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CORPORATE HEALTH
It’s time to realise the paperless office dream
Anita, the CEO’s personal assistant was rummaging through a pile of paper searching for a document, which her boss wanted to be faxed immediately to a client. She wished there was less of paper on her desk to wade through. In spite of her efforts to organise and file documents, the paper mountain just seemed to be growing.
Sounds like a familiar story? Wished you could clear all that clutter and work in a ‘paperless’ office? Well, decades after the idea was propounded, to run a paperless office still remains a dream.
With the advent of the computer in almost every workplace, the next logical step was to reduce the usage of paper.
The dream was to run the office using computers alone. But the concept still remains elusive to achieve, on the contrary Abigail J. Sellen and Richard Harper claim in their book The Myth of the Paperless Office that the usage of e-mail has in fact increased the usage of paper by 40 percent. The authors conclude that going paperless might not be entirely possible rather it would be more practical to use both paper and electronic devices for optimum benefits.
Research says that the very devices that are designed to reduce the use of paper like scanners have in fact increased its incidence. Such devices can even print the documents and being affordable, are widely used in offices to print at will.
With printing becoming more accessible to workers, it is only natural that they take more printouts than necessary. A survey by RISI, a U.S based research firm that tracks the usage of forest products found out more than 120 pounds of paper was used by the average US worker.
Another research firm found out that last year, the amount of paper printed by US firms equalled that of 15 to 20 million trees. Economy wise, according to the Xerox Company, for every dollar spent on printing a document, six dollars are spent on handling and distribution of that document.
Xerox also found out that more then half the documents that are printed find their way to the dustbin within 24 hours.
It is time that companies adopt a paperless way of working. This will not only be pro-environment and reflect the company’s ecological consciousness but will also result in conserving resources, in terms of costs and space. It saves employees time that is spent on looking for information among mounds of files. Besides less paper gives the office a clean, clutter less look to create the right impression among clients or customers.
With such advantages, organisations are slowly but surely adopting the paperless route. They have started using scanners to store documents in digital format, send electronic faxes instead of using a regular fax machine. Banks have started using the e-mail to provide statements and other communication to customers in PDF format. Some companies create and distribute internal reports in digital format. Some set up their printers to print on both sides so there is less paper usage.
Allotting one printer to minimum eight people so that they will think twice before printing because it is not convenient controls the printer usage of employees. Others restrict access to the printer for employees, some companies even track the printer usage of employees in a month or limit the number of printouts for workers.
With the advent of digital signatures it has become possible to do sensitive transactions and agreements digitally instead of relying on paper documents.
At the individual level employees should think twice before hitting the print command, they can scan received documents to their computer, have in-bound faxes delivered to their computer, use more of the intranet and e-mail for communication and use CDs to pass on information to others.
When information is stored in the form of files, it should be stored in the main office server so that everyone has access to it. Similarly sensitive documents should have specialised password access only. The filing should be systematic so that it is easy to use and access.
Of course when valuable information is stored digitally, there is always the risk of loss. To prevent loss it is important to create backups and store them in different locations.
To prevent theft of valuable information it should be encrypted before being stored in the hard drive and be only password accessible.
Though it is not easy to make a sudden change to a paperless office because of the familiarity, flexibility and security that paper affords, it is time we made a start. The change should start with us, and please remember do not print this article!
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HEMA GOPALAKRISHNAN
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