As the pandemic seems to stabilize, companies and organizations rethink their models and workspaces to face this new stage and adapt to emerging needs such as teleworking, hybrid work options (working some days at the company and others from home) and free up office space to ensure social distance between employees.
A crucial issue in this transformation process is to promote the digitization of files and records that occupy space in the facilities, to eliminate paper, an issue that 66% of leaders, consulted for a joint IDC study, consider very important, market intelligence experts and Iron Mountain.
In fact, it is considered that the digitization of the documents that organizations have on paper is the best option that could have been implemented to be prepared before the pandemic, according to the report ‘Rethinking the workplace’, by the US company IM.
Companies want to achieve a more digital environment in which there are fewer physical documents and in which employees themselves can access information quickly and efficiently, wherever they are, according to (IM).
A practical example is the handling of the mail, according to the experts of this firm with headquarters in Boston (Massachusetts, United States).
“When there is information in electronic and paper format at the same time, the work of the employees slows down drastically, more if they cannot access the facilities every day to access the physical documents. Having tools for scanning and digitizing mail on paper will allow a more agile work from anywhere “, they point out.
THE ‘PARADOX OF PAPER’.
People have been talking about the ‘paperless office’ for so long that it seems almost synonymous with the idea of a digital workplace, but “it is and at the same time it is not,” they point out from (IM), referring to what which they call ‘the paradox of paper’.
“This paradox is basically that, despite the well-documented benefits of reducing paper, such as lower costs, better for the environment and less clutter, the habit of using paper is difficult to break,” they say.
Many people are simply more comfortable working with documents that they can get their hands on, regardless of the costs of this habit over time, according to IM.
They explain that, although the initial outlay to create a paper record (buy the paper and print the document) is minimal, the costs rise from that moment, mainly due to the work involved.
Studies show, according to these experts, that an average employee spends 25% of their workweek, filing, copying, indexing or searching for documents.
Although cybercrime attracts a lot of attention, paper records also suffer a significant number of data, privacy and regulatory violations, and paper is also highly vulnerable to theft and damage due to natural disasters, such as floods, which They can affect the continuity of a business, they indicate from IM, but “despite all this, the attractiveness of paper in the office remains strong,” they lament.
The digital workplace is unlikely to be a death sentence for paper, but if it is not possible or practical to completely dispense with this medium, it is best to manage its use, striking the right balance between digitization, storage and safe disposal. of the documentation and paper, they propose from IM.
To make document digitization a success, IM recommends that companies focus on the user experience, defining – together with employees who search for documents on a daily basis – those brands, labels and other metadata (“data about the data ”) that are more realistic to quickly find the documents you are looking for.
THE ADVANTAGES OF DIGITALIZATION
A basic step that companies can take so that those employees reluctant to upgrade feel more comfortable working with paper, is to encourage them to become aware of the multiple advantages of digitization.
1.- Access immediately and in an easy and ecological way to the information they need, when they are working remotely.
2.- Take advantage of the valuable office space that is vacated by converting physical documents into digital ones for other purposes.
3.- Consult the information digitized and encrypted by a provider, in a secure way through a network with restricted access with its own and individualized keys.
4.- Access and make visible the documents -stored in cloud repositories or in business content management systems- much better than if they are in a pile of papers.
5.- Find digitally the scanned content they are looking for, in dozens of languages and different file types, using keywords, using character recognition technology (OCR).
“On the other hand, at work time is money and saving the hours that are currently lost in searching for paper documents, allowing them to dedicate them to a more valuable job, is a direct consequence of digitization,” Juan Luis explains to Efe. Regidor, sales manager, at Iron Mountain Spain.
He adds that digitization “also makes it possible to free up space in offices and workstations, make them more flexible and secure and take advantage of them for other more useful uses.”
Linked to saving time and space, Regidor highlights efficiency, since “digital files are easier to find and manage, so employees can work more productively and efficiently, and can perform their tasks in a more collaborative way and dynamics between the teams ”.
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