One great misconception that HRs have about document scanning is believing to the perfect timing to do it. They see it as something doable in favorable conditions, when a profound enlightenment falls from the heavens to say upfront that they need to scan their employee records.
But that’s not the case in reality. The epiphany to finally do straight up scanning of HR files is brought in, by surprise, by the unfavorable—catastrophes, hackings, and inefficiency—and the damage control done afterwards.
Waiting for the perfect timing to scan documents is as good as waiting for the unfavorable to happen first, which saves you from nothing.
So when is the right time for HR to start scanning employee records? The answer is ‘now’ and if these office conditions persist:
Papers limit you
Let’s admit it: paper-based workflows can’t be eliminated totally, especially for HR, as these are the only way to cater functions that can’t be automated or digitized yet. Problem arises not because of these workflows but as to how these papers are managed for access and archiving.
Regardless of the criticality of information printed on each page, a stacked pile of papers would always take a portion of your workspace… and it goes on without a proper document scanning effort. This results to excessive filing of physical files that could limit you, from processing employee benefits up to maximizing office space cost/rental per square meter.
If you ponder it further, what if that office portion was used for an income-generating functions instead of being a mere space for filing bulks of papers? If those papers make you unable to maximize your office space, perhaps it is the right time?
Disasters alarm you
Like who wouldn’t? Statistics shows that all of us should be alarmed by disasters. They incurred a whopping $1.5 Trillion global economic impact since 2003 and has affected 2.5 billion people (including businesses) since 2000. In terms of post-catastrophic efforts, 40% of devastated businesses go foreclosure and shoots up an additional 25% within one year after several attempts of going back to business. What’s at stake here aside from the people’s lives and the office space are the business-critical documentations on paper such as employee records that are vulnerable to earthquakes, flooding, fires, and many others.
Many already had learned the hard way that they should’ve kept digital copies of their physical files beforehand. One thing in common to those who were devastated is the thinking that it is too soon to digitize their documents. If you’re one of them, now is the right time as well to debunk that thinking and start establishing document scanning efforts for your records before disasters happen.
Compliance chases you
With the advent of regulations to protect data such as General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) and other country-specific legislations, compliance should be one of your priorities. It helps leverage the organization to more specific functions such as the HR as it is an added credential if you’re certified for compliance. This also saves you from legal actions and financial damages due to negligence to comply.
Document scanning is your first step to compliance as it allows you to manage data sets such as employee records better as they are in digital form. You can have additional layers of security on top of mere digital archiving such as passwords, encryptions, redactions, and many others. This can be done through a holistic document management system that can harness the versatility of a cloud platform and the nearness of an on-premise server.
Knowing that through scanning your physical documents is the only entry point you can take to comply to be compliant, we can’t think of a better time for you to start digitizing your files than NOW.
Efficiency already left you
Workflow efficiency begets more opportunities to take on strategic approaches especially for HR. With manually storing, accessing, sorting, and sharing physical files, workflow optimization and efficiency is almost close to impossible. We reiterate that paper-based workflows cannot be totally eliminated but those should not be the reason for you to miss opportunities to optimize your HR processes, to build up strategies, or to cultivate your workforce for growth.
To help the organization refocus efforts for more efficient processes, document scanning is the best first step you can take. But first, HR procedural efficiency should be among your top concerns. Have you been struggling with your HR workflows and workforce efficiency because of too much manual, paper-based workflows? Make the situation better by scanning your documents TODAY.
You’re in charge for the timing to happen
These are just some of the triggers you might have been waiting to hit you to finally go do document scanning. Good thing about it is that its timing is applicable to whatever phase you are in, be it gearing up your business before the worst happens or recovering from the worst that just happened.
You don’t have to do all the scanning alone. Make sure to see outsourceable document scanning services near your area to do away the hassle of doing it from your end. Or you can simply message us to help you out. Got paper documents for scanning? Talk to us
