We’ve previously discussed the impact of promoting a paperless office as a way of encouraging an environmentally conscious workplace.
The paperless office as a sustainable business practice is gaining more and more traction. According to a survey conducted by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), 77% of HR departments have gone paperless, and as a result, these HR professionals report spending 35% less time on administrative tasks. From cutting down on waste to cutting down costs, businesses of all sizes can reap the benefits of making the switch from paper and ink to digital and cloud solutions.
How will a paper-free workplace impact your people management processes as they relate to your HR and payroll administration? From revamping talent recruitment to improving employee engagement, here are a few of the benefits.
Talent recruitment
Gone are the days of sifting through stacks upon stacks of hard-copy job application packages. Digital applications allow for the automation and streamlining of data collection from prospective job applicants. With an online job application, you can easily and quickly gather relevant information and documents—including resumes and cover letters—from any number of candidates from a centralized source. Within the applicant tracking system (ATS), all data is stored and organized within the database.
New hire onboarding
A new employee's first day typically consists of lots of paperwork, including reviewing printed piles of company policies, filling out paper forms, and making copies of important documents. With the digital onboarding experience, new hires can get "papered up" without handling a single piece of paper.
With paperless onboarding, new team members can now review required documents and complete forms electronically at their own time and pace, allowing them to be prepared and ready to hit the ground running even before their first day in the office.
The collection and storage of confidential employee information through digital HR solutions allows for guaranteed organization, security, and accessibility. Additionally, when cloud-based human resources software are adopted into the workflow, employees are empowered by the self-service nature of such processes. They can update and sync their personal information from their own devices, reducing the need for filling out change request paperwork.
HR solutions also allow employees to sign contracts and other mandatory documents via electronic signature. Today, digital signatures can all be done across a multitude of devices, including mobile, eliminating the wait time. Data security and privacy measures are accounted for, and there is peace of mind in the knowledge that your people's personal information is safe.
Employee management & engagement
Feedback gathered from employees on the company, the work environment, and their job satisfaction is important to the growth of your business. Making sure your people have a voice and use that voice can lead to higher employee engagement and retention. However, the common practice of distributing hard-copy employee surveys can be seen as disruptive to the workflow of your workforce.
Online surveys can help businesses easily gather and analyze employee sentiment and feedback. Surveys can be sent to all team members at once, and each employee can complete the questions from the convenience of their laptops. Submitted survey results will be added to the online database and HR administrators can easily see and analyze trends in the feedback in a streamlined fashion. With the time saved, HR departments can spend more time on strategies to make the necessary improvements as identified by their teammates.
Digital payroll administration
Digital payroll processes can save hours of work for your finance departments. Through streamlining the payment system with digital solutions, payroll administration becomes much more cost-effective, time-saving, compliancy-guaranteed, and secure.
At Rise, we aim to be leaders in providing cutting-edge solutions for people management. Our company has a goal of reducing our impact on the environment, and therefore, we aim to go fully electronic for both reporting and payments by 2019.
By switching from printed cheques to direct deposit, companies can benefit from:
- the removal of the risks of cheque fraud or theft, identity theft, and any circumstantial delays (i.e. weather) in mailing printed cheques.
- the elimination of reissuing lost or stolen cheques.
- fewer reconciliations when cheques are not cashed by employees.
- pay made available sooner to employees on payday.
- the immediate generation of payroll reports after the transfer of funds.
For human resources and payroll administrators working across multiple departments and catering to a number of different processes, a structure that reduces, or better yet, eliminates, the use of paper can free up resources in time and costs, allowing your organization to practice greater sustainability for your business and for the environment.
Invest in Rise's all-in-one HR, payroll, and benefits solutions to handle your workforce management. Book a free demo today.
