4 Outdated Office Conventions (and the Technology That Replaces Them)

The office environment has changed a lot over the years with technology being the impetus for such change. In your years doing business, how much has changed? How much of that change was driven by technology? Many of the traditional conventions of conducting business have been changed for the better as a result of these technological developments; here are just a few of them.

Filing Cabinets

How many filing cabinets do you have in your office? You know, those big metal cabinets that are filled with paper documents that may (or may not) have been used in the past six months? These have traditionally been used to keep files in safe locations, but the fact of the matter is that they simply have no place in the office environment these days—at least not in the same capacity as they used to be.

Instead, the cloud and document storage systems can effectively replace filing cabinets, offering safe digital environments for documents to be stored. When you consider that filing cabinets take up a ton of space and are impossible to move on a whim, it just makes sense to store these documents in an online environment, where they take up significantly less physical space and are easy to transfer to whoever needs them.

Conference Room Gatherings

Trying to corral your entire workforce into one room may have been easy when you were a startup, but as your business grows, so too does your number of employees. It might have been possible once, but with so many different people and schedules to work around, it can be difficult to get everyone together for meetings in this way. Thankfully, technology has offered solutions for this, too.

Video conferencing allows you to hold much larger meetings from the comfort of your desk, again removing the need for the physical space to hold such large-scale meetings. Furthermore, since these video conferencing solutions often also come with schedule integration, you can get a bird’s eye view of everyone’s availability before scheduling a meeting, allowing you to make them more inclusive.

Traditional Work Desk Accommodations

The normal workday might involve your employees sitting at their jobs, getting up once in a while to have a discussion with others, or generally performing their duties from the same space all day long. They might use their work desk to do this work, making use of smartphones or laptops when out of the office, but more and more, the latter tends to be the new normal for businesses.

Thanks to remote technology, employees are no longer tethered to their desks and can now do work from any location, provided they have the solutions needed to complete their day-to-day tasks. The pandemic has proved that most jobs can be performed remotely, so you can prepare employees for this and perhaps reduce your own expenses in the process.

Landline Telephones

Imagine picking up a landline in today’s business environment. It’s pretty hard to imagine, right? There is a good reason for this, as is the case with most outdated office technology. Adding new handsets to an infrastructure often involved running new wires throughout the office, a process which was both time-consuming and costly, depending on its setup. Thankfully, modern business technology has offered alternatives here, as well.

Voice over IP systems offer yet another way for organizations to eliminate unneeded or outdated office conventions and establish more streamlined systems specific to their needs. Voice over IP lets you eliminate your landline entirely and replace it with a telephony solution that runs on your Internet connection, slimming down your infrastructure and cutting unnecessary costs. Since it comes with many of the features you would expect of business telephone solutions, there is no reason to consider any other service.

Need a Hand with Implementation?

SMART Services can help your organization implement technology solutions that can streamline operations, improve efficiency, and expand your office beyond its traditional borders. To learn more about how we can help you improve your business, reach out to us at 586 258-0650 .