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The many benefits of going paperless for your HR department.

A paperless office is good for the planet and your bottom line. Discover how digitizing human resources forms can save time, money, and the environment.

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Business colleagues sitting and discussing the pros and cons of taking their business paperless.

Take the paper out of your paperwork.

Switching to a paperless business won’t eliminate every bit of workplace confusion, but transitioning your company’s recordkeeping from paper files to digital documents can take a lot of the pain out of administrative tasks — and unlock some unexpected cost savings.

What is a paperless business?

A paperless business doesn’t mean you’ll never see another sheet of paper at the office again. Paper documents are necessary for certain business processes, and some small businesses may need to keep physical copies of certain important documents due to HIPAA or other regulations.

A paperless office simply takes steps to minimize paper-based workflows and uses electronic documents whenever possible. When you apply these principles to your business’s HR department, you’ll find there are a lot of small changes that can yield major results down the line.

Example of an digital employee handbook

How to digitize your HR processes.

There are a variety of ways you can digitize day-to-day human resources tasks, like:

Online application tracking

By using an online application portal instead of collecting physical resumes and applications, you can maintain an easily searchable database of applicants. This also means you won’t have to keep the space-consuming paper applications on file for a year as required by various state and federal regulations.

E-signatures

Important documents can be signed online using e-signatures to drastically cut down on paper waste during the onboarding process.Define how pricing will be calculated and the payment deadline for invoices..

Web surveys

When soliciting employee feedback, free online polls and surveys can gather data faster and more securely than printed forms.

Digitizing paper files

Digitization of physical files can be time consuming, but every hour spent on document scanning will save your employees even more time once they no longer have to dig through file cabinets to find the information they need.State who owns the intellectual property involved in the work and how both parties should use it.

A digital document management system

Once you’ve converted your business documents into digital files, a document management system can help you keep them all organized and accessible to any employee who has permission to view them.

The benefits of a paperless system.

There’s plenty for business owners to like about a paperless filing system, but first and foremost is the fact that going paperless saves money. Printing-related expenses like paper, toner, and maintenance on copiers and fax machines can be sharply reduced or even eliminated from the budget altogether in some cases.

When files have been digitized, a business can comply with document retention rules without having to dedicate valuable office space to file storage. That also means that office workers spend less time on the clock in search of physical documents that may have been misfiled or stored at an inconvenient offsite location.

Last but certainly not least, a paperless system dramatically reduces a company’s carbon footprint by cutting down on the amount of waste paper it generates.

Signing a digital project estimate using Adobe Sign

How Acrobat Sign can help you go paperless.

Acrobat Sign’s robust toolset makes it easier than ever to make the switch to a paperless HR department.

Signature tracking

Digital signatures mean employees and vendors can sign and return documents seamlessly without having to fire up a printer. And thanks to signature tracking, you can see in real time who’s signed and who needs a follow-up email.

Security settings

Keep sensitive documents under lock and key with Sign’s powerful access control features, including password protection and two-factor authentication to ensure that only authorized employees view private information.

Integration

From Outlook to Dropbox and Workday to ServiceNow, Sign integrates seamlessly with whatever business software your HR department uses.

Embedded forms

Create a signable document or form and then embed it directly into a web page where employees can view and interact with it, all without leaving the app.

Automation

Sign makes it simple for anyone in your organization to create smart documents that email themselves to recipients in a specific order, guide them through the signing process, and send automatic reminders if key sections are left incomplete.

Going paperless is good for the Earth. But thanks to the incredible efficiency of digital documents, it’s even better for keeping your HR department running smoothly.

Learn how Sign can bring unmatched efficiency to your organization

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