Thinking about going paperless? Look at some of the benefits other companies have been seeing with electronic personnel files and paperless onboarding. 

It's well known that the Human Resources department has the pleasure of managing a serious amount of paper. Over the years, HR professionals have come up with their own tricks to keep employee documentation stored in a way that makes it accessible to authorized staff, but remains secure and compliant. Unfortunately, when dealing with paper files, it is inevitable that critical documents are lost or misfiled from time to time. These days, most HR offices are moving to electronic personnel files to keep employee documentation organized, up to date and securely accessible no matter where team members are located. 

Proven Benefits for the Whole Team 
Companies that have already taken their HR department paperless have great things to say about how it has saved their teams time and stress when it comes to admin tasks. Compliant storage of personnel files used to be a common topic of conversation in the HR department. 

Staff used to "often spout stories of a time a document was lost or a mistake was made and there was no 'proof' to back up the actual situation. But the world is changing! According to a survey of Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), 77% of HR Departments have gone paperless. These HR professionals report spending 35% less time on HR administration – leaving time for critical business relationship building and strategic initiatives to be developed." - HR Topics. Freeing up time for your HR staff is a huge benefit, but how about also improving the onboarding process for new hires? 

An Improved Onboarding Process for New Hires 
For years, an employee's first day consisted of tediously reviewing stacks of policies, filling out repetitive paper forms and making copies of important documents. With the switch to electronic personnel files, paperless onboarding has become an extremely popular solution for getting new hires "papered up" without a single sheet! Trying to review critical business policies or fill in important personal information can be a stressful experience on an employee's first day. 

With paperless onboarding, they can take their time reviewing policies and completing forms electronically from home before their first day in the office. That way, new hires can hit the ground running from day 1 without having to tackle a wall of forms first. Best of all, when you take your workflow to the cloud, you can streamline the entire process from onboarding through file retention. 

The Advantage of Cloud Storage 
Moving to electronic personnel files gives your team a ton of benefits: better organization of employee documents, improved access security and a more efficient process for managing files. But why not take it one step further? Cloud document management systems have been used for years to help HR teams manage employee files easier and in a more compliant fashion. 

Cloud solutions, also known as "SAAS" are, "A real advantage of using technology today to store data. Software as a Service is the term for utilizing a vendor who retains control of the software system and stores your data in the cloud. This eliminates the need for the days of complex implementation, purchasing enough computing power to run complex programs and worrying about the security of data. With a SAAS solution, you can access your data from anywhere and the vendor takes care of the programming issues." - HR Topics.  

Cloud filing systems give HR teams the power to access, share and keep track of documents securely across many offices with ease. There's no longer lag time in sending or receiving information and files are actually stored with a higher level of security since they can be monitored by the system. Electronic onboarding forms can even flow directly into the new hire's folder automatically once they're signed and completed! 

Read more - HR Departments are LOVING The Paperless Office Revolution.