Productivity in your workplace can disappear in a flurry of disorganized documents and overflowing file folders. Embracing document management techniques can streamline your team’s workflow and make it much easier to stay organized.
Changing the way your team handles documents can have a drastic impact on your business’s revenues and even shape the culture of your workplace. According to CIO Magazine, opting for a paperless, cloud-based system can boost productivity and efficiency without raising costs. If you are looking for ways to use technology to increase productivity in your workplace, one of the best places to start is document management. The following five tips are right out of a document management specialist’s playbook.
1. Avoid Productivity Bottlenecks
Fully outlining the procedures that a document needs to go through as it enters your system can boost productivity, particularly as you switch from a legacy system to a SaaS or cloud-based solution. A checklist or other cheat sheet can ensure that employees are entering and tracking documents correctly. This clear process can also usher documents through the crucial steps of scanning, editing, working, and signing. Once you have created and distributed your document management checklist, review the system a few weeks after implementation to identify bottlenecks or places where documents are getting stuck.
2. Cope with Personalities
Believe it or not, different members of your team have different methods of handling documents based on their personalities. These differing styles can take a significant toll on your workplace’s overall productivity. Identifying each personality type can help you come up with a plan to get everyone on board and share more efficiently. Some document management personality types include:
- Old-School Luddites:These employees avoid using technology and can impact your whole setup if they have seniority.
- Obsessive Inspectors:These hard-working staffers just cannot let go of a document until everything is perfect. They may hold up paperwork and preventing the rest of your team from accessing it until it meets their unnecessarily high standards.
- Ladder Climbers:These power players may hold on to documents to increase their bargaining power and only pass them on when it is beneficial to themselves.
- Inefficient Slowpokes:These team members may not even take the time to understand document management technology and protocols you have put in place.
3. Prevent Document Duplication
Duplicate copies of the same document may seem like a good thing, but this situation is a disaster waiting to happen. If one employee works on copy A and another works on a copy B, you will eventually end up with two or more totally different documents. If you are in an industry where standardization or compliance is important, duplication is more than inefficient; it can harm your business. A cloud solution with one living document for each part of a project ensures there is no duplication and that your team will always get the correct information.
4. Train Your Team
Training all members of your team to use your document handling system is essential for using technology to increase productivity in the workplace. Everyone should know where and how to find the documents they need; otherwise, delays can set in due to miscommunication. Training also ensures that your protocols are followed and the system you have worked so hard to implement is used. You can enlist the help of a document management specialist who has trained teams in the past for a professional learning experience your employees will not forget.
5. Prepare for Disaster
Having all your documents accessible in the cloud is an incredible productivity booster, but only when your team can reliably access those documents. A disaster recovery plan is essential for any cloud-enabled business. System monitoring, offsite data backups, and securing proprietary data are all document management priorities that your team should invest in to prepare for the worst.
If you want are interested in using technology to increase productivity in the workplace, contact Business World at 866-981-1230 to schedule an appointment with a document management specialist.
