Paperless or Paper Less

Techno-fundis have been predicting paperless offices since Microsoft first introduced their Office applications to the world. With the emergence of email as an accepted business tool and the easy accessibility of the Internet the predictions have got more insistent. There are many, however, who believe that the concept of a paperless office is a myth and that in an ironic twist, working electronically actually uses more paper than ever before. Most people accept that it’s possible to achieve a paper less office and work towards that rather than aiming for total “paperlessness”.

There are numerous benefits to a paperless working environment, not least of which is the benefit to the natural environment and the untold saving of trees. More tangible business benefits include:

• A reduction in overhead costs as you purchase less paper and save ink by printing fewer documents. It’s no longer necessary to continually stock up on files and file dividers or purchase expensive filing cabinets.

• Time is used more productively as employees don’t have to hunt through vast filing systems for information that could possibly be filed in the wrong place. Information is available quickly and easily and changes can be made as soon as clients request them. Response time to customer queries is also drastically reduced.
• You can optimise the physical layout of your office space as you no longer need to take excessive storage needs into account.

• Information can be added to an office server so that all employees can have access to it. Access to sensitive information can be restricted with passwords. Email attachments make it easier to share information with partners, associates and even with clients when they need it.
• Electronic faxing converts incoming faxes into electronic documents so that they aren’t printed out. This makes it easier to store incoming information and reduces the chances of losing important communication. It’s also possible to send faxes directly from your desktop via email or Internet applications.

Data safety is an important consideration for any business that goes electronic. Your data needs to be protected against the malicious viruses and worms, as well as unforeseen accidents such as fires, floods and being dropped from a six-storey window (it could happen). You can keep duplicates of all your data on a server, save it to a disk, or you can use an off-site back up facility. Signing up with a reputable web host gives you peace of mind as they take care of all your security concerns. Back up systems are usually standard features included in all hosting packages.

Are people ready for a paperless office? Not according to Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper who wrote The Myth of the Paperless Office, which looks at how using paper helps people make sense of the work that they do. They came up with the concept of “affordances”, which is the range of activities that an object is capable of performing. Paper can be written on, folded, held, and carried. It has a tangible presence as opposed to the ethereal nature of electronic documents.

The more tangible and the more “affordances” that an object has, the more comfort people take from it. Based on this finding, Sellen and Harper believe that a truly paperless office will never exist.

Recommended sites:

http://communication.howstuffworks.com/how-paperless-offices-work1.htm

http://www.buyerzone.com/office_equipment/document_management/paperless-office.html

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=8501