If HR managers were to move their print-based staff manuals online, it would save organisations across the UK a huge £297 million and the country more than 100,000 trees, according to a study.
New research undertaken by online contact centre software provider Transversal, indicates that it costs on average £14 to print the average 40-page manual for each of the UK’s 21.26 million employees. Each tree is able to create 208 manuals, which results in 102,048 currently being cut down to provide the necessary paper.
Davin Yap, the firm’s chief executive, said: "In a digital age, large and complex manuals simply don’t match how people want to receive information. Staff normally have specific questions and want to receive focused, accurate answers rather than looking through pages and pages of general information."
Moving information online also frees up HR staff time to undertake more strategic work and deal with more complex queries as digital manuals are cheaper and easier to maintain, he added.
Recommendations include enabling employees to ask questions anonymously and offering them the option to escalate their query to an appropriate member of staff via the phone or email if a given query is not answered either by the manual or a searchable knowledgebase located on the company intranet.
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HR companies are using more freeware…
It seems the business and professional services are seriously considering rolling out free software in 2010. Over half indicated in a recent research programme commissioned by Global Graphics that they were discussing it with senior management with the intention of implementation. You can find more details on the use of free software in business and professional services here http://bit.ly/GlobalGraphicsfreesoftware