When I started my school going life, I remember that there was a typewriter that you had to use to learn to type. Which was pretty weird, because we already had a computer in our classroom. Nevertheless it was absolutely necessary and mandatory that we learned to type on that machine, but why was never clarified. Being already rebellious as a kid, and in some occasions rather destructive, I dislodged the letter P and switched it with the letter D. Hardcore, I know. When my classmate Denis tried to type his name, it was the highlight of hilarity that year. Oh, and detention as well. The rebellion stayed, though in a more refined way (as far as I know, the destructiveness has calmed down). It was very practical to have when I was part of a huge digitalisation project of employee records, paper records were first digitalised and after destroyed. Around 600 separate HR administrations needed to come together in one big system giving access to all the files to the appropriate parties. After engaging with the people who were managing these administrations, I never dared to call myself rebellious again. The resistance to the change (and improvement!) that we brought was enormous. It was like comparing my ‘petty typewriter crime’ to the French Revolution. It was not so much that the old way was so good, but rather that it was known. I spent many hours debating and defending the new digital way of working and listening to many arguments why to keep everything on paper. Truth be told, it is not all bad to keep your files in a drawer, but you need to take a critical look to the advantages and disadvantages this approach offer and how to handle them.
Call me old fashioned, but…..
“A piece of paper is just really there, you know”. I heard this phrase a couple of times and I am still not really sure on what it means. But not to be petty, this is a symbol of distrust towards a digital system. It is not uncommon, and definitely not always unfounded, to have this distrust. Lately, cyber security has been a central point of attention for several incidents. Especially the older generation has developed an, again not always unfounded, distrust of these approaches. The trust we put in older methods is a strong advantage. There are other advantages which are often named, like: No dependency on computers, ability to access data even in places without internet and if the paper system is kept like it is, there is no need to change. For several reasons (one being the editor who will cut this piece short), I will not go further detail on these right now. Although it is easy to dismiss these advantages with a phrase like “You’ll get used to it” it would be wrong to do so. These are valid points of concern in an organization where digitalisation is being considered, and should be part of the consideration if you should change to a digital system.
