The notion of implementing a paperless office for your documents is not new.

Companies may have laud-worthy intentions of going paperless, but “decision paralysis” sets in when they try, and the project often ends on the back burner. So, going paperless becomes “All talk and no action.”

However, isn’t it what everyone wants? Think of what we can accomplish by going paperless. We would:

  • Save resources by reducing our consumption of paper
  • Reduce rent for office space by getting rid of file cabinets
  • Protect our intellectual property by organizing and securing it digitally
  • Find the information when we want and need it

The payback can be impressive despite the difficulties and resistance to a paperless office.

Here are two actions you can take:

  1. Take the Dive Into the Deep End of the Pool: This approach calls for a big budget, time, and resources. This strategy is akin to the big bang theory—do it all at once. This requires a tremendous amount of preparation and consultation with employees; it requires visible and robust buy-in from top management. It also necessitates a formal, certifiable employee training process to simultaneously get everyone up to speed. Operations have to be re-engineered, and everyone in the organization is impacted. The project becomes all or nothing, and failure is not an option, nor is turning back.
  2. Dipping Your Toe in the Shallow End of the Pool: Working with your Document Management Solution Provider, you can begin at the departmental level. This offers a low-risk and practical approach to implementing your paperless office. You can select a department with an imminent paper problem, look for a solution and start there. The cost and risk of a solution at the departmental level are not as expensive and are contained within that department. Once you see success, you can move on to the following department and the next. There will be more buy-in and motivation as each department sees the results at lower costs. And from a training perspective, it becomes more straightforward, and the IT effort is not extensive. Best practices learned from the first department can be passed on to the next department. And, new departments learn by the “test” department’s errors and successes.

Every company does want to find a way to reduce or eliminate paper, and a departmental solution is the way to go!

Let FileBank, the premier electronic content management solution provider, show you the way to achieve a paperless operation with the “Dipping Your Toe in the Shallow End of The Pool,” just as we have for The East Orange School District’s Human Resources Department (East Orange, New Jersey).

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