Success in a business largely depends on its proper organization. Both managers and ordinary employees should know what paperwork is. What are its features, what types are, and what regulatory documents should be taken into account when organizing workflow?
What is office work
Any organization, regardless of its form of ownership and features, creates a variety of papers in the course of its activities. It can be orders, letters, and protocols. All of them relate to organizational and administrative documentation.
Paperwork is the activity of creating documents of an organization carried out according to certain rules and requirements. Most often, enterprises allocate special employees engaged only in this area. In small firms, the function of secretary can be assigned to almost any employee.
If you understand the essence of terminology (what is paperwork), then the origin of the word will become clear. This is, first of all, fixing on a material carrier of official information. During this process, an organizational and administrative document is created, which subsequently initiates certain actions.
The term “office work” itself appeared quite a long time ago, but only in the middle of the last century it took shape officially, being enshrined in regulatory documents at the state level.
Paperwork and workflow - what is it?
An organization cannot exist independently of legislation. It always has paperwork and workflow. What is it, what are the features of the transition of papers, how to draw them up correctly? These issues are solved by specialists: secretaries, archivists, personnel department personnel.
Paperwork involves fixing information on a tangible medium, creating a paper or electronic act. The organization’s document flow is based on it — the movement of an order or letter, from its creation to execution and sending to the archive or destruction.
Depending on the place of creation of business papers regarding the employees and management of the organization, the document flow is divided into external and internal. The further path of the order, order, letter will depend on the source.
An organization’s internal workflow involves the following steps:
- creation of a draft document;
- matching;
- signing the draft document, putting down the date and registration number; from the moment of registration, it is considered officially published and accepted for execution;
- communication of content to performers and control;
- compliance with requirements;
- execution of an executed document for subsequent storage, depending on the timing and need;
- destruction of expired business papers or filing them for archival storage.
The stages of external workflow are generally similar, but there are some differences:
- Documents come to the company from the side. These can be papers of higher and lower organizations, branches, regulatory acts from official authorities, court orders, letters of citizens.
- All business papers received by the organization go through the registration procedure without fail. She confirms that they are taken under control.
- The next step is to work with the document, familiarization or implementation of the requirements.
- If necessary, an official response is issued.
- The last stage is registration for long-term or archival storage, and possible destruction.
In addition, in relation to the management of the organization, the following types of workflow are distinguished:
- ascending - from subordinates to superiors (explanatory notes);
- descending - from management to employees (orders);
- horizontal - between peers (acts, protocols).
All stages of the movement of the document must be recorded in special journals. They can be conducted in several ways:
- Logs for document movement;
- document cards;
- electronic document management is most common in the vast majority of organizations.
Features of litigation
Many people wonder what judicial proceedings are, and what is its difference from the general. A court case is a slightly different package of documents and material evidence. Proper storage and movement ensures transparency of the law enforcement system. Judicial record-keeping, unlike organizational, cannot be voluntary. It is maintained by authorized persons and is strictly controlled. For him, all stages, up to destruction, are normatively and strictly defined.
Secretary functions
Most employees of the enterprise very vaguely imagine what paperwork and workflow are. For the secretary, this is a professional activity.
The enterprise secretariat performs the main function of management documentation. According to the form and features of the work, the organization of the clerical service of an enterprise is divided into the following types:
- Centralized - all secretaries are in the same department and report to the chief clerk or senior secretary.
- Decentralized - secretaries and employees performing their duties are dispersed across organizational units and report to different bosses.
- Mixed - most often found in large organizations.
Features of the document flow at the enterprise will directly depend on the form of the secretariat adopted.
Office instruction
Regardless of the size and form of ownership, any organization should have a normative act regulating the movement of documents. What is the instruction on office work, and how to write it? This question excites not only secretaries, but also leaders.
An instruction on office work is an internal regulatory act of an organization, approved by an order or order of management, of unlimited duration. It spells out all the stages of the passage of the document, lists of posts are given, whose signatures can certify the authenticity of official papers, examples of registration, forms and forms are given.
Record keeping
In small organizations with a low level of workflow (less than 200 per year), the question does not arise what is record keeping. Everything is decided by the employees themselves or even by the leader.
If the duties of office management are not direct for the employee and are not spelled out in his employment contract, then a decree should be issued on the assignment of these functions. This document should detail the additional responsibilities, responsibilities and compensation.
Features of HR administration
If at least one employee works in the organization, then labor documents will be created. The question of personnel management is especially relevant for enterprises with a small number of employees.
HR clerical work is the provision of the movement of specific documents related to the labor activity of employees of the enterprise. Typically, these duties are performed by employees of a special unit - the personnel department. Their functions include the reception, processing and storage of personnel documentation. Including the processing of personal data that is confidential.
Personnel workflow is usually carried out separately from the general one in compliance with the rules of secrecy and storage features.
Office Optimization
Despite the rapid development of digital technology, many organizations are difficult to streamline. They continue to conduct paper correspondence in the old fashioned way and keep ordinary registration journals.
This is due to two factors:
- resistance to innovations of employees of the enterprise;
- lack of finance.
Managers should remember that the optimization of workflow with considerable investments gives a significant economic effect.