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The History of Filing Cabinets

When it comes to document management, we have all seen that metal box in almost every office around the globe- a filing cabinet. Usually old, maybe not even in use anymore. For years it was a staple in the workplace—but was it efficient in helping us remember where things went?

Businesses required to keep records of documents resulted in a need for a system to keep all of their information safe.

After realizing that papers were not required to be tarnished for the sake of filing them, Edwin G. Seibels invented the vertical filing cabinet system in 1898, and revolutionized the way we organize our documents. Before the filing cabinet, most documents had to be rolled or folded up and stored in small holes in the wall, forcing important documents to be tarnished upon storing them away, a problem Seibel was looking to solve with the filing cabinet.

Yet as time goes on, certain inventions become obsolete. Cell Phones have replaced landlines, cars have replaced the horse and carriage, and although most computers are still produced with printing capabilities, the usage of the filing cabinet is starting to dwindle as documents and records are becoming digitized.

Although at the time the filing cabinet was the most efficient way to store documents, it was never the most efficient at helping us find them again. Essentially, it is nothing but a mere storage locker for paper documents. But when the time comes to find exactly what you are looking for, you might have difficulty remembering where exactly you stored it in the first place—or even more difficulty when Bob from three cubicles down misplaces documents in the wrong folders.

It all depends on how frequently you are faced with that specific type of document. Think about how many times you get a piece of mail. Unless this mail delivered to you was urgent, it simply gets thrown aside and into a jungle of other unopened mail pieces.

The human brain remembers memories only as strong as the connection you have to that specific topic. If you received multiple documents about the same thing, you are frequently reminded of it and have a stronger neurologic pathway to that memory. For those who end up having to dive through stacks of paper to find one single document, this may end up happening more often than we’d like.

Although with time, we adapt and evolve upon the way we do things to make our lives easier. The filing cabinet helped documents stay in good shape, but wasn’t the fastest way to find a document. Now, with the development of digital document management, a quick search will bring up all of the files that you are looking for without diving through a stack of papers. The future is a beautiful thing.

Learn more on how digital document management is evolving and how your business processes should to here.

Mental health in the workplace- and how it can affect those working remotely

For the past year and change, many of us have been reallocated to working remotely. Since then, the spotlight on conversations surrounding mental health have illuminated even brighter. Not only have they become more common and normalized, but most importantly, they have become validated. These conversations are bringing to light what many have already experienced for some time—that our mental health can drastically affect our quality of life and the way it impacts our work-life, especially now when so many are working remotely.

It is an entirely new frontier to have these conversations in professional spaces. In recent years, the acceptance of taking a mental health day has become more commonplace, and since the Covid-19 pandemic Sun Life Financial has doubled the amount of personal emergency days from 5 to 10.

Mental health can severely impact focus and performing multiple tasks at once could prove difficult for an employee suffering from these issues. The statistics show a higher number affected than one might think, Up to 3% of all Canadians will suffer from S.A.D (Seasonal Affective Disorder) in their lifetime.

This is most commonly explained by the lack of sunlight one may be exposed to during the winter months. Employees working office jobs may find themselves to very little light exposure as they are inside for most of the day. Symptoms of this disorder are extreme lethargy, consistent low mood, and irritability, and this most often presents higher employee absence and lower productivity. These days, when many employees are working from home, it is even more vital to give them the tips they need as they can feel even more distanced from support.

As a result from S.A.D, employees may judge themselves as lazy or incompetent. It is vital to support employees during this time and acknowledge that they are doing their best. Here are a few ways an employer can support their employees through S.A.D:

Help break the stigma and open the conversation around mental health first
Leverage remote work tools and solutions to provide employees with all the company resources available
Promote a work life balance, if feasible allow employees to have flexible hours
Encourage staff to take their breaks
Stress the importance of unplugging from their phones
Schedule 1-on-1 meetings once a week or every other week to help them feel connected
Create a good working environment, ensuring they have a designated break room
Organize virtual employee gatherings
Ensure employees get the recognition they deserve

Although the discussion surrounding mental health has come a long way, many may still feel shame in coming forward and speaking about how they are feeling with their managers. This has the potential to turn into a vicious cycle of emotions. To ensure employees feel comfortable speaking about their struggles, it is important for administrators to foster an environment that is open and welcoming so their employees know they will be supported with whatever they need- even if these talks have to happen virtually.

The pros and cons of working from home

A solid year into living through the Covid-19 pandemic, a lot has changed. We don’t hug, we don’t shake hands, and many of us now are finding ourselves working remotely from home.

Although some are no strangers to working remotely, the transition to working from home was a new concept for many. Some people love it, some people hate it—but how does it affect the way we work?

In-person meetings have been replaced by Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meets, and employees that were under the watchful eye of a supervisor now possess a new sense of independence and privacy, along with the most important aspect of working remotely: trust.

A FlexJob Survey in 2020 found that many workers discovered themselves to be more productive at home, with 95% of the respondents stating their productivity has been the same if not higher, as there were less interruptions and had a quieter working environment.

A few of the other benefits found in this survey include:

Remote work retains talent

81% of respondents noted they would be more loyal to their employer if they had flexible work options

Remote work increases job satisfaction

Remote workers were more likely to state they were satisfied with their job, ranking 57% to 50% respectively

Remote work leads to increased mental health

Of the surveyed who do not have access to flexible work are twice as likely to have poor mental health

Remote work saves you money

Flexjobs has found that on average a remote worker can save up to $4,000 including car mileage, maintenance, working attire, and more.

The remote workforce is proving to be more productive and cost effective. For most of 2020, businesses have been scrambling to transition their infrastructures into the digital space for remote workers to access their projects. This trend looks to continue with permanent remote workers. As Consentia’s Director of Operations sees it, “Some of these companies had no choice but to move remote, we have clients who have not been able to process some documents because they have been locked in the office for over a year, the accessibility of accessing your work remotely is as necessary as ever”.

Some are missing the routine of getting up and getting ready, grabbing their morning coffee from their local café, and the daily small talk with co-workers at the office.

Little things that we once paid little attention to are now the things some workers miss the most. Working from home being the new way of life, conversely, may have its challenges. In a survey of 2,000 workers who transitioned to working from home reported that they waste up to an hour each day toggling between communication apps.

In a survey conducted by Indeed, some workers reported that working from home has affected them negatively, with up to 50% claiming they miss their commute, 73% claim they miss socializing in person with their colleagues, and 45% saying they miss in-person meetings with their co-workers.

Whether you love it or hate it, It is clear that the way we work will be significantly changed when the pandemic is over. Salesforce made the statement early in 2021 that they believe the “9-5 workday is dead” and believe work should be flexible to the employee and their schedule, and not the other way around. Will the way we work change for good? Only time will tell.

For more information to digitize workflows, visit here.

How the Digital Revolution Changed Us

There is no doubt that the digital age has come with it’s pros- people can have a sense of belonging to any community, regardless of where they live, and digital imaging has allowed us to transform anything we have and put it online. We have a deeper connection to our friends’ lives as we can see a portion of their everyday life, and some of us even make new friends entirely on the internet. Nowadays, if something happens in the world- news travels fast. All it takes is a tweet made by someone who is on scene, and then it’s broadcasted to the world. With humans so interconnected by the internet now, how has this impacted us?

Back when Googling was not the common practice to learn about something, you had to read and find the information yourself, be it from a textbook or an encyclopedia. Now, a good portion of our knowledge is transactional. This means our understanding is not as deep as it once had to be, because we know we can access this information at a later date, from another person, or the internet. In a study made by the European Journal of Neurosciences in 2015, they found that individuals who were tasked to search for specific information online gathered the information faster than those using printed encyclopedias, but were in turn less able to recall the information they found accurately.

The hyper-connectivity of world events has also impacted how we process and react to information that comes our way. Before, traditional news stations would report on important national stories, in addition to a few local segments. When something important happened, we had the time and emotional space to take it in and think about it. With the speed at which international news is delivered to us now, we are confronted with so many new stories that the severity of them does not affect us the same way they used to before. Unfortunately, with the frequency in which school shootings happen in the US, although we can recognize how awful each news story is, we have become desensitized by the sheer volume of news we are inundated with. Now more than ever, it’s important to put your phone down for a moment and take a deep, long breath.

For digital imaging solutions learn more about it here.

Will Paper Become Obsolete Someday?

It’s strange to think about, but our world could be paperless in the near future.

We’ve already seen the push for companies to digitize and leave their bulky physical documents behind. Overall, this is a positive business trend, as digitizing paper documents is not only environmentally-friendly but helping organizations save costs in the long run while still maximizing workflows with more convenient, searchable records and documents.

So, what’s holding back society from going digital? Let’s take a closer look at why paper is still here – at least for now.

1. Sense of comfort

People today are still more comfortable with paper compared to electronic methods. Overall, they see paper as more serious. As paper hard copies are tangible they provide a sense of something real.

At the same time, people are nostalgic about paper. They like being able to browse a physical book or have a paper back-up copy, just in case. This goes for companies as well: sometimes managers are initially weary about digital documents and new processes surrounding them.

However, this sense of comfort with paper is changing as users adapt to and prefer electronic formats and devices. In the near future, digital may be seen as more comfortable than paper.

2. Dependence on electricity

Another common argument for paper is that digital records require electric power. What happens in the event of a power outage or a broken device?

For this reason, people prefer having paper back-ups of documents. However, companies are already getting around this issue by investing in infrastructures and systems that make documents available even offline – and across all devices.

In fact, many digital records management systems today have back-up systems in place to ensure the safety and access of records, with or without power. In this way, digitizing paper documents truly becomes a must-have.

3. Security concerns

Finally, many companies are still concerned about the security and confidentiality of their electronic documents. With 4.1 billion records exposed by hackers in 2019 alone, this is a real concern.

Luckily, it’s possible to maximize online security and keep your documents safe from hackers. Digitizing paper documents can actually boost your security, as a data management system allows you to set user permissions and secure logins. As long as the company invests in the right system, electronic records can be kept well-secured.

4. Upfront investment

Of course, going paperless also means investing in conversion and a digital system. This can keep companies from making the change – even though this investment definitely pays off in the long run.

Obstacles have always presented themselves in holding some of us back from adopting new ways. Consider examples such as computers replacing typewriters and kiosks replacing humans. When such technology was first introduced, businesses had similar challenges as mentioned above in adopting. But after having tried and tested along with building a solid infrastructure in place, we have all come to realize just how advantageous our lives and workflows have become.

Similarly to going paperless, these obstacles don’t look like they’ll last much longer either. More and more companies are already going digital and finding ways to ensure document security during power outages or data breaches. In our humble opinion, digital is the now and future.

Digitization is becoming more important and is not only helping businesses adjust with our virtual world but also providing a better, cost-effective solution. Learn more about digitizing your documents, records, and files with our Scanning and Imaging Solutions.

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The History of Filing Cabinets

Mental health in the workplace- and how it can affect those working remotely

The pros and cons of working from home

Will Paper Become Obsolete Someday?

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