Keep Your Organization Compliant and Use Less Paper

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

(Editor’s Note: Today’s article is brought to you by  our friends at Poster Guard® Poster Compliance Service , the leading labor law poster service that gets your business up to date with all required and compliant federal, state, and local labor law postings, and then keeps it that way — for an entire year. Enjoy the article!)

I’ve mentioned on HR Bartender before that I like paper. I have a paper planner and use it daily. I like paper books and read them regularly. But I also realize that not everything I do needs to be paper, and it’s important to balance my use of paper for various reasons – storage, effectiveness, efficiency, and yes, the environment. 

For example, I’ve started reading the manga series “One Piece”. It’s been around since 1997 (translation: there are lots of issues!), so I’m reading it online using the Libby app which is connected to my library card. It’s FREE, and I’m not using paper. 

The reason I’m bringing this up is because businesses continue to use a lot of paper, too. I recently found a compilation of office paper consumption statistics that indicated:

The average office worker prints around 31 pages a day. The average U.S. worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper each year.This equates to about 12.1 trillion sheets of paper a year. 

Some people might say, “Hey, that paper is important documentation! We need it!”. And there could be some truth in that remark. But there are also statistics to show otherwise.

70% of office waste is paper. Businesses lose approx. 7.5% of all paper documentation. 76% of office workers admit to printing non-work documents at work. 

So, let’s admit it. Organizations and individuals need to be more cognizant of their paper use. Maybe we can do better.

From a human resources perspective, a place we can start monitoring our paper use is with compliance. Specifically, this involves labor law postings and handouts for online applicants and remote employees. Our friends at Poster Guard offer four electronic services to help you remain compliant and use less paper.

Employers are required to share certain employment postings with online applicants during the application process. Poster Guard’s Online Applicant Posting Service allows organizations to electronically display mandatory job employment postings.If your organization participates in E-Verify, then it’s required to provide online job applicants with the latest E-Verify and Right to Work posters. Poster Guard offers a specific service to electronically display these postings to online applicants. While you’re required to display physical posters in breakrooms, entrances and exits for onsite employees, the situation is different for remote and hybrid workers. Poster Guard provides an Intranet Licensing Service to give employees access to necessary labor law posters.  Lastly, there’s a Mandatory Handout Service to distribute required federal, state, county, and city employee notices electronically. 

Besides saving on paper, what I like about these electronic services is — first and foremost – they support compliance. Not being compliant can result in legal fees and penalties. You gain the added assurance that you’re following the latest regulatory requirements — and protected from financial and legal risks.

HR departments don’t have to worry about monitoring and updating documents because Poster Guard takes care of that with their automated update feature. They have a legal team that works on this … for you. HR professionals can focus their energy on other activities like recruiting and retention. Finally, applicants, candidates, and employees know the organization they’re engaging with emphasizes doing the right thing. 

As human resources professionals, part of our job is compliance. But that doesn’t mean compliance can’t also be effective and efficient. There’s an opportunity here to do both. Now could be a great time to transition from a paper process and focus on an electronic system that is workplace compliant and environmentally friendly.

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