5 Ways Simple You Can Reduce Paper and Reduce Costs Today
If you plan to dramatically cut down on your use of paper or go paperless entirely, a sudden shift will almost certainly disrupt your business. Instead, look for ways to cut down gradually. Start with your budget and decide where you don’t really need paper anymore, then tackle these areas over several months.
The following five tips can help kick start your thinking and save you money.
Save everything electronically. It is tempting to keep a paper copy, but a cheaper way is to keep an electronic duplicate instead.
Create systems that allow staff to measure how many print copies they are personally responsible for each month, use user ID to print or copy. Most people are shocked to find out their individual cumulative number of copies. This knowledge will motivate people to reduce their personal paper footprint.
Decide what to print, there may be some documents that just have to be printed and that is ok but there will be others that don’t and by creating a set of rules you can reduce paper usage. If documents are printed set up printers so that they are printed in a smaller font using both sides of the paper.
Conduct paperless meetings, provide meeting participants with electronic access to all the materials beforehand – encourage those using computers not to print out copies.
Time is money! If you can reduce the time your team members waste printing, scanning, faxing, posting and chasing documents that time can be used more effectively with existing and prospective clients and that has got to be a huge bonus.
These tips do not result in drastic changes in office behaviour or sudden alterations in workflow. Once executed, they’ll not only save your company money in paper orders, but the time involved in handling, maintaining and searching for printed documents. What’s more, you’ll likely have greater peace of mind knowing that you may have saved a few trees this year.
Many brokers find the challenge of going paperless daunting, but it doesn’t have to be if simplified and well planned. Eradicating paper in organisations must be realistic and it is not necessarily practical or economical to eliminate all paper. Making it more difficult to print can also reduce costs as you work towards going paperless; reducing the number of printers, use user ID to print or copy.
If you would like any help to prepare, plan and implement a paperless strategy for your business feel free to drop me a message here and we can arrange a convenient time to have a chat.
