Going paperless is essential not only for ABW (Activity Based Working), but also for work remotely work, telecommuting, hot desking, and other work styles that are not tied to a specific location. In the process of telecommuting due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have hurriedly taken steps to make their work processes paperless and introduce file sharing systems on cloud servers for reasons such as "I can't take paper documents home" and "I can't print them at home."
Veldhoen + Company, which has been working on work style transformation for over 30 years, has published an article on their website entitled "Paperless or Paper independent?", which explains that most documents are created digitally and introduces three ideas for people who bring paper notes to meetings. (The English translations in the article marked with diagonal lines below are the work of the author of this column.)
1. Believe in yourself
Do you believe that you can properly hear and understand the most important messages of what people say? If so, stop taking notes on paper. When you take notes while listening, your listening ability decreases by more than 80%.
Tip: At the end of the meeting, make sure you have a common, digital, shareable way to record the information.
2. Stop writing notes and start listening
Don't you feel more secure when you have paper and pen in front of you? Even if you don't use them, having a business conversation without anything in front of you feels "unarmed" and vulnerable. However, it's rare to have the experience of everyone having paper in their hands when talking with family or friends. What do you think?
Pro tip: The next time you're in a meeting, ask participants about taking notes or having paper in the meeting and start by sharing your feelings.
3. Think about your true role
Do you worry that if you don't bring something to a conversation, you'll be seen as unmotivated? If so, you may be trying to justify your presence in the organization by saying, "I'm busy."
Advice: Check in with yourself and trust that constructive dialogue gives you meaning.
Ask yourself why you use paper
What we can learn from this article is the importance of asking ourselves "Why do you want to use paper?" and "What are Advantage and disadvantage of using paper?" Even if we eliminate this process and throw away or digitize paper documents under the slogan of "paperless," we will rebound if our perceptions and actions do not change. Also, "paperless" in terms of flexible working styles does not mean that we need to reduce paper usage to zero, but rather that we should use paper in a way that does not hinder the movement of workers. Rather than "paperless," the expression "paper independent" working style, as stated in the title of the article, fits better.
How high should the resolution be?
So how far should we go in thinking about the reasons for using paper and Advantage and disadvantage? In talking with employees working at the head office, where ABW is being implemented, we believe that the situations where paper was previously used can be roughly categorized as follows:
1. Due to the nature of the business, it is essential to print on paper
For example, it would be impossible to stop using paper for documents that are required by law or company regulations to be kept in original form. Also, it would be difficult to carry out work such as checking the process of creating printed materials without printing even once. Reducing this type of paper is a problem that cannot be solved overnight, or by the efforts and awareness of individual employees alone. It will require long-term efforts such as replacing internal systems, responding to the Electronic Bookkeeping Act, and changing policies to stop branding and PR using printed materials.
2. Digital is better with the right IT tools
For example, it is much more efficient to distribute meeting materials digitally. Many people have wasted time printing, stapling, rearranging, and replacing large amounts of materials before a meeting. If everyone could bring a laptop or tablet to the meeting room, such work would no longer be necessary. Also, checking and writing on created materials can be done efficiently by using an external monitor, a pen that comes with the tablet, or a handwritten note app. Even if such IT devices are not available, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF have functions for adding notes and comments, so it is an idea to use such functions. Many people said that it is easier to change schedules and share with other members by using an app rather than creating lists in a notebook when it comes to task management.
While these things are easy to digitize with the right tools, if you are not provided with easy-to-use devices due to a lack of IT investment, or if there are no role models nearby who are practicing paperless, you will not be able to move forward with paperless at all. I think this is an area where you need to be bold and think about whether you can do it without paper and then try it out.
3. Paper or digital tools: it depends
For example, when it comes to "taking notes," it's more efficient to type on a laptop when you can sit at a desk and concentrate, but when you can't keep up with typing or you have to stand and record, you'll need a notepad or a tablet memo app. Also, tablet memo apps are overwhelmingly useful when you want to create notes that include photos, change the pen color to make them easier to see, or use the copy and paste function to make things more efficient. As mentioned in the article above, you may need to consider whether taking notes is even effective in the first place.
When it comes to books, if you want to share them with multiple people or add notes to them, you will probably use a paper book rather than an e-book. Even in the same situation, there are times when it is more convenient to use paper and times when you should use digital tools.
As mentioned above, only when each workers considers each situation in which paper is used, asking themselves "Is it necessary to use paper?" and "Are there better digital tools or functions?" will it be possible to achieve a working style that does not rely on paper and controls the situations in which paper is used, even if it does not go 100% paperless.
However, "paper stockless" is necessary
As mentioned above, it is not necessary to completely eliminate the use of paper, but in order to work in a way that is not tied to a location, it is necessary to be conscious of not accumulating paper or carrying it around. For example, if you check any documents or printed materials on paper, scan them and immediately discard the original. Even if you take notes or consider ideas on paper, take a picture of it with your smartphone and digitize it immediately. For books, summarize the main points so that you do not always have to carry the book itself. It is true that such habits are the most difficult to form, but not accumulating paper is the most important thing for working without being tied to a location. An office relocation or renovation would be a good opportunity to reduce the amount of space where paper accumulates.
Currently, 85% of employees at our headquarters work digitally with almost no paper usage, but until three years ago most employees had multiple piles of documents stacked up on their desks and worked among them.
The number of cabinets remaining in the headquarters has been reduced to 24 for a workforce of about 850 workers. The introduction of ABW has pushed us to realize the need to work in different locations within the office to suit different activities, and we have invested sufficiently in our IT environment to make this change a reality. (Reference article: "Being an early adopter of a flexible work style shows the importance of IT environment development and training").
However, to achieve this, it is not enough to simply issue a command; it is necessary to prepare the necessary IT functions in the office and also to make an effort to change behavior. Our ABW consulting service can support such an integrated effort, so please feel free to contact us.
Read the article about Veldhoen + Company here
https://www.veldhoencompany.com/blog/paper-less-paper-independent
