The fast pace of business professionals.
Is your company thinking about downsizing its office space? If so, you’re not alone. According to Business Insider, “Half of the world’s biggest companies are planning to downsize office space as hybrid working continues, according to a survey from real estate agent Knight Frank. The largest firms – defined as having more than 50,000 employees – anticipate cutting 10% to 20% of their office space by 2026.” In the lifecycle of a business, as well as during economic ebbs and flows, companies often look for ways to increase overall efficiency and revenue, which results in leadership teams taking a closer look at the organization’s structure.
When that change involves relocation to a different space or reconfiguring a current office, it’s an excellent opportunity to optimize operations. Document management systems that automate workflow approvals and provide instant uploads into a business’s various applications can help ease the operational burdens often associated with such transformative times.
During a business’ downsize, it is essential to increase operational efficiencies while decreasing the volume of occupied space. Here are some considerations for navigating organizational change and how companies can successfully leverage document management systems to downsize.
Primary Goal During a Downsize
Regardless of the intended outcome, a smooth transition requires some planning and strategy before implementation. A downsize can occur for various reasons, such as going virtual, decreasing demand, changing corporate goals, or losing funding. In each of these cases, the company needs to take a 360° to look at its operations and make decisions that reduce overhead, including reducing facility leasing expenses and HR costs and increasing and optimizing efficiency. In doing so, a business needs to avoid a disruption in workflow or loss of critical documents, which could severely impact business momentum during the transition.
Digitizing Documents Improves Downsizing Outcomes
Document digitization offers viable methods of changing operations without interruption to achieving corporate goals. Here are a few areas that this process may positively impact:
- Human Resource Management teams may benefit from organizing and storing all employee records (past and present) to ensure that companies remain compliant with all applicable rules and regulations, which according to the Society for Human Resource Managers, include numerous Federal and State laws.
- Facilitating Virtual Office Work through a mail management system and cloud storage can ensure that essential work records are readily available to off-site employees.
- Increasing Efficiency with the use of OCR technologies permits the remaining team to rely on automated systems for mission-critical project management, traffic control companies, and data entry that would otherwise take time and resources no longer available.
Digitizing Starts With a Few Simple Steps
When a company prepares to launch a downsizing initiative, it can implement document digitizing through careful forethought and planning.
- Decide what needs scanning and if no document retention policy exists in your organization, consider formulating one. Motley Fool defines a document retention policy as: “[…]Guidelines for the review, secure storage, and periodic destruction of unneeded records.” Follow your policy to decide what records the business will need going forward.
- Organize your records by identifying naming conventions and storage protocols to make all subsequent document management simple from the start.
- The move from paper to digital document management processes offers significant opportunities to revamp your digital architecture.
- It’s important to consider what technology the business will use to transform paper records to digital and manage the digital records once the move begins. Solutions like DocuWare and Kodak Capture Pro have different utilities and are important considerations when identifying your needs.
- Calendar the transition. Like any significant change, it is better to set milestones and deadlines to clarify the process to everyone involved. Notifying key stakeholders, including employees and possibly clients, of the transition should include a timeline for converting to digitized records.
Find the Right Partners
The process of downsizing is one that requires investment. For example, a business should work with movers who specialize in working with commercial companies. In addition, strategic HR partners who can facilitate layoffs and other employee considerations can help lessen the organization’s workload during this transitional time.
If your team is planning to downsize and are looking for a trusted partner to help guide you through the process, contact Didlake Document Imaging for a free consultation.
