Having difficulty putting your hands on that really important information? In their new column for unLTD, Richard Dolman and Julia Watts from Glade Consulting Services break down the importance of managing your key documents and offer their professional advice on how to do so effectively.
‘Now where did I save that file… ?’ It’s a question we’ve all probably asked ourselves before, then we rack our brains to work out just where we could have put it!
In the modern dynamic business environment, effective document control is a cornerstone for organisational success. Whether for compliance, quality management, or operational efficiency, document control plays a pivotal role in ensuring that businesses operate smoothly and achieve their objectives.
Legal and Compliance: To remain legally compliant you need to retain records, but you can’t be expected to retain this information by memory, nor would it be reliable if tested. Failure to comply with the legal requirements can result in penalties and fines. There aren’t many ‘must have’ ISO documents but the ones that are, are the bedrock of your management system and are tools for you to help improve your business performance.
Quality Management: Delivering quality products and services by having clearly prescribed standards of work and checking procedures enables you to control the consistency of your outputs. Poor or inconsistent quality is a major turn off for customers and increases your own costs through having to correct mistakes, not to mention the reputational damage.
Risk Mitigation: In the business landscape, risk is inherent. Document control serves as a powerful tool for risk mitigation by reducing the likelihood of errors, inconsistencies, and miscommunications. By establishing version control, access restrictions, and revision histories, organisations can trace changes made to documents and identify potential risks before they escalate, preventing costly mistakes.
Personnel Changes: Organisational knowledge being lost through key people leaving can shatter a business, particularly if the knowledge was largely in their heads and not written down. Written procedures, easy to understand records, and good filing of documentation really can make a huge difference to training new staff.
“Whether for compliance, quality management, or operational efficiency, document control plays a pivotal role in ensuring that businesses operate smoothly and achieve their objectives.”
Operational Efficiency: Efficiency is a key driver of success in any organisation. Document control contributes significantly to operational efficiency by streamlining document workflows and minimising the time spent searching for information.
So, what are our tips for good document control?
‘Keep It Simple’, with clear titles in obvious locations. We encourage people to design document systems so that in 3 clicks, you are on the document itself, or you can be 99% confident that you are on the right path to reach the document you are looking for. Reference numbers, dates, authors and version numbers all help keep things tidy.
All businesses evolve over time so keeping documents up to date is vital.
Protecting documents is important to prevent them from being altered accidentally. You can do this by applying passwords or storing them on companywide folders with read only access.
Good document control is essential as brilliant documents poorly controlled can undo all the great work done in the first place!
If you want to know more, get in touch the team at Glade Consulting Services on 0114 398 4123 or email us at info@gladecs.co.uk