Why go Paperless? What are the Disadvantages of using paper?
Your business may be losing more than you know just by using paper. Finding out how much paper you have used should be easy enough. Just see how many monthly printing papers you bought in the past month, right? Wrong. Even the lowly office worker uses an astonishing amount of paper annually that might just shock you.
An incorrectly filed document costs approximately $125 to the organization and one lost document can cost around $300-700. That’s a lot of losses considering that large organizations lose an important document every 12 seconds.
When we understand the disadvantages of using paper, it becomes all the more easy to make a case for the shift to a paperless workplace. One such step is the use of online PDF writers that offer e-sign feature to eliminate the need for printing. However, before you make the case, here are some of the disadvantages of using paper in the workplace that you must keep in mind.
Papers Are Space Wasters
Take a peek at the office filing cabinet if you’re at your workplace, and you’ll find that it is hopelessly cluttered and bulky. That area of the floor that it’s on is most likely not the best use for that area. An average filing cabinet can rake up rent of more than a $1300 dollars for the space it is grabbing. If your office is in an expensive business locale, this figure might be on the pricier side of things. If the information is poorly filed, you may end up taking more time to sort them out and get the exact piece of document you need, thus costing your business precious time and resources in the process.
Paper Is Not Environmentally Friendly
Paper is, needless to say, not environmentally friendly. 12% to 17% of yearly green house gas emissions result from the forest cover lost due to the consumption of paper. There is definitely more paper in the US landfills that has been discarded and is contributing to almost a third of all solid waste in these landfills. To make matters worse, the US consumes a third of the world’s paper despite being home to only 5% of the world’s population. If there needs to be any change against the use of paper, it has to be a collective one. All businesses need to advance towards a paperless workplace to make a substantial impact by taking it up as part of their social responsibility.
Paper Is Inefficient In Today’s Fast-Paced, Communicative World
Just imagine the havoc that would be wreaked if each communication today would be done using snail mail. It used to be the primary form of communication back in the day (the 90s) but now times have changed. People simply do not have the time nor do they have the patience to wait 10 working days for correspondence. Fax machines used to be really cumbersome, even when they were in fashion. Now they are even more so. There are more efficient ways of securely sharing contracts and confidential agreements through the internet, . This is thanks to SSL certificates and encryption of documents and of course digital signatures that have the same validity in all 50 US states as paper based signatures.