Gamify Your Paperless Transition

Document management software is a terrific application that few have difficulty seeing the benefits of – it offers a small business more office space, better data security, and a whole lot of money saved from their bottom line. Why, then, are some staff members so resistant to the change? Project managers need not fear when they gamify the electronic workflow process, adapting the paperless transition into a high-stakes game, harnessing any and all employees’ inner mechanics to increase productivity and willingness to give paperless document management a chance. After all, doesn’t everybody want to win?

Use the human brain to your advantage

With video games in popular culture for over 30 years, you’re hard-pressed to find someone who isn’t familiar with the psychology, something a project manager can make the most of during the transition process. Dr. Douglas Gentile wrote on video games and their effect on the mind for the popular brain studies blog Dana and explained some of the benefits a game offers in productivity and focus.

“Well-designed video games are natural teachers,” he wrote. “They provide immediate feedback on the player’s success by distributing reinforcements and punishments, assist in learning at different rates, and offer opportunities to practice to the point of mastery and then to automaticity.”

With that in mind, those who regularly use document management software could get points or other automatic feedback, with additional points available for productivity, collaboration using shared documents with their coworkers, or discovering new, innovative applications of the technology. Before you know it, those who were originally averse to the change are fierce competitors in the battle to best use a paperless document management system, perhaps merely because they used to be competitive in high school.

Finally, be sure to set parameters to the game in terms of length and what rewards consist of – once most staffers are fully used to the system through the incentive-based process of the game, you can return to business as usual.

Invoice automation as a game of speed and accuracy

Adjusting to new ways of processing financial documents is one of the more important parts of getting used to a paperless system. Special attention should be paid because the process makes it simpler and more efficient to document and preserve records. For those dealing with this technology, in particular, offer extra incentives in “the game” of understanding and processing these documents correctly to improve the workflow of the new system.

If a project manager needs guidance on how to develop a game like this for their office, they should check out some of the applications that are already working to offer incentives in everyday life. HabitRPG puts an everyday people in the “role-playing game” of their own life, awarding points for taking the stairs, eating healthy, and being productive at work – the TaskRabbit app works in a similar fashion.

Using these examples as a guide, the transition to fully integrated document management software can be a fun ride. Start developing an Ultimate Paperless Game today!