
If you multiply all of the hours calculated above by the number of personnel tasked to manage paper copies in each department by their hourly wage, you are looking at a large loss of expense in both time and money just for handling hard copy. Not to mention, it costs money to store paper copies and to actually print paper copies. Costs to print paper copies alone can add up when you consider paper, ink, printer costs, maintenance costs, folders, labels, binding, and filing cabinets. By going digital, many of these costs become minimal, if not totally obsolete, decreasing expenses for both labor and supplies.
Better Communication
There is nothing worse than receiving a paper memo two days late just because it was waiting in a physical office mailbox. Invoices and payments can be delayed because of slow mail service. Updated guidelines and procedures that have not been communicated on time or new laws that are not being followed because employees are operating on an incorrect document can cause legal issues. All of this can be avoided with digital communication through emails, boards, or messaging accounts. This helps to communicate more effectively to your team in real time, without having the delay caused by circulating a paper copy.
How to Go Digital
First, do your research. Start with one area of the business. Can you go digital with your payroll and time clock system? Can you go digital in your communications? Can you move to an invoicing and payment system that is paperless? Start with one department. Find a software solution that will meet your needs and that will be cost-effective. Second, get the proper training you will need to learn how to use these programs to your advantage. Finally, train all other employees on how to use the digital software for their tasks. Just like email has taken over the world of fax machines, you can help your business to evolve, just one task and department at a time.
Going paperless isn’t as scary as it seems. Making sure that proper training is in place is important and helps to make the transition easier. Once the programs are in place, you can eliminate paper altogether and eventually go back to archiving the paper copies that you currently have in storage. There are companies that can help you to do that also. Going digital will save you time and money and will improve the efficiency and communication in your business, leading to fewer unnecessary expenses and delays in the long run.
