We went paperless about 15 years ago. It was a big deal back then. There’s not much to it now.

We faced challenges when we made the transition. We had lawyers who resisted. We had technology glitches. We had lots of policies and procedures to figure out.

The biggest issue we faced, however, was not the obvious concerns.

The biggest issue was finding and keeping someone who could handle the scanning for us. We needed a document imaging specialist. That’s the person who sits in front of the scanner all day long running paper through the machine and then sending the images to the proper people in the office.

Scanning isn’t very challenging, and you’d think it would have been easy to fill the position (in fact, back when we started, it was two positions plus some part-time help). It wasn’t an easy position to fill.

Why?

Because it’s incredibly boring. The fact is that we could fill the position, but we just couldn’t keep it filled. We needed someone who could tolerate sitting there scanning all day without his or her head exploding, but who could also handle being sure the images went to the right places. Sending the wrong documents to a client caused a major upset nearly every time it happened.

We had some serious turnover in the position. We were constantly hiring and training.

The fact is that we never found the magic formula for finding the right person for the job. It has always been tough.

Over the past few years, the role of the document imaging specialist in our firm has been shrinking. Even as we grow, we receive fewer and fewer documents on paper. Much of what we get now comes digitally. In fact, it never ceases to amaze me when I see the incoming or outgoing mail. We used to carry big boxes of mail in and out. Now, it’s usually a small handful of envelopes. It wasn’t very long ago that we had a conflict about the daily outgoing mail deadline. Now it seems that no one cares about the mail. It’s been a fascinating change.

Even with the reduced scanning workload, it’s still a tricky position to fill. You’ve got to find someone with attention to detail who isn’t overly bored by the scanning. Fortunately, as the scanning load has decreased, we’ve been able to add other tasks to the position to keep it more interesting. We have our scanning person physically situated near the front desk so she can help with greeting clients, answering phones, and other administrative tasks. The person we have in role now is doing a great job of keeping up with the scanning while handling a multitude of other tasks. Going paperless has been interesting. It’s never dull watching things evolve.