At Making Moves HQ we are on a mission to trial and implement working practices on behalf of our clients to see how they work and to share our experiences.
Since Day One of setting up, I have always wanted a paperless office environment. Basically, I don’t like paper. I think it’s an OCD thing, but it is messy and its expensive to buy. More importantly though, paper encourages paper cuts, which are one of the most painful experiences ever to hit a man (up there with man flu).
In order to implement the paperless office, we have needed to adapt and seek ways of overcoming various hurdles. Whilst challenging, this has helped us refine our processes and improve efficiency on a number of levels.
So… what are the hurdles? Well firstly, the role of Making Moves as a Tenant’s Property Advisor does involve a considerable amount of paper. As part of our process, we diligently read through all of our clients current leases to ensure they can exit their existing property with no problems. We also read and review their leases on their new property to ensure they know exactly what they are signing up to. In the past, this would have involved printing off the documents to review them.
In addition, we are sent copious amounts of property brochures from Landlords on a daily basis, advertising availability within their properties. This combined with floorplans, proposal documents and costing spreadsheets, generates a considerable amount of paper and a lot of waste!
In previous employment, this has involved printing off the documents and eventually led to the construction of a paper cocoon around me. This has prevented any communication with the person next to me and any sun light even attempting to makes its way to my desk!
In order to overcome the hurdles and to implement the paperless environment properly, it really is important to have the right tools. If you are considering going paperless then I would suggest investing in the following:-
• Iphone/Ipad Scanner App – There are a number of these available, but Genius Scan or Scanner Pro allow you take a photo of any paper documents. They are then converted into high quality pdfs and sent to your email. Great for on the move expense receipts or if you need to scan in a letter (yes, people do still send letters!).
• Get Taxi/Uber App – I now ensure all our work related taxis when travelling with clients from office building to office building are ordered through one of these apps. They send a receipt via email which is easily stored in my online expenses folder.
• An ipad Or Similar Tablet – All of our client presentations and viewing tours are based on the ipad avoiding the need for printing off unnecessary paper.
• A Large Computer Screen (or two screens if you are feeling particularly flash) – With a considerable amount of leases and supporting documentation reviewed on a regular basis, it is important for us to be able to see these clearly. A large screen has resolved this issue and actually made comparing documents from separate files much easier.
• Cloud storage or a large hard drive – Our memory usage has increased with the storage of all our files online. This means we can access the files anywhere without having to carry around copious amounts of paper, but you will need more memory!
• Willpower – It’s not easy, particularly when you have been so used to printing off documents. We have had to retrain the brain to get into the paperless mindset. It’s an on going battle but this is definitely working.
Whilst we are a small team at present, I can also see further hurdles arising as we train staff to implement the paperless environment – ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t always make them drink!’ comes to mind!
I have to admit that old habits do die hard and the desire to click that lovely little printer icon on my computer is very difficult to overcome. So making it simple, we just don’t have printers in the office and instead invest in the tools to make our paperless mission as straightforward as possible. The embracing of technology and some good old fashioned willpower has ensured that things are going well so far.
I believe this is the future for the modern office environment and not only will this assist with improving efficiency in the workplace you will also know you are doing your little bit for the environment as well. Enjoy!
