You’re Too Busy to Keep Using Paper
It’s amazing how something seemingly small and insignificant in the short term can become surprisingly significant when viewed over a longer time period. For example, if you buy a cup of coffee twice a day at Starbucks for $2.10, that doesn’t feel like a very big deal. But, amazingly, in just a month you’ve spent $126 and, in a year, $1,533!
The same is true with safety paperwork.  While spending one or two minutes to handle a single piece of paper may seem trivial at the time, the amount of wasted time handling paper becomes significantly more alarming when you evaluate it over a year.
Let’s start with a conservative estimate and say that on average you waste one minute of time for every piece of paper you handle.
- 1 Box of Paper (5000 sheets) – 83 hours
- 5Â Boxes of Paper (5000 sheets) – 416 hours
The reality is, most companies spend more than one minute handling one piece of paper.  For example, take a company doing a Daily Hazard Assessment on a job site.  When you factor in printing, photocopying, dropping forms off on site, collecting forms, and filing them, a company can easily waste over 40 hours filling out one Daily Hazard Assessment form on one job site.
How To Waste 40+ Hours – on ONE Paper Form
- Create Form in Word Editor
- 30 minutes per year
- Print/Photocopy enough copies for 1 year
- 10 – 15Â minutes per year
- Drop off printed forms at job site
- 60 minutes per year
- Carry form back to site trailer after completing inspection and temporarily store/file it
- 5 minutes per form
- 20 hours per year (250 days)
- Bring form back to Head Office
- 1 60-minute trip per month
- 12 hours per year
- File forms at Head Office
- 1 minute per form
- 3 hours per year (250 days)
- Find form after it’s been filed
- average 30 minutes per month
- 6 hours per year
Further Reading
What Is MRO Management? Why Maintenance Matters for Safety
Learn how MRO management helps ensure jobsite safety, equipment reliability, and compliance. Prevent downtime and improve operational efficiency.
Management of Change: A Simple Safety Guide
Learn about the management of change (MOC) process and how to implement it effectively. Discover how safety management software can enhance MOC.
Verification of Competency: How to Ensure Worker Skills
Learn about verification of competency (VOC), its importance in the workplace, how to implement it effectively, and tools and future trends in VOC.
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