As soon as a business introduces a computer into its workflow it is faced with filing and tracking information in two formats – paper and digital. In early days of computerization this doesn’t present too much of an issue, just make a paper copy of the digital version and put it in the filing cabinet along with all the other information on paper about that client or subject. As things progress though, the balance between paper and digital transactions starts to tip towards digital. Orders, invoices and receipts are delivered as digital forms, banking is done online, contracts and blueprints are sent out as email attachments, your accounts are prepared on a software application and even your tax file can be sent electronically.

Predictions that electronic documents would ultimately push out paper altogether generated a lot of hype around creating the ‘paperless’ office. That’s not realistic. There are still many effective uses and needs for paper in a business and that’s likely to remain so for some time. However, what’s now possible, and highly desirable, is to create a paperless, i.e. digital record, for the types of information your business consistently deals with so you don’t have duplicate file systems. For instance, a dental clinic should consider the benefits of digitizing everything related to its patients – their dental charts, diagnostics, correspondence, financial records, scheduling and so on. A digital record means that all the information on a patient can be bought together in the one file for easy reference, updating and sharing with colleagues and the office staff who need access to it.

Saying farewell to maintaining parallel workflows, one electronic and one paper, delivers benefits in work efficiency, in saving office space, in costs, in information security – and does reduce paper.

What new hardware and software is needed?

The biggest portion of your planning will go into identifying the components necessary to make a less-paper office workable. Simply adding a scanner won’t make you paperless. You have to have a number of components that work together as a whole, not just a few random pieces of technology.

A scanner to capture images electronically will allow you to make an ‘entry level’ start on reducing paper. Get a scanner with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capability. This enables you to produce a searchable PDF version of a document and this provides a very handy way to look for files or pull out all files on the same subject. Beef up disk space to handle the extra demand that will be made on it for storage of the electronic documents.

A high res monitor is very useful once you start doing most of your document work online.  For the real road warrior investing in portable paper replacement devices like a Blackberry and an eReader will free you up from having to carry paper copies of things like travel documents, itineraries and maps.

On the software side, use Adobe to turn your scanned files into PDF format. This is a stable format that keeps the file looking exactly as it looked on paper. It can be read online or printed, takes little space, and in conjunction with OCR can be searched and amended. Security and confidentiality can be maintained using anti-virus, firewall, storage space encryption and file eraser tools. To make records available to all those who need them shift from standalone PCs to a client/server setup. After these basic starting components your conversion upgrades can be as little or as much as you want.

Locating a document

All that electronic documentation is useless if you can’t locate things easily or keep related information together. You need to create an electronic version of your file cabinet. This is done by creating folders and placing one folder in another just as, for instance, you have files on each individual supplier filed in a folder inside the file cabinet drawer named Suppliers. For documents converted using OCR software you can search using an index term associated with the document or a number of documents e.g. a client’s name or a region code.

Making it happen

The computer savvy can create a less-paper office relatively cheaply by purchasing hardware items but downloading free versions of the software components from the internet. If you don’t have that level of comfort with computers, then seek help from an experienced dealer. Maintaining the less-paper office ongoing is not particularly difficult once it is in place, but it does require a little discipline, particularly around regular backup of your records. To get the most benefit, ask your suppliers and customers to prefer electronic methods of dealing with you when they can and do the same with them.

In soft economic times cutting back on payroll usually means laying off employees. As a tactic it works, but this strategy reduces your productivity and can end up costing you in the long run. You will have lost any investment you made in their training, lost their knowhow and will be stuck with the cost of hiring a replacement sometime in the future when business starts to pick up again, so avoid it if you can. If laying off employees is the only option, give careful thought to how you can maintain production and customer service so as not to plunge into a downward spiral of poor service leading to increasing customer desertion. Here are some suggestions for how to slim the payroll burden.

Slim the payroll

Reduce pay and eliminate raises: a reduction in pay won’t be popular but if the alternative is redundancies among the employees they might well agree to go for it. At least they keep their job (and you save on payroll) until business picks up again.

• Cut back on work hours: this will reduce payroll without entirely losing the employee.  This can be done by decreasing daily hours or reducing days per week or moving to so many days per month. A reduction in hours may be viewed as preferable to having no job whatsoever. Sharing the pain out among employees will be better for morale and you get to keep people on hand for when times improve.
• Replace monetary with nonmonetary incentives: offering the use of your vacation home or extra time off in lieu of a money bonus can show that you understand your employee’s disappointment in not receiving a cash bonus but want to reward them for their hard work.
• Encourage employees to take time off without pay: canvass employees for those who would be agreeable to taking a period of time off work without pay. The deal must be that they are guaranteed their job back at the end of the specified period.
• Incentivize employees to leave: the least unpleasant way to downsize is to let natural attrition take care of the job by not replacing employees who quit or retire. If normal attrition will be too slow to reduce numbers to what you need/can afford, then offer employees an incentive to terminate: grant early retirement with full retirement benefits or offer an attractive severance package. Make clear this is for this occasion only.
• Make use of independent contractors: hiring is a long term commitment. Until things improve, soak up extra workload using independent contractors instead of putting on workers.
• Insource: maybe some jobs you are currently outsourcing can be economically brought back into the workplace to be done by underutilized employees. Be careful not to breach employee or supplier contracts. Do this only if there is a distinct cost/benefit advantage over the outsourcing deal.

Reduce the cost of producing payroll

The actual cost of producing the payroll (calculating pay, producing checks or making deposits and keeping track of employee information) is itself an area where savings can be made.

1.    Outsource payroll: organizing each payroll is a time consuming, (= costly), process with an element of danger added because of the possibility of making a mistake with the regulations and procedures that need to be navigated and the forms and returns to be filled in to get it right. It may be more cost effective to outsource payroll to an online service provider who will carry out all processes in accordance with the latest regulations, insert this information into the correct forms and get salaries deposited into your employee’s bank accounts.

2.    Use direct deposit for salaries: a good way to save money is to use direct deposit of payroll (DDP) in place of issuing paper payroll checks. There is a significant cost differential between an online transaction and the processes around preparing and issuing checks.

3.    Extend the payroll period: switch from a weekly to a biweekly or monthly payroll period to reduce processing costs.

The best rule of thumb for implementing any restructuring of work practices is to be honest with employees upfront and lay out the reasons that make the changes necessary for business survival. You also need to be mindful of the terms of existing union agreements and work with the union to achieve a conflict free alteration of procedures. And always take expert advice in labor related decision making to avoid breaching labor regulations.

Software programs (applications) are the whole reason PCs are such great productivity tools today. There are literally thousands of software applications available for the Windows operating system. Using the tips below to manage the applications you have installed onto your PC will keep it working efficiently and ensure you don’t waste valuable disk drive space.

Uninstall unused programs (DIY safe)

Over time you will have installed new versions of software or maybe changed over to an alternative brand product, tried out trial versions and even forgotten about applications you once installed but no longer use. Unused applications don’t just go away, they sit there taking up space on the hard drive until deliberately removed.  Simply deleting the folder that contains the program doesn’t actually remove the program itself. That must be done through an uninstaller process. Almost every application, utility, and game sold today comes with an uninstall program and your computer should have a provision for listing all the programs installed on it with an option to individually remove them. Every two or three months use the PCs ‘Add or Remove Programs’ utility to look over the list and identify any applications you longer have use for. Select the program and choose to remove it. This will free up extra space on your hard drive. You may have to restart your computer after removing the program(s) you don’t use to get the changes to take.

Turn off programs not in use (DIY safe)

Moving from task to task usually means opening up a number of applications. All those you aren’t using still continue to run in the background using up processing power until they are turned off. Unless you intend returning frequently to a particular program you have started up, turn it off after use.

Limit how many programs load at startup (DIY with caution)

The more programs your computer has to start up when you turn it on the slower the boot up process will be. Then, having these programs continue to run in the background consumes processing power. It's a good idea to check what programs are auto-starting and remove any unnecessary ones. They can always be started manually when needed. Windows provides a tool to identify and turn off the programs that automatically launch at startup. 

In addition to these items there are other things that start in the background that can only be seen using one of the special utility applications available commercially. Both work the same way - they locate and list those programs that begin at startup. The trick is to know which it is safe to turn off.  A quick search on the internet for any file name you can’t identify will generally turn up lots of pages explaining what the file does in your Windows operating system environment.

Never turn off an item in the Startup window unless or until you know what that file really does in relation to how your computer’s operation will be affected. Many programs may launch on startup through default settings in their install instructions. When installing a new piece of software check the default installation choices carefully and turn off the option to begin running at startup if you aren’t going to be making heavy use of this application.

Remove unnecessary shortcuts (DIY safe)

Do not clutter your Desktop with a lot of shortcuts. Each shortcut on the desktop uses up to 500 bytes of disk memory. You can delete any shortcuts from your desktop that you don’t want by dragging them to the Recycle Bin. Deleting the shortcut does not uninstall the program.

Turn off unnecessary features (DIY safe)

Many applications come with added features that could be quite irrelevant to you. For example, Google comes with a sidebar full of applets that displays news headlines or stock quotes and Windows Vista includes a nice looking, but mostly useless sidebar. It’s usually possible to turn off these add-ons to save some precious memory.

As an employer, you bear a legal responsibility to protect the health and safety of people in your workplace. It is a huge mistake to believe that your business is accident proof and now is definitely not the time you want to get hit with a payout to an employee or customer who suffered injury on your premises.

DON’T PANIC, implementing good health and safety measures does not have to be complicated, expensive or time consuming. Get started with these common sense occupational safety and health practices.

Fire Safety And Electricity

• Undertake a fire risk assessment 
• Keep basic fire fighting equipment on hand
• Regularly inspect fire fighting equipment, sprinkler and alarm systems, wiring, heating, air-conditioning equipment and refrigeration units
• Train employees in emergency procedures
• Display posters about how to deal with fire and electrical faults and include phone numbers to call in case of emergency

First Aid And Accident Reporting

• Appoint a suitably trained employee as First Aid officer 
• Offer training to other employees in first aid techniques 
• Train employees to report and log notifiable accidents

Hazardous Substances

•  Identify and document procedures for the handling of all hazardous substances 
• Train employees in the proper procedures for storage, dispensing, moving and using hazardous substances

Manual Handling

•  Do a risk assessment – which tasks involve manual handling, can any be automated?
• Train employees how to handle heavy loads

Work Equipment And Protective Clothing

• Provide suitable and adequate work equipment and protective clothing
• Keep equipment and protective clothing maintained
• Train employees in the proper use of equipment

Workplace

• Check that the workplace/customer areas meet regulation standards for  ventilation, lighting, temperature, cleanliness and size of working/walking areas and keep areas rubbish free

Insurance

• Take out employers' liability insurance