How Digital Signatures Can Help Businesses With Remote Work
Over the past few years, remote work has become a regular part of most workplaces. It is quite convenient for situations such as the on and off COVID-19 lockdowns and for hiring talent from across the world. Businesses are increasingly seeing its appeal and noticing how they can cut down on office rentals and overhead costs if they implement remote work policies. In most cases, employees just need a good internet connection, like Spectrum internet plans to get most of their work done.
However, there are certain tasks that are a bit tedious to do remotely if done conventionally. If businesses need to get documents signed for hiring, approval, or other concerns, they need to physically print and send them out. This takes time and effort and is also vulnerable to breaches of confidentiality. Therefore, an alternative method for document sharing and approval is required. Digital signatures are the solution to this issue and have become an industry standard for all kinds of businesses. They let people share documents, sign them, and send them back instantly, without having to go through the hassle of physical printing and sending. These signatures come with a large number of benefits for businesses, as follows.
Get Approvals On Time
In industries where employees have to get approval for various tasks, remote work can be a bit inefficient. This is because it’s hard to physically get approvals, and verbal approvals do not cut it when it comes to legality and record-keeping.
Digital signatures are a viable solution to this issue. All people have to do is sign the documents using the relevant software and send them back instantly. This will automatically save the documents in business records as well.
Hire People Remotely
Hiring people during lockdowns or from all over the world can be an arduous process. Both the new hire and the company need to discuss, negotiate, and sign various agreements and contracts. Physically sending these back and forth is a time-consuming process.
With digital signatures, both sides can thoroughly go through all these documents, negotiate their terms, and sign the relevant agreements and new employee contracts. This also lets both sides keep an easy record of these documents for future reference.
Collaborate Online Effectively
When it comes to business tasks, there are usually numerous people and stakeholders involved. Therefore, collaboration can be quite a headache. People need to send various plans, strategies, and designs to each other and show their express approval for them to proceed. Doing this physically is very difficult and inefficient.
Businesses can make this process much more effective by opting for digital signatures. That way, all stakeholders can collaborate with each other, and sign off on their part of the whole system. Even when changes need to be made, it’s only a matter of suggesting these changes and sending them online for a quick approval.
Cut Expenses On Physical Documents
Most people tend to underestimate the economic and environmental impact of working with physical documents. A large business can spend thousands of dollars per week just on paper, printing, and courier services. This adds up to a significant amount annually, and is inefficient and bad for the environment, to boot.
Therefore, digital signatures are an excellent alternative, as they cut down on these expenses and have a minimal environmental impact as well. Businesses should consider this solution so that they can be more eco-friendly and cut down on these extra expenses as well.
Automate Digital Workflows
Companies turn towards digital workflows to make their processes more streamlined and automated. This requires a host of tools to make sure there is little to no need for employees to do tedious tasks like send contracts back and forth. These digital workflows reduce the chance for human error and speed things up considerably.
Digital signatures are part of this process and can help this automation. Once a supervisor signs a document, then the following processes should start automatically, whether an employee or computer will be carrying it out. In addition, the relevant people should receive copies of any document with its latest status once it has been signed digitally. These automated workflows can work quite well and take businesses to a new level of efficiency.
Make Governance And Compliance Easier
In most industries, there are a number of governance and compliance processes to follow. There are government regulations and industry standards that are an integral part of the process. HR can make sure all employees are aware of these regulations by making them available digitally and having everyone sign them.
In many cases, digital signature software can tell if the person has read the whole document or not. This is a great way to make sure people know about these rules and are aware of how they must be followed. This prevents misunderstandings and major issues in the future.
Enable Mobile Usage
Often, managers and supervisors are on the go and cannot be constantly present on their computer systems. However, most people always carry their phones with them. Digital signature programs mostly have mobile apps as well, making things much easier.
This enables people to read and sign documents even if they’re traveling or cannot access their systems right away. Time-saving measures such as these are valuable in most industries, as hours and even minutes can make a huge difference when it comes to responses and approvals.
To sum up, digital signatures can contribute a lot of efficiency and ease in remote work processes. Therefore, businesses should incorporate them and make things smoother for everyone.
