The ‘paperless office’, once a slogan to describe the office of the future, is now the tangible step forward for Vodafone Malta as it prepares to move into Malta International Airport’s Skyparks business centre.
Vodafone’s new offices at Skyparks are a first and will have very limited storage space. They will function through an electronic structure based on electronic document management systems and make use of the latest technologies while team members will be increasing their use of smartphones and tablets.
A ‘hot desking’ policy will mean all desks must be cleared at the end of the day as the same person will not necessarily be using the same desk the following morning.
All printing will be centralised 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 percentage 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. “Going paperless is cost-efficient, environment-friendly, productive and secure.”
Since 2010 Vodafone Malta has greatly reduced its use of paper after an audit which showed what material could be retained in electronic format, like financial reporting, agreements, purchase orders and internal communication.
The new offices have incorporated informal interactive spaces, meeting areas and soft break-out areas. “We are sure that having an open plan office will help us interact more and with speed, generating creativity and ideas,” Ms Camilleri said. “We want to continue fostering and retaining the best talent on the market and provide new opportunities to our team members.”
Ms Camilleri said Vodafone Malta had been gearing up for this move for the past two years, scanning, recycling paper in different departments and archiving important legal documents which have to be retained.
She has insisted that every team member questione each document and paper they retained. The staff is looking forward to the move and ready to embrace significant change, she said, adding that the change culture is producing results thanks to an internal campaign to keep teams updated on changes, expectations and progress.