It’s been more than a year since the world shutdown due to COVID-19. In the past year, we’ve experienced both tremendous challenges and unbelievable advancements in service, technology, and science as we’ve had to pivot in response to a global pandemic.
One unexpected challenge is a massive shift in the labor market, as we’ve gone from not having enough jobs to not having enough workers all within the first few months of the pandemic. In the Spring of 2020, thousands of businesses shutdown in what seemed like a matter of days. Jobs lost in the retail, hospitality, and restaurant industries caused an almost immediate spike in unemployment rates from 3.5% in February to 14.9% by April 2020. However, as the pandemic unfolded, many businesses – like ours at Secure Records Solutions – were deemed “essential”. And as a service provider for the healthcare industry, our services were needed more than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the labor shortage into sharper focus as businesses in the manufacturing, finance, healthcare and similar sectors are still needing to grow and expand, but many employees have been hesitant to continue working or return to work, creating an even more difficult situation for employers who need to hire in order to meet demand.
While staffing has been a challenge, the need for organizations to navigate an increasingly digital world has not slowed down. In fact, the demand for digitization projects has only been accelerated by COVID-19. According to Forbes, 97% of executives say COVID-19 sped up their digital transformation efforts. Another survey cited COVID-19 has advanced digital transformation by a global average of six years, particularly in the banking and healthcare sectors.
At Secure Records Solutions, we’ve received a significant number of inquiries over the past few months from both existing clients and new prospects for document management services. Clients and prospects alike have cited they “just don’t have the staff right now” or the internal resources to keep up with their digital conversion needs.
How can companies continue to scale and improve processes during a labor shortage? Outsourcing may be the answer.
We’ve always been advocates of outsourcing at Secure Records Solutions. We practice outsourcing within our own business operations. We’ve learned it’s most efficient to leverage outside knowledge and resources in the areas that aren’t our specific expertise, so we can focus internal resources on what we do best allowing us to go further and do more. For example, we outsource certain aspects of our Marketing department, like graphic design or photography, gaining a much higher quality product at a greater return on investment. Additionally, certain processes within our Finance and IT departments are outsourced to trusted, industry experts. And, as another example, our janitorial service is outsourced to free up our team to focus on what we do best.
Similarly, our suite of document management services was developed to provide leverage to our clients, giving them cost effective tools for eliminating paper without having to staff up for big indexing or scanning projects. Our clients rely on us as an extension of their team, providing them leverage to achieve more and focus on their highest and best use. Our team handles the heavy lifting, from packing up records, to inventorying and scanning them, and finally uploading the files into their document management software.
While discussing this topic with our Client Services Manager, Roy James, he was able to offer additional insight from his time managing operations for a law firm with nine locations across the state of Florida. He recalls how their headquarters, which was based in a college town, had a surplus of part-time, talented administrative support. However, for their locations spread across the state, they depended on a handful of trusted partners to act as an extension of their team.
“My experience with the law firm certainly provides a unique understanding of how our clients can best utilize the document management services we provide at Secure Records Solutions. Having spent nearly 20 years in the client’s role, I distinctly remember the challenges of streamlining document management solutions across multiple locations with various levels of administrative support depending on the branch office.
What we’ve learned is special projects don’t always require a full-time employee, and in today’s labor market, it’s very difficult to find quality part-time support. Additionally, it’s likely the document management projects you are trying to execute don’t require a skillset that would normally be on your staff or may not be needed in the future once the project is complete. Instead of spending limited resources trying to hire for positions that don’t provide long-term value for your team, it’s best to focus on skills specific to your industry and let an outsourced document management partner provide the indexing and scanning expertise you need.”
Based on what we’re hearing from clients and colleagues, the labor shortage won’t be resolved soon. We believe the solution to keeping up with your growth expectations is outsourcing to trusted partners. If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of outsourcing document management, contact us to speak to a member of our team.
