Is your business constantly left under a pile of paperwork? Are other important tasks being ignored or forgotten because all of your time is being taken up by the tasks you need to complete relating to paperwork and other such challenges? That’s not a situation that’s good for your business and it means that it’s time to make a change.
There are lots of ways to reduce the admin burden your business feels. Some of these changes are simple and others will require a little more thought and effort. But if you want to make sure your business is always on the right track and never left with unnecessary problems caused by an overload of paperwork, it’s worth making these changes.
Relax the Office Rules
The office rules might be making people use more paper and print out more things than they really should. Strict regulations and lots of paperwork tend to go hand in hand so see if there’s anything you can do to fix that. Ask yourself what’s really necessary when it comes to administration and paperwork. Sure, some stuff is vital even if it creates paperwork. But that might not be the case for everything.
Review Your Admin Processes Regularly
Reviewing your admin processes could be something that your business really benefits from. See where your processes fall short and how they might be leading to more admin and paperwork for you and your team than is really necessary. Strong processes should always seek to streamline your approach and reduce areas of waste such as excessive admin tasks and unnecessary paperwork, so review these processes as regularly as possible.
Scan Rather Than Storing Paper Physically
Scanning paperwork rather than storing it in a physical storage folder or location can make a massive difference to how you deal with paperwork. It’s much better for it to be stored on a computer than to be taking up valuable space in your office, and that’s something that you should think about. With modern backup systems, storing documents this way is also safer and more secure too. You can use the cloud for even more secure backups if you want to.
Go Paperless with Banking and Other Bills
Going paperless is an option for most businesses now. It’s certainly the case that most banks and other places you pay your bills to will allow and even encourage you to go paperless. This makes sense and it’s something you should take advantage of. It’s good for those businesses and it’s good for you as well. Anything that reduces the amount of paper taking up space in your office can only be positive.
Delegate More Responsibilities
By delegating tasks and sharing responsibilities, it can actually reduce admin workloads. It might not mean that less admin work is being done, but it will at least help you to share the burden a little better and that’s never a bad thing for a business such as yours. When one person is taking on all of the admin burdens, it becomes unsustainable and that’s not what you want at all. It’s not only bad for that one individual but it can also have a knock-on effect on other employees and the business as a whole.
Have Your Mail Emailed to You Instead
When you have your mail scanned and emailed to you by a service like those offered at https://physicaladdress.com, it makes life so much easier. It means that you have less paper and few envelopes cluttering up your office and taking space away from other more important things. You can look at it all digitally and work your way through it that way instead. It’s easier for most professionals to deal with it that way.
Invest in New Digital Systems That Work for You
If you have old systems that don’t harness digital technology, you should think about replacing them with new up-to-date systems that allow better use of digital platforms and less reliance on paper. This is something that you really can’t afford to ignore because the world will pass you by and you’ll be left in the past if you don’t invest in such systems. Yes, it’ll mean spending money but it’s the kind of thing that’s worth spending money on.
Make Printing Less Appealing
When your staff members don’t see printing as something that’s appealing to them, they’ll stop doing it. It’s about offering them alternatives that are better and more convenient for them. Sure, there will still be times when they need to use the printer, but they’ll use it a lot less. And this will then obviously result in less paperwork in your office as a whole. Let people know that there are alternatives that they can use instead of printing and offer guidance and training on how to do that if necessary. Due to the switch to other alternatives, there might be unused ink and toner cartridges left. You can give those away to Sell Toner.
Use Shared Documents More
There are so many great tools out there for you to make the most of these days. Shared documents offer a fantastic example of this. Shared documents can be distributed and accessed by a range of relevant people. They can then even be worked on collaboratively which is ideal in teams working on projects together as a unit. Evernote and Google Docs are both really good for sharing and collaborating without using paper resources. Find the software solutions that work best in your office. Each workplace is different so take those unique factors and qualities into account.
If you’re feeling drowned in paperwork and administration in your office, these are the changes that you desperately need to put in place. A few simple steps in the right direction will make a world of difference for your business in the end. Don’t feel like the admin and paperwork struggles you’ve been dealing with are natural and inevitable because that’s probably not the case.
