Converting to a paperless office — A simple guide for small & medium-sized businesses
Tips for Small-to-Medium Sized Businesses Going Paperless
For many small-to-medium sized businesses (SMEs) going paperless sounds pretty daunting, the act of going paperless isn’t as ruthless as it sounds.
Thousands of businesses every single week are moving from traditional workflows with paper to a relatively new process of working without paper.
As a small business, saving paper doesn’t just mean paper being saved, but a multitude of other benefits, like the following:
- Reduced search time — with PDF, online storage & access
- Workload Stress — Paper can be cluttering, with unified storage, office stress will be hugely reduced.
- Tidier Offices — Less paper, more to see on your desks
- With many many more benefits within the daily routine.
Larger organisations have adopted a paperless approach in the last few years, in order to comply with waste reduction and to curb their use of paper in the ever-evolving world of work.
Bank of America is a perfect example, cutting its paper consumption by 25% in a two year span, by increasing the use of online forms and reports, and doing simple small habits like double-sided copying and lighter-weight paper.
That’s only reducing their paper consumption.
Imagine Paperless.
Of course, for a small business or even a medium sized one, there’s less politics, so getting to reduce your paper use or even going totally paperless wouldn’t be impossible. Even the act of saving the world’s paper use can be a massive inspiration for you and your staff, with many people not knowing that over 40% of the wood pulp going toward paper production.
Traditional Methods
Now, if you lined up all of your office of 10 people, at least 4 of them would most likely refer to themselves as “paper people”. That’s right!
According to a study, 40% of people describe themselves as “paper” individuals in the workplace. This is very much a traditional approach to work and an approach that many people adopt to this day.
The biggest wastage of paper in the office are the following:
- Choosing Fax over Email
- Printing Emails
- Printing Presentations
- Paper being used as note-pads
- Envelopes
- Poor use of recycle bins
The Guardian newspaper in the UK outlines a lot about how businesses are wasting paper and how the waste situation is affecting our environment.
Your Guidebook to the Paperless Office
The $600 Scanner
First things first, going paperless doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.
For businesses that are eagerly looking to buy the $600 scanner, that might not be necessary, sadly! When it comes to gear, you just need the internet itself and a few software recommendations to get you into the pattern.
TIP: No need for the big scanner. Most of the ground work of scanning in documents can be done with your printer or in this 21st century we live in, your smartphone, amazingly. So why not start scanning in documents as you go.
Your Printer
You’ve invested a lot into your printer. Don’t fret, we’re not chucking it out!
Your printer will work fine and in lots of different situations, maybe a client isn’t as “paperless” as you’d like them to be, so keeping the printer for situations like this will keep them happy until you’ve changed their mind.
TIP: Our advice would be to keep the printer but be strict around the use of the printer. The first week will be the hardest, people going about their days, forgetting, but after this, start pushing people to reduce their use by sending things digitally or bringing them digitally to a meeting.
Storage Bay
This is where the software comes in.
Now there are a host of file storage services out there to choose from, so there are plenty to go away and consider, but the actual act of storage is the important thing.
TIP: It’s time to speak with your team. Storing files digitally can be a new mission for them. Get your team to create a clear-cut folder system inside of the chosen resource and then upload existing, new and any loose files into each of the folders. Easy as that! Scan in documents, bring them in from emails, focus on getting the full historical document storage into your storage tool.
Ditch the Notepads
Loose bits of paper, occasional notepads, this is how a lot of us take notes and it’s still going to carry on don’t worry. The important thing is being aware of how much you and your team are using, not the actual use itself.
You can’t just say “no” to Sally’s 10-year use of note-pads. But introducing a few alternatives for the team to use will help promote lack of wastage.
TIP: Finding a note-pad like application won’t take you long, the important thing is to make your team aware about how they can upload and connect to other applications with that resource. Allowing them to share, upload and make notes collaboratively will help to provide the team with transparency.
Meetings…
Meetings can be a drag and sometimes when your team bring in hundreds of pages of documents to scour through, it can make it pretty painful. Well, going paperless can help to solve that for small and medium sized businesses.
Meeting notes can now be made digital and keep digital.
TIP: Using a tool that helps capture meeting agenda, notes and follow-ups will really save you a huge amount of time when you are going about meetings. You and your team will be thankful after a few meetings of paperless situations. Meetings will even seem shorter thanks to this.
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