What Growing Teams Need to Know About Handling Paperwork Efficiently

Growing your team is an exciting milestone in a company. It usually means that the work is flowing, the business is evolving, there’s finally some breathing space within the team. But it also means a lot more paperwork.

Suddenly you’re handling a lot more employee files, sharing project templates, and transferring the responsibility of client documents. It can all start to feel cluttered and disorganized, quickly.

But if you have the right processes and tools, before you hire new team members, you can create a solid foundation for handling paperwork in a way that makes everyone less stressed.

This article offers some guidance on what to think about when planning out your document management strategy.

Paperwork challenges are seen in most teams

Regardless of the size of your team, you’re likely to run into a handful of issues when it comes to paperwork and how you manage it. These are a few of the most common problems that managers find:

• Inconsistent processes. If everyone has their own way of handling paperwork, there won’t be any consistency to share with newer team members.

• Lost and missing documents. When files are shared in the wrong place, or there is no ‘right’ place to share them, it’s much harder to find them when you need them.

• Duplicated documents. Having ‘final-contract.pdf’ and ‘final-contract2.pdf’ can be confusing and messy, and possibly lead to errors both internally and externally.

• Ownership and access issues. There’s a document floating around but no one has access to it and it’s unclear who even owns it. Roles for documentation can avoid this.

• No version control. Documents being updated should be tracked in case mistakes are made in the edits. Without controlling this, there’s a higher risk of things going wrong.

• Lack of security. Handling sensitive information comes with the responsibility of making sure it’s not accessed by unauthorized people. Managing file protection is a crucial part of handling your team’s paperwork.

What to think about when managing your growing team’s paper trail

As your team expands, there’s a lot more to think about when it comes to paperwork, important files, and necessary documentation.

Unorganized paperwork can kill productivity when you’re growing

You have much less paperwork to create and store with a smaller team. And fewer hands in the document piles.

But as soon as you begin bringing on new hires, you find the onboarding checklists, HR records, and versions of documents start to pile up.

And there are typically more people handling the same client onboarding information across different stages.

The goal of hiring more and scaling your team is to increase the efficiency and productivity, so it seems counterproductive for a bigger crew to also be the reason you’re slowed down.

When this happens, there’s bound to be some frustration within the team, which is going to affect overall morale as well.

There’s also the risk of missed deadlines because of a hiding file, or errors due to incorrect versions of a document being shared. So, should you try to avoid paperwork as much as possible? Not quite. You do, however, need to build early systems that are flexible enough to scale with your team.

Compliance should come first

When you’re still small, worrying about the big legal complications of your documents seems like a far-off issue. But if you don’t address compliance from the very start, it becomes a lot harder to keep it all in check once your team starts to get larger.

You need to be thinking about how you collect information, as well as how it’s stored and tracked. One of the easiest ways to do a lot of that is to use forms, but then there’s the risk of mishandling the data and opening up security gaps that will inevitably lead to a loss of trust within your organization.

When you use forms to collect internal documents, like onboarding information or service requests, you end up with all of that form data in shared folders or automated pipelines.

If you’re tracking who, what, and where on your form submissions, you can use **server-side tagging to keep that tracked data accurate and compliant.

This will help you ensure that any and all personal information is logged reliably, protected from manipulation, and stays in line with privacy regulations.

Sensitive documents must be protected

Important documents falling into unauthorized hands can end up being costly for your company.

Password-protected documents offer a layer of security that is needed for files possessing sensitive information. Only those with the code are able to access, view, and unlock PDF documents.

For contracts, HR forms, and anything financial, this process means more control over who can see the information and increased accountability should anything go wrong.

Along with locked PDFs, there should also be access controls on your cloud storage and audit trails to trace back where sensitive information has been shared. Try to update your passwords regularly as well.

You need a standardized process for file naming

Perhaps a basic thought, but naming files isn’t always at the top of mind within teams, especially when quantity is being prioritized over quality (sometimes necessary for growth spurts).

But without having a naming format that the whole team uses, you’re not going to be able to find files in the future. And there’s a higher risk of things going ‘missing’.

Having a uniform way to name your files will actually speed things up in the long run, as long as you manage to get everyone on board with the process. Try setting standards like always adding in the date and using the department or team names.

File names should also include the type of document it is (i.e. ‘employee contract’ or ‘client onboard doc’) and the format should have no spaces or special characters.

So you’re ending up with something that looks like this: Sample Devops Assessment Report.

However you arrange it, make sure the team is aware and can follow the same format with all their documentation.

Centralized storage is a must-have

The easiest way to lose control or feel overwhelmed by your team paperwork is to fail to provide a reliable place to store and access it. Having files in multiple different inboxes or personal drives is going to cause chaos in an expanding team.

The solution is to have one safe and reliable space where everyone can save and find documentation; with limited permissions, of course.

This can be an integrated system, a project management tool, or a shared cloud-based storage drive, depending on your team’s needs and availability.

Essentially you just need to create a space and ensure everyone knows that should they be creating a new document, or looking for a file to update or view, that’s where they should go.

This process also offers an easier way to onboard new team members. Everything they need will be in one place, and they won’t have to navigate through multiple platforms or ask different people for access to information.

It will also help to ensure secure backups are done. Duplicated and outdated files will be avoided (or can at least be spotted and handled faster). And you’ll see that collaboration across the team is smooth and efficient.

When in doubt, automate

If you’re still manually renaming file names, downloading form submissions, or sorting documents into folders, you’re wasting valuable time. There are tools to help you now, and using them will only strengthen your paperwork management.

Look for ways to automate tasks like:

• Trigger alerts or tasks when a document is moved, edited, or viewed

• Save documents to the right folders as soon as they’re submitted

• Generate templates for annual reviews, client pitches, etc.

• Send reminders for unsigned agreements or missing documentation

This is especially straightforward for documents collected through form submissions, like leave requests or onboarding data. But you can easily add team checklists, reports, and scanned files to an automated workflow, with the right tools.

Don’t forget the handoff plan

Starting off, you may have one person in your team who manages client documents, another who handles the HR files, and a separate person handling other important information.

But growing often means sharing the load between more people, which also means sharing access to sensitive documentation.

The best way to avoid this becoming an issue down the line is to set out a plan for how files are going to be created and accessed in the team.

Have clear roles and responsibilities for each document, with a structured process on how they should be handed off when the time comes.

Each document should have an owner, so that someone is accountable for the status, location, and accuracy of it. And there should be strict tracking when these documents are being sent across departments and updated, so that there’s tight version control and access management throughout.

Files and documents shouldn’t stagnate your team

Paperwork should help keep your team on track, organized, and efficient. It shouldn’t cause confusion, miscommunication, or aggravation.

Having clear processes for how you manage your documents, where you store them, and who has access to them, will bring clarity and keep productivity and morale levels high.

Don’t wait until you’ve grown and need the systems, though. Implement them early so that by the time you really need them, they’re more like second nature than a foreign concept to the whole team.

Need help with some of that paperwork? Take a look at our client onboarding forms and new hire paperwork forms to help you start off on the right foot.