The drive towards a more streamlined and refined working environment has been at the front of business incentives for quite some time. But now, as one in seven of the UK’s workforce is a home worker, this has changed from being a management responsibility to being down to the individual. And document scanning specialist, Pearl Scan, has offered remote workers advice for taking hold of the paperless movement and bringing it into their home offices.
The overwhelming benefits of operating a paperless working environment have been well-documented for traditional offices. Reduced costs of storage and hardware obviously has its attractions for companies, but for remote workers who do not have to factor in these costs, what advantages does moving into the 21st century and operating completely paperless bring?
Naveed Ashraf, Managing Director at Pearl Scan Group, said, “Home working offers up a plethora of incredible benefits for traditional office spaces, but also to those who work from home. The rise in remote working really does highlight the country’s adoption of technology and the freedom and opportunities it can bring. And although many have taken advantage of these developments, there are still some workers whose offices are cluttered with bits of paper, files and folders. But there are things they can do to refine these and make the most of all the usual productivity benefits offered.”
The first port of call, according to the paperless expert, is to go through paperwork and decide what needs keeping, and what can be thrown away – either through a lack of need or duplication. Once this has been done, it’s time to digitise it. Scanning in documents is the best way to convert them, all while preserving quality. Getting this done professionally may cost more than doing so manually, but it will be much faster and allow the scanned documents to be made fully searchable by utilising Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology.
While this is being conducted, the experts at Pearl Scan suggest employees set to work on their computers. Even with a mix of paper and digital documents, computers can easily get cluttered with folders and files in all sorts of unusual places. Although digital documents are searchable, creating set folders and keeping them in order can help to speed up productivity and make processes infinitely faster.
“Although working from home offers incredible flexibility for workers, there is always the danger that employees can burn out by doing extra hours catching up. Operating a paperless workspace has been proven to increase productivity within a traditional office setting, so it only makes sense for it to do the same when it comes to a home office too,” added Naveed.
Pearl Scan is one of the country’s leading pioneers of paperless working. Armed with a decade of experience working with companies of all sizes streamline their workforce, they are well-placed to offer industry-defining advice that brings tangible benefits.