Advantages to a Paperless Office
Posted by KS on August 26, 2009
I used to work as a technical writer for a contracting firm that did documentation for financial companies. The irony was that the big project I worked on was for a company that had actually gone paperless a few years before, and was using networked attached scanners to digitalize hard copies.
While I was working here, I observed some distinct advantages to having a paperless office, such as:
- It was much easier for employees to share documents, as they just had to go to the shared drive and open the required files. Much easier than having to send documents to another cubicle, floor, or even another building!
- The company saved tons of money on paper and printer ink and toner, since there was nothing for employees to print out to send to other departments — it was all done in the system.
- The company was actually helping to reduce waste and pollution, by using fewer paper products (fewer trees cut down) and creating less waste (paper trash).
Now, of course in order to enjoy these benefits you have to make sure you have a system in place that will truly eliminate the need for paper copies. This company sometimes found that paper copies were still needed in order for employees to do certain tasks, so it wasn’t truly as much of a paperless office as they might have liked.