It’s that time of year again for our planet’s favorite holiday: Earth Day! How are you going to celebrate on April 22nd? We hope you’ll plant a tree, recycle your cans and bottles, and consider making your business processes paperless. Everything from your job application to your driver management files can be made digital, allowing countless trees to continue churning out oxygen and providing homes for squirrel families.
If the birds and deer aren’t enough of a reason to cut paper out of your processes, we’ve got good news. It’s not just good for the Earth – it’s good for the green in your wallet too. Here are five great reasons to go paperless that have nothing to do with the environment.
1. Faster for Carriers
Just like writing an email gets results faster than sending a letter in the mail, bringing any paper process online will similarly boost the speed of your operations. Our free online Xchange Network for driver verifications was built on this principle, removing the tedium of waiting for faxed employment verifications and speeding up hiring considerably.
Paper slows down every part of your business but creates the most friction in recruiting, where getting good candidates into trucks needs to happen quickly to prevent lost revenue from equipment sitting idle on the lot. When you’re able to receive applications as soon as they’re completed online by a driver, you can begin the hiring process that much faster. Our data on drivers also shows that the more immediately you respond to a driver after he applies, the more likely he is to feel engaged with your company and eventually onboard with you.
2. Easier for Drivers
A happy driver is one who can apply to jobs, fill out onboarding paperwork, and report on-the-job issues from his mobile device during a few minutes of downtime rather than having to complete paperwork in person. Drivers are becoming accustomed to the ease and convenience of online applications and mobile-friendly paperwork, and carriers who stick to a paper process are missing out on applicants who refuse to go back to the dark days of writing by hand. Allowing a driver to fill out paperwork and complete tasks on a mobile device is a way of respecting his busy schedule and makes it more likely that you’ll receive that updated copy of his CDL you’ve been waiting on.
3. Greater Accuracy
Information changes all the time. Drivers move, rendering the addresses provided on their job applications inaccurate. Accidents happen on the road, necessitating updates to DQF files. Licenses expire, generating new paperwork that’s easy to overlook. Paper doesn’t change at all unless you dig it out of a cabinet and attack it with a pen.
When you use a paper process, your information is always out of date. Digital driver files and applications, on the other hand, can be updated instantly, and those changes can be seen by everyone at your company who uses your online system. It’s a better way of keeping up with the pace of business and staying compliant with regulations as well.
4. Lower Costs
While the price of switching to an online system might look higher up front, the hidden costs of using a paper process stack up over time. On top of the costs of paper, printers, ink, and storage space for your constantly accumulating collection of outdated files, there’s the lost time spent wading through folders for the right information and the potential for fines if you’re not up-to-date on compliance issues. Your digital files will take up the same space in your office if you have 10 employees or 10,000, which enables you to grow without having to worry about how your paper processes will scale.
5. Strengthened Security
Even if you keep your documents locked up whenever you’re not using them and own the only key to the cabinet, there’s still a greater risk of your files being compromised if you keep sensitive information on paper. All it takes is one social security number sitting out in front of one unwanted eye to risk identity theft. Online files – especially those stored by Tenstreet – are protected by encryption and follow strict privacy standards that ensure confidentiality of sensitive information.
Paper is great under the right circumstances, but save it for your origami hobby or your Mother’s Day card. Paperless technology can give your business the boost it needs to grow as big and strong as an oak tree.
If you’d like to speak with us about making your recruiting, onboarding, or safety processes paperless, call us at 877-219-9283 or email [email protected].
