It seems like nowadays everything’s going digital. Chances are this isn’t the first time you’ve read about the need to move your business away from paper documents. Digital documents are easier to access and share, are more secure, and save your company money. At this point, the question isn’t “Should I go digital?” but “How should I go digital?”

At first glance, the answer to “how” may seem obvious. Simply sending or storing documents electronically seems to, by definition, complete the job. While technically true, there can be a bit more to it if you want to do things the best way possible.

More Than the Minimum

Digitizing your policy documents in a single, accessible, cloud-based location is incredibly useful. It ensures that all staff can access the most up-to-date policy documents from their computers or, even better, mobile devices as well. By hosting policy documents in a location that your staff is already used to visiting, like your HR software, employees can easily reference them at any time using the method and credentials that they’re familiar with using to access other HR-related information, like pay or PTO. This can help keep your staff updated on your organization’s policies and procedures as well as minimize confusion on where to find policy material, ultimately increasing compliance.

Additionally, since you’re already turning your documents electronic, you may as well use a method that gives you additional value beyond simply sending a digital document to everyone instead of a physical one. Using a software to handle your digital policy management can provide all sorts of neat tools to help admins manage policies, as opposed to just creating and sending them out.

Why All the Bells and Whistles?

Imagine two separate companies, both of whom want to update their employee handbook for the upcoming year. The first company uses the common method of emailing an updated handbook out to all their staff. It’s a basic email explaining that the employee handbook has been updated and can be found attached to the email as a PDF. To them, they have digitized by no longer handing out physical paper versions of their policy documents. They save money on printing costs and employees can continue to access their handbook by searching through their email to find the PDF if needed, or they can save it directly to their computer or mobile device. So, what’s the problem?

When policy documents are emailed as a PDF, it can be difficult to ensure that all staff are using the most current version of the document. In our example, someone may search “employee handbook” and click the first PDF that pops up, not realizing that they are viewing an outdated document from years prior and potentially causing them to read outdated information. And many employees may simply miss the email and not realize that there have been changes to the handbook.

The only way for the first company’s admins to get acknowledgement that staff had read the email is to ask for them to respond, then manually jot down who replied on some sort of document. They then have to remember where that document is, keep it updated manually when new replies come in, and be sure to follow up on staff who have not responded.

Sheesh.

The Path of Least Resistance

Now, let’s look at the second company. They also have decided to update their company handbook but do so via their human capital management (HCM) software. They replace the outdated handbook with the updated one in their company documents section, removing the old one so it’s no longer able to be accessed accidentally. Now, when employees log into their employee self-service portal to reference the handbook, they click on the exact same spot as they always do, but the only version that is available is the most recent one. This is easy to find since, as far as employees are concerned, the answers to their questions are always in the exact same spot.

Being thorough, the second company’s admin then sends out a task to all of their staff using their Task Management Feature asking them to acknowledge that they’ve read and understand the updated company policies. This task is then automatically pushed to all staff, and admins can easily track who has acknowledged their documents and who hasn’t. While not made only for digital documents, since they’re using their HCM software that contains many different helpful features, they’re able to utilize it to their advantage. This is important because it makes it easier to hold staff accountable by having a record showing that they are aware of the expectations that your company has for them.

Digital Documents with Viventium

In case it wasn’t obvious, the second company in our example was using Viventium! Our software makes it easy for people to access company documents by simply logging into Viventium from either the web portal or mobile app. Gone are the days of multiple versions of old policy documents floating around, employees not realizing that documents have been updated, or employees not even knowing where to look to get the information they need. We give you all the tools necessary to put the power of reliable information in your employees’ hands.

Relax, you’re with Viventium.

This information is for educational purposes only, and not to provide specific legal advice. This may not reflect the most recent developments in the law and may not be applicable to a particular situation or jurisdiction.