The Paper Tiger Productivity QuickStart™ Program
Do people in your office spend a lot of time looking for papers they need?
Are filing cabinets crowding out your people?
Are useful research or reference materials difficult to find?
Are some desks and offices in your organization being submerged in an ocean of paper?
Are you planning on relocating your offices anytime soon?
If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, you could use The Paper Tiger Productivity QuickStart™ (PQS) -- a program guaranteed to significantly reduce your stress and improve your productivity by 10% -- or it costs you nothing!
Your Answer
The Paper Tiger Productivity QuickStart™ (PQS) program provides the missing link to effective information management. The PQS program permits executives and knowledge workers of the early 2lst century to achieve dramatic productivity gains, while at the same time, making the work experience less frustrating and more pleasant for everyone in an organization and for clients.
The Paper Tiger PQS program, when properly implemented, allows every person in an office or organization to find documents and information within 5 seconds or less. A 10% overall increase in organizational productivity is expected within 90 days of completion.
The following specific benefits accrue to organizations or departments that implement this program:
- Save 150 hours or more per year per employee.
- Reduce file storage costs by 50%.
- Increase income by at least 10% by using previously produced work that can be re-purposed.
- Reduce new employee start-up time by 50%.
- Increase initial customer service response time by at least 100%.
- Give new hires immediate access to predecessor’s database and information files.
- Reduce legal liability potential by adhering to legal retention guidelines.
The Productivity Challenge
Over the last 20-30 years, the office consistently finished last in the productivity race despite enormous investments in computer technology. Knowledge worker productivity has never been approached in the same systematic manner as has been applied to factory workers. Benchmark standards of performance are not readily available nor are the costs of disorganized knowledge work easily quantified. This lost productivity is estimated to cost the U.S. economy tens of billions of dollars each year.
Paper is deluging individuals and organizations. The earlier promise of the paperless office has not been realized. Many organizations are drowning in paper, and the flood increases in the United States at the rate of 600 million pages per day. This is unlikely to diminish, given the proliferation of computers, email and the Internet.
Old information management practices no longer work with this massive information flow. In fact, each knowledge worker now spends at least 150 hours per year -- nearly 8% of a worker’s available time -- just searching for paper information. This can cost an organization from $5,500 to $7,100 per employee, taking into account payroll costs and overhead charges, and organization size. To determine what inefficient paper information management costs your organization, simply multiply your total number of employees by one of the above numbers. For example, inefficient paper management costs an organization of 100 employees $710,000 per year. Just think what you could do with this additional money or having a more productive use of your human resources.
Workers in knowledge organizations today hold our future prosperity in their hands. If they continue to increase their productivity, the prosperity of the nation, and ultimately the world, will increase. According to Peter Drucker, “Fifty years from now -- if not much sooner -- the leadership of the world economy will have moved to the countries and to the industries that have most systematically and most successfully raised knowledge worker productivity.”
What is the Paper Tiger PQS Program?Since paper will likely remain as the principal medium for information storage within the majority of organizations, productivity gain for knowledge workers must begin with organizing the paper-based information management systems. The Paper Tiger PQS program provides a quick, easy and highly cost-effective answer.
The PQS program starts first with the key decision-maker of an organization. It is then implemented via the following steps throughout the organization or department:
Step 1: Needs Assessment/Benchmarking
During this initial step, we work with the top management team or the executive to define what success looks like, to understand how you measure productivity, and to identify what information each individual needs to receive and circulate for optimum performance. Agreement will be reached between Paauwerfully Organized and the client concerning the benchmarks against which productivity increases will be measured. The Productive Environment Scorecard can be used to help clearly define how productivity will be measured. Typically this step requires one day.
Step 2: 24-Hour Miracle for Key Executive
Paauwerfully Organized will spend a day with the top executive, and his/her assistant if appropriate, to restructure the executive’s office. After just one working day (or two days if the assistant’s office is also restructured), the top executive and his/her personal assistant will begin to enjoy all of the benefits listed above. This sets the scene for introducing the program and methodologies to the remaining members of the organization or department.
Step 3: Kickoff “Path to Productivity” Seminar
This 3 hour seminar introduces the program to all of the organization’s or department’s employees. It starts with an introductory speech from the top executive to introduce the program and to stress the importance of the work. Then, Kathy Paauw conducts a seminar on how the program will unfold and how everyone will be involved. She draws on her 15 years of implementing office productivity programs to gain the support of the employees. She will describe techniques, such as The Art of Wastebasketry and how to Trim the F.A.T., which will make the upcoming purging process less painful and risky for all involved.
Step 4: File Clean-out Day
This is a critical step in the program. Typically most organizations never use 80% of the information kept in filing cabinets. These cabinets can take up hundreds of square feet of expensive floor space, which could be better occupied by productive people or not leased at all. Paauwerfully Organized consultants use their years of experience to ensure that this work is done with fun and enthusiasm. The timeline for completion is usually one day, with each employee focusing on their own private office files or the files they are primarily responsible for maintaining. We make this a lot of fun, building in prizes, filling dumpsters, and creating a "white elephant" room for orphan office supplies.
Step 5: “The Productive Desktop” Seminar
In this 2 hour seminar, Kathy Paauw teaches the employees how to link the Paper Tiger finding system to their personal time management system. The seminar is given to groups with a maximum size of 25 employees so that participants can receive individual attention. Benefits of this program include not only improved time management and improved delegation skills, but also an ability to more effectively communicate with external and internal clients.
Step 6: Finding System Implementation
Now, Paauwerfully Organized Consultants spend time on-site to help each employee implement the software-based finding system. This is central to obtaining the productivity gain, and to beginning to enjoy life in the office again. This step ensures that the system is properly implemented, and permits each employee to immediately work effectively with the system. Files are created using this new system, and filing systems within departments are networked to ensure that access to stored information is readily retrievable. Duplicate information can be tossed. When completed, each employee will be on track to gain at least an additional 150 hours of productive time each year. This can translate into fewer employees overall, or more productive work per employee.
Typically. A Paauwerfully Organized Consultant spends 2 - 4 hours with each employee during this step. A team of consultants is available to speed up this step of the program.
Step 7: Productivity Evaluation
To establish that all of the goals of the program have been met, Kathy Paauw will communicate with or visit the client within 90 days of completion to evaluate the success of the program, whether the goals were met, and communicate to management the resulting benefits. Any challenges that remain that limit the productivity gain will be identified and resolved. This phase usually requires 1/2 day for each 50 employees.
Timeline
The time needed for a total Paper Tiger PQS program depends upon the organization size. Every effort is made to schedule in resources to complete the entire project within 30 days. The amount of time spent per employee is generally two days.
CredibilityKathy Paauw, founder and CEO of Paauwerfully Organized, has been organizing offices and homes since 1995. During this time she has seen many advancements come to the field. Computers now reside in most offices and many homes. Rather than delivering the paperless office, computers and associated printers -- coupled with email and the World Wide Web -- have dramatically increased the creation and handling of paper. Fortunately, the computer has also delivered a solution to manage and reduce this mountain of paper, which has come to inundate many offices and organizations. Ms. Paauw was one of the first Professional Organizers to become an authorized consultant for Kiplinger’s Taming The Paper Tiger .
Ms. Paauw’s clients include senior executives and professionals from numerous organizations, such as the American College of Physicians, VA Puget Sound Healthcare, Hershey Medical Center/Pennsylvania State University, National Institute of Health, University of Washington, Overlake Hospital, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, and Publicis.
Mini-PQS ProgramPaauwerfully Organized offers a mini-PQS program to an organization’s top executive and administrative assistant for evaluation purposes. The mini-program consists of Steps 1 and 2 of the overall program. It will be completed in just two or three days. All funds spent on the mini-program will be credited toward the cost of a PQS program for the entire organization.
Money Back GuaranteePaauwerfully Organized is so confident about the successful outcome of the PQS program that we offer a Money Back Guarantee if complete satisfaction is not delivered within 180 days of the completion of Step 7 of the program.
Contact InformationFor additional information or a price quotation, please call or e-mail Kathy Paauw at:
