Revolutionize Your Office Culture – With Electronic Signatures!

Let's reminisce about when you applied for a vacant position at some company. What are the things you factored in while applying for the job? Of course, remuneration and benefits caught your attention apart from matching your skills with those mandated for the incumbent. But in addition to these fundamentals, you probably still asked around, seeking inputs from friends and acquaintances in the organization. Why? Because work culture impacts everything, especially job satisfaction and career growth.

Whether you're a rookie in the job market lacking experience and professional swag or if you are looking to switch between roles and escalate your career graph, either way – the work culture and environment matter. After all, employees spend most of their conscious hours at the workplace. Apart from sneaking in hours to complete chores and rest, a professional spends most of their time at the workplace, amongst colleagues and clients. Thus, professionals need to feel comfortable where they spend so much of their time and life, day in and day out. It’s not an unfair ask.

Work culture is of great significance to employees and employers alike. Staff is more likely to be motivated and productive when their values and goals run on a parallel path with their employers. When your company's work culture resonates with your employees, they get inspired to develop better professional relationships and perform at optimum levels, improving overall productivity. Sure, you may dig and hire the best talent, but work culture is what facilitates sustenance and the ability to retain talented employees. How management formulates & implements policies and treats its staff impacts everything for better or worse. But, you can choose which side of the spectrum you wish to be inching towards.

A company's reputation is well-known by all within the industry. Are you flexible or rigid with your employees? Do you offer WFH (remote work) options? Are you stringent with company policies, or are you tolerant towards workplace negligences and occurrences? How prompt are you with remunerations, claims, and incentives? Do you favor cumbersome paper-based workflows or promote quick and easy digital workflows? These things are already known to people who aren't part of your company. It's not just crucial to have an untarnished reputation for internal customers, but external customers may also be selective about their associations and prefer to do business with like-minded establishments. For example, some clients may only wish to transact business with an organization that does its best to eliminate paper or a company that dissuades gender discrimination and supports equal pay.

To summarize, corporate culture matters because:

• It controls attrition
• It keeps staff motivated
• It promotes employee dedication and loyalty
•  It safeguards the company's reputation
• It improves employee performance and productivity

Create the kind of workplace and company culture that will attract great talent. If you hire brilliant people, they will make work feel more like play. – Richard Branson 

Let’s consider some pertinent points: 

The Impact of COVID

Businesses are no longer conducted the same way. It's time to join the bandwagon and transform your office culture, mainly because hybrid and location-agnostic work models have gained immense popularity since COVID. Companies are now supporting a diverse workforce spread across the globe. But, managing and optimizing remote work while forging a positive work culture with little or no control over the office environment requires the right tools. Thus, many businesses have embraced digital transformation and electronic signature workflows to help them in this pursuit.

Factoring in Time, Cost, and Efficiency

Many companies already have automated HR systems to perform daily functions such as employee sign-in and sign-out and leave management. Many workflows are already tailored to suit remote work. However, most get stuck when they need authorization through attestations. All of the effort to build and manage a digital work culture where time and efficiency are maximized goes down the drain when you need a document signed. A hybrid work culture that halts and comes to a standstill just for a mere signature is no good. With the introduction of e-signatures in workflows, employees can save time and money while the organization earns repute for being flexible and accommodating.

Internal Administrative Processes

Right from the time an employee is hired, they have to sign several documents as part of the onboarding process. Offer letters, agreement copies, compliance courses, and induction formalities are not regular rigmaroles, but even these one-time rituals need to be conducted efficiently because it gives your new joiners a glimpse into your work etiquette. This is where they get to experience a company's work culture firsthand. Employees have only heard by word-of-mouth and gathered details from other sources until this moment. First impressions are lasting ones. So, smoothen out the creased pathways and conduct efficient and hassle-free onboarding for a cherishable experience that will reassure your staff about how amazing working at your company will be.

Additionally, amongst regular workflows, e-signatures can digitize claim requests and reimbursements, policy revisions, and agreements such as media policy or non-disclosure agreements that require employee attestation. Tax forms, staff appraisals, disciplinary notices, promotion notifications, salary structure revisions, and enrollment forms can all be sent to and fro employees and the company's management or HR team through a secure web-based electronic signature platform. Switching to e-signature workflows can save your team much time that they can use to focus on their core functions instead of minding administrative formalities. Employees feel more motivated to work at jobs they were originally employed for rather than getting stuck in an endless realm of paper-based formalities.

Encourage Creativity 

When you free up your employees' time and desks from administrative workflows, they automatically get more time to devote to their key roles. With reduced TATs resulting from e-signature workflows, they can plan, develop, and execute better work. Especially in creative fields, high-value and unique tasks often require concentration and a steady chain of thought. Reckless disturbances from unwarranted sources may be counterproductive. To stroke genius within your creative teams, eliminate the countless hurdles that destroy their flow. What are these numerous hindrances, you wonder! Well, any project requires approvals from several departments and managers even before its inception. Then, it yo-yos from one desk to another while all departments get to take a stab from their perspective and expertise. Sometimes, crucial documents and significant client work get lost in an endless loop because all do not gain access to these on a singular platform. Your workforce is sure to lose interest in their job if this is how things function at your organization. But with electronic signatures, you have the power to let all authorized personnel view and manage documents simultaneously, allowing instant access and approvals to streamline and expedite any approval process ensuring your creative bunch stays motivated and in the zone.

Also Read: 10 Frequently asked Questions about the use of ESignature!

Facilitate a Productive Atmosphere with Tidy Desks

A cluttered workspace can be detrimental to an employee's productivity and performance. E-signatures eradicate the heaps and piles of papers and files at their workstations, be it the office or home. Operations that integrate web-based tools and cloud computing services like an electronic signature platform make businesses methodical and mitigate the risks of misplacing critical documents in a pile of clutter. Additionally, an organized desk and a tidy workstation have soothing effects on the mind allowing creativity and ingenuity to pour in abundance, enhancing productivity.

Save Trees by Restricting the use of Paper 

Today it has become even more critical to adopt sustainable workflows. Fortunately, most businesses communicate via e-mail, web-based messaging, and conference service platforms. This reduces the load on the environment caused by unnecessary commutes and mailing. And most importantly, no paper gets wasted at all in the bargain. But, in the end, even after being so conscientious, contracts, proposals, and agreements still need to be attested with some signatures to have any valid significance. And then begins the paper trail! Instead, opt for electronic signatures to attest your documents and say goodbye to paper forever. You won't even have to save a copy for yourself or make multiple copies for each participant. With reliable e-signature service platforms, you can store your documents on a cloud and several other digital formats, so you never have to consume any paper again. Not only will Mother Nature thank you for your concern, but it also places you in the same circle as several other like-minded conservationists who refuse to do business with organizations lacking environmental consciousness.

Switch to e-signatures!

Any switch in processes must be practical, user-oriented, and convenient. Otherwise, getting everyone oriented with new workflows without extracting favorable outcomes is nothing but a hassle. New procedures must be justified in a way that they eliminate or reduce redundant workflows. In addition, they must bring out positive vibes in the workspace and improve work culture to enhance productivity.

Digitize your documentation and filing with e-signature workflows so you and your staff can spend more time on productive work and tasks that you signed up for instead of getting stuck in the mundane administrative rut that only deters productivity. Drastically reduce TATS by eliminating paperwork and clutter from the workspace. Curb attrition and increase loyalty by letting your staff cherish what they do and be proud of it. Nobody dreamed of becoming a document handling specialist! So, let your employees work on what they are eager to work on by modernizing your company's work culture through e-signature solutions. Exela's DrySign empowers you to go paperless in a quick, easy, efficient, and secure way.

DISCLAIMER: The information on this site is for general information purposes only and is not intended to serve as legal advice. Laws governing the subject matter may change quickly, and Exela cannot guarantee that all the information on this site is current or correct. Should you have specific legal questions about any of the information on this site, you should consult with a licensed attorney in your area.