Vodafone to introduce the 'paperless office'

Imagine a neat office devoid of paper clutter with a haven of clean desks that can be utilized by different employees at different times of the working day.  Your "desk" is mobile with all services, including voice and messaging systems, routed through the network connectivity wherever your location in the office is. Printing stations in the building are few and far between and require a code to access.

Perhaps revolutionary as a concept, the paperless office is now doable more than ever.  With a culture shift among a generation of young people using mobile technology where reading on screen is easy and with the synching and sharing of digital information, the printed page becomes  fast outdated.

Paperless clean hot desks

Vodafone's new offices at Skyparks are a first of their kind in Malta and will have very limited storage space. They will function via an electronic structure based on electronic document management systems and making use of the latest technologies while team members will be using smartphones and tablets more than ever.   A "hot desking" policy will mean all desks must be cleared at end day since the same person will not necessarily be using the same desk the following morning. All printing will be centralized in two rooms per floor and documents will only be printed if the employee physically goes to the printer with a code. Default printing will be always duplex and a printing record per employee will be in place with a pecentage target reduction per team.

"We have long been instilling a paperless culture as a way of life among our team members," said Antoinette Camilleri, Property Manager at Vodafone Malta.   "Since 2010 we have been greatly reducing the use of paper after an audit which showed us what material could be retained in electronic format like financial reporting, agreements, purchase orders and internal communication. Going paperless is cost-efficient, environment friendly, productive and secure. We're all quite excited by this innovative way of working.  As a leading telecoms company Vodafone embraces innovation - it is the air we breathe and we act with speed, simplicity and trust. We are sure that having one open plan office will help us interact more and with speed, generating creativity and ideas.  Our new offices have incorporated informal interactive spaces, meeting areas and soft break-out areas.  We are driven by wanting to continue fostering and retaining the best talent on the market and provide new opportunities to our team members."

 Preparing for the move

"We've been gearing up for the move for the past two years," said Antoinette Camilleri, "scanning, recycling paper in different departments and archiving important legal documents that have to be retained. As manager responsible for Vodafone Malta's facilities I insist everyone questions each document and paper they retain. Moreover we are constantly promoting a culture of change which is producing results.  Team members have been very receptive to the changes we are proposing. We have launched an internal campaign where our team members are being constantly kept up-to-date with all the changes we want to introduce and with what's happening. Some changes in culture and mentality have already been happening and it's really great to see that our people are participating in this and that they are looking forward to moving to new offices even if it means embracing a significant change."