By: Barbara Hemphill

Barbara Hemphill — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:32:29 +0000

As the author of the book series Kiplinger’s Taming the Paper Tiger, I have been helping people organize their paper for 30+ years, and have watched as it became more and more difficult for individuals and organizations to do for a variety of reasons including:
1) Increased information
2) Increased workload
3) Decreased workforce
4) Highly transitional workforce
5) Highly mobile workforce
6) Decreased space
7) 24/7 expectations
Ever-changing legal guidelines
As a result, we have moved toward Almost Paperless™– recognizing that “paperless” is impossible in some instances. Although technology has come a long way, some things are just better in paper format at this point. Not all organizations have the budget to purchase the equipment (not just a scanner, but an OCR scanner for example, and multiple computer monitors). The change to paperless requires extensive cooperation between management and staff, and time and training to implement the process. However, that doesn’t mean that every organization shouldn’t get started on the road to paperless! One great way to “jumpstart” the process is what we call a “Productive Environment Day™. If you ask any 100 employees if they knew there were things in their office they could get rid of, 99 would say “Yes!” but most don’t take the time to do it. So we turn it into an “event” using an 18-point checklist we have developed through the years. At a recent series of Productive Environment days in a company with 400 people, we averaged recycling one ton of paper every two hours!

Comments on: Not a paperless office…

By: Barbara Hemphill