by Meredith Davises

Created on: January 17, 2010   Last Updated: February 03, 2010

The saga of the paper trail is not a mystery. How does the usage of paper become a billion dollar expenditure every year? For every piece of paper used by a business, it cost the company approximately ten hours of nonproductive loss in employment.

Why does it cost the company more than a few cents to print a report? Once the report is printed, some one must proofread and that cost more than a few cents. The report goes to the next employee who reads it and uses a highlighter pen to make notes for his report that is supposed to be a synopsis of this report and recommendations concerning the information in the report. He compiles his report on a computer program by his hand or an administrative assistant and the report is printed and proofread.

Mass communication is necessary. Is there a need for a finished paper product? Sure reports are manipulated, changed and erased. There are business pirates, hackers and computer virus. The original report can be printed and filed. The computer report assigned “read only” status goes to the addressed employee(s). Computer software has features that are available like the highlight feature that are not always used resulting in printed documents and manual applications like the use of a highlighter pen and employment labor.

Another paper trail that results in expenditures is the company’s responsibility to respond to incoming request for information. It seems in the best interest of the business profile to correspond with a personal letter signed by a real person. Once this administrative assistant has written an ample amount of correspondence they are a company spokesperson. In most cases, the media instigate this recognition. The company will usually promote this person to the public relations department and pay them a higher salary to legitimize these paper trails and reinforce the status of their business. This is a nonproductive loss because this employee is essentially doing the same job which is answering correspondence but under more scruples and direction.

A major waste of paper, time, and labor is having printers networked for access by individual employees. When an employee has a personal computer, there is no need for them to use other printers without channeling notification of their print job. First, some users do not change their print setting back to their default printer, which is not automatically done unless the computer programs to return to the default printer. An employee may request

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>