A day in the life of a real paper office worker
A day in the life of….
9:00 rant: I arrived at work an hour early again today all because the new receptionist filed everything by ‘client name’ rather than ‘organisation’ last week.
11:00 rant: Another embarrassing meeting! It wasn’t until 5 minutes before the end of the meeting that I managed to find the scrap of paper with last month’s stats on. It’s not that I’m disorganised, I just feel as though I’m drowning in paper at the moment.
15:00 rant: The company I work for have had the same admin processes for the past 15 years with very little change, I feel like I’m working in the dark ages. Last week I had an intern shadowing me, she was fantastic on the computer but the mountain of paperwork doubled, she had no idea how to manage it. Generation Z work a completely different way.
17:00 rant: I remember the days of leaving work on time. The boss has just asked me for 5 client files for his meeting at 9am tomorrow morning; if only paper wasn’t so easily lost and misfiled!
18:30 rant: I made it home at last. My husband has recommended looking for a DMS system for work however they all sound like a lot of disruption, we would have to change all of our processes, it’ll cost a fortune, and these indexing systems sound very complex. The company I work for have had the same admin processes for the past 15 years with very little change, I feel like I’m working in the dark ages.
20:00 rant: Finally I can forget work for the evening and relax. Heels off, feet up, television on, cuppa in hand.
22:00 rant: I can’t believe it’s that time already. Another day of lost paperwork, disorganised meetings and chaos to look forward to tomorrow!
The daily battles of indexing and managing both paper and electronic files
9:00 rant: I thought that investing in an expensive document management system was going to save me time but I still don’t understand how to find files, they’re never where I expect them to be so everything’s taking me longer than ever before.
11:00 rant: Wasting an hour of my day with yet another training session on how to index correctly in our new system.
15:00 rant: My colleagues and I do not seem to be able to get to grips with indexing and saving our documents correctly, we can never find anything within the new system. It’s completely changed the way we’re supposed to work. I’ve been keeping paper files as well to save time and be on the safe side.
17:00 rant: One more thing to do today, I need to make sure I’ve indexed the documents correctly now that I’ve scanned it all in to the computer otherwise I’ll never find it again.
18:30 rant: I spent so much of my day reorganising paper on my desk just in case I can’t find the files in the new system that I didn’t even get half way through my ‘to do’ list.
20:00 rant: I’m already dreading going back to work tomorrow. I don’t feel comfortable with the new processes and am not confident that it is working effectively. It’s a constant headache.
22:00 rant: Tomorrow I will face another battle between paper and the new system.
A paperless, hassle-free and enjoyable day at the office
9:00: We have continued to work the way we always have without staying in the dark ages. We’ve entered into the modern world of technology using ‘Volume’ the only document management system which mirrors our paper processes electronically.
11:00: Our monthly administration meeting was a great success. Everyone had expected a massive change and upheaval when we moved to paperless however the no-indexing system is simple to use, templates have been set up to mirror the way we worked with paper files.
15:00: It’s amazing that we still have the same amount of flexibility digitally as we did with paper. We have created different filing cabinets, folders and plastic wallets to mirror exactly what we were using before. Phenomenally, each ‘plastic wallet’ holds up to 4000 files.
17:00: Phew! I can go home and switch off from work tonight as I know everything will run smoothly again tomorrow. I am so glad we found Volume.
What was really impressive, particularly after all the installation problems we’d had trying to set up our previous DMS software, was the ease with which Volume was set up remotely. It was a no fuss, clean installation with no manual intervention needed to get it to work.
– Alex, A D Associates.
Business in complex, managing documents is not.
If your company hasn’t started making the switch to paperless or found the right document management system then you’re already behind the competition. If you don’t adapt to the ever-developing technological world we live in you will be kicking yourself later.
