The concept of the paperless office is fast approaching 50 years old, and we are still a long way from fulfilling its image. It was in an article published in the (print copy) Business Week that the term ‘paperless office’ was first coined. The article was written about ‘The Office of the Future’, talking about how the IBM computer was taking over the role that traditionally filing cabinets and multiple files had filled in the storage of records.
While the concept was swept up as a real revolution in document management, becoming 100 percent paperless was an impossible dream. It inevitably led to organizations assessing current practices and overhauling them to be more streamlined and efficient while they transferred everything onto computers. However, MIT published a book in 2001 entitled The Myth of the Paperless Office quelled any further move towards completely eliminating paper from the office environment.
Love of the tangible
There were a number of reasons for this, and the love of holding something solid and tangible in your hands is a part of human nature that will not be easily erased – particularly if there is a real value to it.
It is the same reason why ebooks never really killed off the physical book, despite the stark predictions. While ebooks and Kindles proved popular, there was still a desire to keep proper books which have been a real source of reassurance for the world of literature.
Paper is sustainable
Protecting the environment was understood to be one of the key driving factors behind a paperless office. The narrative at the time was that too many trees were being cut down to produce all this paper, and by creating a paperless office, a company would be protecting the environment.
In actual fact, paper is probably one of the most sustainable products in the world, and the paper industry has worked hard to make it this way by implementing a number of certification schemes; the industry has been able to significantly grow the area covered by European forests by an area the size of Switzerland during the first two decades of the 21st century. Current statistics indicate that 74 percent of paper and 83 percent of cardboard packaging is recycled.
Printing habits have changed
The evolution of print management systems since the 1970s and 1980s has radically changed our habits around printing and document management. And although the processes have become much cheaper and more digitalized, there is still an obvious need for printing in the office environment. Excessive, unnecessary printing has declined. With so many processes taking place online today, the need for a ‘file’ to move from one desk to another, gathering pages along the way, has been eliminated.
There are still employees who prefer to read from paper – particularly larger documents. So intermittent printing is still customary and, on the whole, down to personal choice.
Hard copies were still legal tender
The legal world continued to operate in an environment that still valued physical paper documents over and above digital documents.
During those early years of computing, the security of documents was still vulnerable and open to fraud. Contracts were still required to be signed by hand, and lawyers would not accept electronic documents. As a result, there was (and still is) a need for the storage of hard-copy documents.
Many companies have now digitalized the process, with identification and verification software ensuring the validity of the parties involved in a contract. For example, most insurance companies are now set up to carry out all transactions and correspondence through online document management systems. However, larger, more ‘weighty’ legal issues will always require hard-copy documents.