A new study of Australian workers has investigated whether our workplaces continue to rely on paper files, finding only 16 per cent of workers report their offices are paperless.

According to The Australian Workplace Digital Outlook report, almost three quarters of offices (73 percent) still rely on paper for record keeping and processing, and some workplaces are reporting that paper use has actually increased in the past five years.

PureProfile was commissioned by Forum Group to undertake the research project among 503 male and female fulltime and part-time workers aged over 18 during March 2019. Workers were drawn from a mix of employees, team leaders and management from all over Australia.

The research has revealed Human Resources (35 per cent), Finance (33 per cent) and Sales and Marketing (22 per cent) as the most paper-dependent departments. 

“Human Resources and Finance are supposed to make work easier and efficient, but these departments are by far the worst offenders when it comes to relying on paper,” said Forum Chief Operating Officer Peter Burr.

“This financial year companies need to take a closer look at how to reduce paper use if we are ever going to digitise Australian business and end this longstanding addiction to paper.”

Mr Burr said the idea of a paperless office appeared to be moving out of reach for many businesses, despite 10 years of digital transformation efforts around the world. In the past five years, only a handful of offices (11 per cent) have ceased using paper. 

“Workers in one in five businesses say paper use is unchanged, and 8 per cent are saying paper has increased, which suggests some businesses attempts to digitise are failing,” Mr Burr said.

Employees believe paper records need to be kept for legal purposes (48 per cent), or that physical signatures must be retained (43 per cent). Other reasons include: 

• Approvals (24 percent)
• Old systems (22 per cent)
• Suppliers / customers requirement (20 per cent)
• Staff preference for paper (15 percent)

Mr Burr said there was confusion among businesses about how records are required to be kept.

“Good financial and customer records are fundamental to a successful business, but most records can be electronic as long as they are convertible to paper if required,” Mr Burr said.

“Even sophisticated businesses have to deal with lost invoices, duplicated data and misplaced records when they rely on manual systems to keep their operations running.

“Moving from paper to digital forms eliminates the risk of losing paperwork, illegible handwriting, or the intentional destruction of records.

“Cutting out manual data entry also reduces risk of costly human error, such as a misplaced decimal place, additional digits in payable amounts, or incorrect banking information.”

How can workplaces move away from paper use?

Forum has a range of technology that enables the digitisation of paper-based processes, moving information electronically through the workplace.

In 2015, Azzurri Concrete were facing changing industry standards requiring digital workflows to be eligible for large-scale projects. Azzurri shifted from manual, paper-based forms and workflows to a completely digital process using eForms. This delivered a number of benefits to Azzurri including a reduction in administration and manual data entry, elimination of inaccurate data and a decline of lost forms. 

Prochem Pipeline products were running their sales quoting on a legacy system with no ability to make changes to the platform. The sales process involved four disparate systems and the current workflow was costing time and money. Forum was able to provide Prochem with simpler tools to eliminate duplicate data entry and paper forms and deliver a streamlined, flexible system to manage sales enquiries. 

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