On average, doctors spend around two thirds of their working time filling out paperwork instead of seeing patients. Depending on the size of an office, a typical HR department spends about two days a week managing and organizing paperwork. Apart from programmers and designers, most of the working population today spends too much time on a passive paper routine instead of actively working.
According to SignNow’s collected client data, it takes an average of 20 minutes to print out a document, address the envelope and mail it to a client. Emailing or faxing instead of snail mail saves you only 10 out of those 20 minutes, while the most time-consuming part is, of course, personal signing which – depending on the length of a document and the number of signers – eats away at anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours (!) of office time. And this is time spent on one client only!
A solution to the problem of wasted time is at your fingertips. The online office and the “Go paperless” movement aren’t exactly new ideas, they have been at the market for about two decades now. However, people tend to underestimate the impact that the paperless office may have as a performance booster. Here are some easy first steps to time saving and increasing the employee performance overall.
Rule Out Paper Mail
The less mail that is physically delivered to your office – the more time you have for actual work. If your company receives 100 envelopes a day – it’d take about 15 minutes to sort them out, 1 minutes to open each and another minute to sign all of them (forget reading). This is almost 4 hours of office time spent on envelopes only.
What To Do:
Send out a notice to all employees, clients and partners that your office is no longer accepting paper mail. Sign all documents using eSignatures. Make sure all employees, clients and partners are aware of the fact that electronic signatures are as legally binding as handwritten signatures. Do not accept paper junk mail or catalogs from other companies.
What You Get:
In some cases, the volume of time saving for your office manager may be up to 50% of their working day. Going paperless with your business’ mail means quicker operations thanks to more efficient online signing processes and thus – increased employee performance overall.
Save All Documents in Cloud Storage
Any document lying around in an office is at risk of being misplaced. It takes twice the amount of time to sort through a pile of documents than to locate a document in a digital folder (where you can search for the document’s title or keywords).
What To Do:
Relocate your entire document database to an online cloud storage. Today, the internet provides plenty of options in the form of Google Docs, Dropbox, PDFfiller, Document Groups in SignNow and more. Make sure all your employees know how to use the cloud storage database of your choice and can easily navigate its user-friendly interface. And lastly, look into integration capabilities between your cloud storage service and other software platforms your business is using.
What You Get:
Significant time saving thanks to quicker and easier searching and locating of any document in a matter of seconds. Access from any location worldwide (this feature is especially relevant for mobile users). More secure access to confidential documents, less risk of data breach.
Develop Your Own System of Naming
How many times have you had to rename/resave files from your colleagues because you found the title confusing or misleading? How many times have you had to rename internal documents before forwarding them to a client? Finally, how much time have you wasted searching for a document because you forgot what you named it? These all seem to be really minor office problems until the minutes of time they’ve siphoned from your daily working routine are added up. Over the course of a calendar year, wasted minutes become wasted hours and wasted hours become wasted days.
What To Do:
As a performance booster, introduce one common system of naming for the entire office. Make sure it is easy to remember and use. Test how it works with searchable keywords in the cloud storage you’re already using.
What You Get:
Faster and more accurate search results inside your database, contributing to time saving. More efficient document circulation free of client document confusion due to technical error.
Less Paper – More Saving
Simply calculate your average monthly expenses on office paper. Today, a standard pack of printer paper costs around $7-11. If your office saves 25 packs a month, your savings would be in the range of $250-275 which can be easily reallocated on something more useful.
What To Do:
Offer an incentive for your office to compete in teams (between departments, for example) for who is able to save more office paper per month. Guarantee wage bonuses for those who save the most. Grant your employees full control over what they’re able to use the saved funds for. If you’re going to spend this money – spend it on your people, not on paper.
What You Get:
A more organized office, with clear surfaces will be a performance booster for everyone. You’ll get rid of piles of old documents while your employees will have more resources for conducting their work.
Experience the Freedom of Telecommuting
Depending on an office’s location in city, employees may spend from 15 minutes to 2 and a half hours on commuting. Traffic jams, subway crowds, the fear of being late to the office – all of these contribute to lowering employee performance.
What To Do:
Let your employees work at least one day a week remotely (from home or any other place they like), this will serve as a performance booster. Since you’ve already opted for working with documents in the cloud, requiring employees to work at the office everyday is no longer a necessity.
What You Get:
Healthier employees with a more beneficial work/life balance. Money saved on office space management. Substantial time saving thanks to quicker circulation and completion of documents online.
Don’t Be a Control Freak
Many offices today have rather strict rules regarding the use of mobile devices and internet access. Social media comes under restriction and some companies have even banned mobile devices from use during office hours. Bans and restrictions provoke anxiety and increase employee stress levels. Instead of being a performance booster, they simply destroy motivation and the general morale of the office.
What To Do:
Remove any and all restrictions on mobile device usage and social media access. Statistics have shown that in some cases, an employee’s casual Facebook chat, some time spent playing a video game or just a five-minute chat with their children after school is out may result in morale boosts for employee performance.
What You Get:
Satisfied employees. More creativity in office work. Increased sales via non-standard channels.
Doing all these things at once may sound like mission impossible. We recommend you start with the easiest things: eSign and store documents in a secure cloud and calculate how much you save per month.
Once you’ve experienced the advantages of converting your document processes to a digital workflow, you’ll be ready to implement some of the additional performance boosters.
