The Need To Go Digital
Many Human Resources departments have seen the shift in the way they need to work in the past two years. The possibilities of hybrid/remote working or the need to work in an agile environment, many of which include hot-desking, have seen a change in mindset towards digital working. The traditional employee record saw ever-increasing amounts of paperwork stored in endless filing cabinets, all meticulously guarded by the HR team. Now we are seeing many HR teams still working with the old paper records as well as the electronic files they have accumulated since March 2020. A joined-up approach is needed.
In a digital, post-pandemic era, you may find yourself contemplating, “What would the be the benefits of having all our records available electronically?” We thought it would be helpful to remind you why a digital approach not only makes operational sense but will increase the efficiency of the whole department.
Efficient retrievals
Your current physical filing system can be replicated electronically to ensure your documents are exactly where they always were, only digitally. Did you know it can take up to 3 minutes to search for a paper document in a filing cabinet? Turn this into just five seconds with a Document Management System (DMS). A modern DMS like FreeDocs has intuitive search capabilities allowing you to search for the information you need quickly and efficiently.
Your filing structure can remain the same or be simplified, as when working electronically rules can be put in place for document types to ensure everyone in the HR team is working the same way. Your service provider should be able to apply naming conventions to index your documents and categorise the different document types such as Pre-Employment, Contract and Training etc.
For your former paper records, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology can be applied to make the scanned documents searchable. This means every printed word, number or reference within the PDF file will be fully searchable, which in turn should reduce the need for complex structuring of the employee file. On top of this, review and retention dates can be added at document level – which is particularly useful when working with leavers files or documents which can be removed in line with GDPR.
Remote working
With many HR teams embracing hybrid, office and/or home working, access to information is essential to allow the team to function efficiently no matter where they are working. With a cloud-based DMS, information is always available when needed. This approach can also see the HR team members working collaboratively with the same documents from the same file no matter where they happen to be located.
Increased office space
Office space is always at a premium with every modern business. Having digital access to your information frees up this valuable resource and makes your organisation more valuable. With the increase in hybrid working and hot-desking there may be an opportunity to downsize your office space. With a renewed focus on the working environment and staff wellness, more space in the office would mean the re-purposing of an area used for filing into a breakout or creative space for employees to collaborate.
Enhanced security
Human Resources staff handle sensitive information on a day-to-day basis. For as long as documents exist in hard copy format alone, they will always be at risk of loss, theft, or damage. This significantly increases the risk of not being able to find that critical document at the moment you need it.
By digitising the files the single point of failure is removed as documents can be securely stored and backed up. This ensures they are never at risk of permanent loss, whilst also facilitating fast and safe access that is not limited by location. Furthermore, with an inventory of all records you can easily manage retention policies and ensure you business is GDPR compliant.
Retention policies
Retention policies are not easy to implement with physical paper files to ensure that GDPR is adhered to. Finding information within a digital HR record is made easy when applying document types with fixed retention periods. This can also be automated. Working digitally will save the HR team a considerable amount of time whilst making GDPR compliance far easier.
What do customers say?
“At first, there was reticence from within the HR team due to security concerns, but this was quickly overcome when we realised how much more secure our documents can be,” said one Storetec client recently. The client, a worldwide manufacturing company, had an initial scanning project in mind and has since expanded the digitisation project throughout the business: “Boxes were stacked on top of each other, and they were way too heavy to move; it was definitely a fire hazard and a health and safety risk. It took an age to find the information we needed but now our documents are available in seconds. We are working 2 days in and 3 days out of the office at the moment which is great now we have access to our files.”
Every document – in seconds
Digital copies of your Human Resource documents can be uploaded into a document management system like FreeDocs for 24/7 access from any location in the world. Search the entire database via pre-defined data fields, or via a content search utilising OCR technology to promptly and efficiently locate the document required.
Support your paperless journey by becoming born-digital, with FreeDocs’ new MS Office Uploader feature. You can easily upload any MS Office document or email into your database or email into your database without having to print and scan it in.
Already have a HR system? Storetec can collect, scan, and feed your existing system with scanned images. You don’t need to lift a finger; we’ll even shred the paper documents after they have been digitised. If you have a HR scanning project in mind, or would just like to explore the options, get in touch with us at Storetec.
