Creating a paperless office with Google Workspace – Sustainability Tips

Creating a paperless office with Google Workspace

The idea of creating an office that is paperless has been there for a long time. The idea first made it to the mainstream through an article published in Business Week in 1975. Even after 45 years, we still have not done away with paper or even the paper trail logic. However, technology, especially the cloud collaboration technologies such as the Google Workspace, has finally given us the opportunity to get closer to achieving this goal. 

Google Workspace offers a range of productivity and collaboration tools. Features including an email address, calendar, meetings, chat, drive, documents, sheets, slides, forms, and more come standard with Google Workspace plans.

Tips On How You Can Create A Paperless Office With Google Workspace

The best tips that you can follow for creating a paperless office with Google Workspace are as follows:

Creating Forms Online Instead Of Questionnaires & Paper Surveys

You can create as well as distribute online forms relevant to hardware requests, event responses, and volunteer signups. It takes just a few minutes or less to create these online forms with Google Workspace. You will start receiving real-time responses as soon as you send the form out. You can then explore the results by analysing the charts and summaries created using the information filled in the forms.

Tracking Important Deadlines & Schedules

You can create online project plans using Google Sheets. Google Sheets can help you keep track of all the tasks. You can assign as well as list tasks for all the team members. The task list can be updated online by anyone in real time. You won’t really have to shift through the email updates of everyone to do so. You can also use Google Calendar for making an online team calendar. This calendar can be accessed for updating deadline changes and schedules. You can schedule team meetings using the calendar.

Creating, Sharing, & Storing Content Online Rather Than Printing It

Management and storage of videos, PDFs, images and other files can be done with Google Drive. All the data is stored in the cloud and can be accessed from anywhere. The access control and sharing features in the Google Drive enable teams and partners to work simply as well as securely. Users can even use Google Drive for creating new documents in the browser window. Rather than printing handouts, written content and presentations, they can be created through Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

Brainstorming Feedback Online

Getting feedback for projects and other purposes might be difficult when you have a large team. However, you can create files in Google Sheets, Google Docs, and Google Slides. Then, you can share them online with stakeholders as well as team members for receiving targeted suggestions. 

Generating A Virtual Printing Board

If you wish to share information about upcoming events, announcements, the latest project developments, or more, then you can use Google Workspace. You won’t have to post printed information when you have access to the best Google Workspace tools. You can use Google Groups for creating a mailing list. This mailing list will work as a virtual bulletin board. It will help you reach the inboxes of everyone at once.

Sharing Resources With The Team On Internal Websites

Sometimes it can be immensely time-consuming to keep track of all the resources. This might be the case, especially when global team management needs to be done. With Google Sites, you can keep all assets in one place. It will help all members of your organisation, no matter what part of this world, to stay up to date with all the latest resources in the most hassle-free way. 

Scanning & Storing Physical Documents Online On The Go

Rather than maintaining a record of all the paper receipts or documents, you can scan them in the Google Drive app using your mobile phone. The document or paper receipts will get saved as instant PDFs that you can access anytime when you need them.

Stay Organized By Storing Multiple Drafts In A Single File

When you are working on images, PDFs, videos, or files, you can keep multiple drafts and use them as references. You can store all the drafts in one single file in Google Drive for better organization and revert to the previous versions any time whenever you feel the need is necessary. It also lets you to even automatically save all drafts in the same file while creating new items in Google Slides, Google Docs, and Google Sheets. You can make note of changes, and even switch to earlier versions with revision history. 

Train Employees Anytime, Anywhere

If you want to give timely training to your distributed workforce, then you can use Google Meet. This tool will help you reduce most onsite training costs as well as printing materials. You can conduct virtual training classes from anywhere across the globe. This will help save traveling costs as well as time. You can also use the Google Sites feature for creating a webpage. The webpage can include all your training and onboarding resources. Thus, helping all the employees of your company find any important reference materials under one roof itself.

In this increasingly conscious and compassionate world, many companies believe they stand out from the crowd because they waste less paper and have committed themselves to build an environment-friendly world. Although, most companies might find it difficult to go paperless completely, taking a step in the direction, of following the above-mentioned tips will not only help them save space but also time. Going paperless is definitely easy and possible with Google Workspace.

If you are looking at further opinions on how you can contribute to sustainability using Google Workspace, feel free to reach out to us. We have a team of experts to guide you on the benefits of using Google Workspace.