Without a doubt, online chat and email are the standards when it comes to office communication, but physical documents will always have their role in any organization, large or small. Whether it’s training packets for new hires, a weekly office memo that gets posted on the wall throughout the office, to simple meeting printouts for taking notes on a presentation, the paper will have its uses even with the trend of going paperless.
Step 1: Identify The Problem
While it may not be something that has been on your list of top concerns, the path to improving your company’s daily operations is sitting down and taking a look at printing practices within your organization. To do this, you have a couple of options. The quick and easy solution would be to put together a survey that you can distribute, or you can even just hold a quick meeting if you have asmaller staff. Focus on asking questions about printing habits and needs, so you can get a clear picture of how documents are flowing through your organization.
Step 2: Setting Up An Environment For Efficiency
No matter which direction you decide to take on step one, you should now have a clear idea of what the problem is. Unfortunately, step two has the potential to be the most challenging of the three, because optimizing printing practices can range between simple, fixable hardware issues, to deeply rooted employee habits. However, no matter what kind of problem you’re looking at making changes now will help set you and your team up for more productivity and success in the long run.
Hardware Breakdown, Maintenance, & More
Printer breakdowns always seem to happen at the worst times to the point where it feels as if was karma or just bad luck that caused it. The truth is, printer breakdowns just happen since, at the end of the day, it’s a piece that hardware that has numerous internal components that are slowly but surelygetting worn down. While sometimes breakdowns do just happen, many can be prevented with proper maintenance.
Curbing Bad Printing Habits
From making too many copies of meeting printouts and printing documents that could have just been sent over email, to having all of your employees backing up the printing queue on the same day or even printing out sensitive company information without your knowledge, the list of possible problems in this category can go on and on. To solve these problems, it really just comes down to managing your team more closely and making sure they’re held accountable for their bad printing habits. However, it’s crucial to remember that you need to motivate them to actually make those positive changes byexplaining how those changes will benefit themselves, their coworkers, and the company as a whole.
