Is your office also clumped up with papers? You need to find a way to turn your space into a paperless office.
Most business offices today are inundated with reams of paper. This usually not only tough to manage, organize, and store but can be mentally draining, too. Plus, all the paper we use in the workforce has to come from somewhere and adds to our environmental footprint.
If you want to make a change that’s better for the world, your team, your business budget, and yourself, there’s never been a better time to go paperless. This is just the time to reduce the clutter and streamline operations. If you are not sure how to do this, here are some inspirations to help.
Ways to create a mostly paperless office
#1: Set Goals
Come up with specific goals for your paperless office plans. In particular, set timelines you can use in your workplace for incremental changes. This way, your whole team will better understand what you’re trying to achieve and see how serious you are about the matter.
You might want to set an initial goal of reducing paper use by 20 percent in the first year, for instance, and a 50 percent reduction after three years. This could bring an outcome of about 80 or 90 percent reduction in usage after five years.
There’s no right or wrong here, but come up with some goals so you and your team have something to strive for.
#2: Examine Current Habits
Next, examine current usage habits since you can’t tell how much of a reduction you’ve made if you don’t measure things before starting. For example, track how many reams of paper you buy each month or quarter. Now, get your staff members to make notes about when in their day they use paper and how they use it. Examples include printing, photocopying, receiving documents in the mail, etc.
Analyze how much paper gets put in the recycling bin or shredded, too. Plus, it helps to track the number of pages printed and photocopied per person. Many multifunctional printer machines these days have audit software to give you usage reports.
#3: Create New Processes
To help your team transition to a paperless workspace, create new processes for them to follow in their day-to-day tasks. Develop checklists to help people see paths for making better choices, and detailed step-by-step procedures for dealing with mail, compiling reports, etc.
For example, have admin staff note all the physical magazines, bank account, and credit card statements, that come in the mail and contact relevant individuals and organizations asking to swap to digital communications instead.
Digitalize as many elements of your business model as possible. This could include accounting, contracts, reporting, planning, human resources, and marketing. Start with those processes that account for much of your printing or photocopying. Reviewing and updating one method at a time also helps to stop your employees from becoming overwhelmed.
#4: Move Data to the Cloud
One of the best ways to make significant cuts in your firm’s paper usage is to move data to the cloud. Choose a top platform such as Amazon’s popular S3 buckets service, Google Cloud Services, or Microsoft Azure to store company information. Doing this will enable your team to upload, download, edit, and otherwise work with documents, images, videos, and the like from anywhere in the world.
In turn, there’s no need for people to print out details to share with colleagues or worry about having to email things constantly, which can be annoying and timewasting.
#5: Make Life Easier for Your Staff
You can do other things to make life easier for your personnel, so they’re more likely to follow through with paperless procedures. For example, take the company mailing address off your website and other listings or stress that the preferred communication method for the firm is digital. That way, you get less paper arriving in the mail.
Enable e-signature services, so there’s no need to print contracts for signing and set up online applications and forms to get rid of paper versions.
Phase-out paper-based tech tools such as faxes and printers and set people up with more mobile devices, too. These can be used to take notes and minutes in meetings and hooked up to digital screens to share information. They can also be taken to meetings held elsewhere, rather than printing pitch and presentation material.
#6: Track Improvements and Incentivize Employees
Lastly, track improvements closely over time so you can see if and when you’re getting closer to goals. Also, notice progress to keep up motivation. You might want to incentivize employees with bonuses or awards for those who cut their paper usage the quickest, come up with helpful ideas, or otherwise make significant gains.
Moving to a paperless office isn’t something you can make happen overnight. Be patient and make small but powerful changes over time, though, and you’ll soon start seeing results.
