These days, many companies are trying to improve their culture by providing employees with special perks and benefits. As the new generation is entering the workforce, millennial-friendly companies are getting creative, some of them going as far as having game rooms and kegerators (that’s a fridge for a keg).

While it’s important to be conscious of your employees’ work experience and level of satisfaction, there are other options. For example, investing in technology can improve your employees’ work experience while also providing a nice return on investment.

Here are some ideas for using technology to improve your employees’ work experience without breaking the budget:

Keep the Company Organized

Document Management Software – There aren’t many things that are more frustrating than working at a disorganized company. It’s difficult to find the supplies and documentation you need. Even worse, communication suffers. All of this makes it hard for people to do their jobs. A good document management software solution can help with your company’s organization by allowing documents to be stored in one place, filed appropriate, and accessible remotely from anywhere with an internet connection. This means employees don’t have to sit and wait for documents to be retrieved by file room clerks. With the click of a button, the can pull up the documents they are looking for.

Using document management software also shows that your company is up to date on the latest technology available. The most millennial-friendly companies have already caught on to the fact that millennials expect this kind of technology to be used in the workplace.

Reduce Data Entry

Especially in the finance world, automated data entry is a game changer. Do you think your employees enjoy keying in data for hours on end? Would you? There are two ways you can use technology to reduce data entry time – data exchange and advanced capture technology.

Data Exchange – Others may have a different name for this concept, but at DocuPhase we call it data exchange. The idea is that once you’ve entered information once—whether in your ERP or in your document management software—the data can be pushed or pulled, duplicating itself wherever it’s needed.

Advanced Capture Technology – Even better, if you invest in advanced capture technology, your software will gather data through OCR (optical character reader) technology, meaning that your employees may not have to enter it at all. OCR is able to recognize characters on documents that are scanned into your document management software. Stack OCR technology on top of data exchange, and you’ll be saving your employees a huge chunk of time.

Minimize the Tedium

Robotic Process Automation – Do you have employees who spend most of the day doing tedious tasks like entering data, sending reminder emails, or delivering documents? We’re talking about the kinds of tasks that just require a body, but not much brain engagement. What if you could automate these tedious tasks and free your employees to do higher value work? This is exactly what robotic process automation can do for your company.

Let’s take a look at a specific example of robotic process automation within the accounting world. It’s called robotic accounting automation. Companies that use robotic accounting automation enjoy automated data entry, document management software, automated GL coding, and automated 3-way matching. This is a huge reduction of manual work for accounting employees. Additionally, robotic accounting automation allows teams to assign bots (software robots) to monitor email accounts for electronic invoices, and it can send out automated notifications. Basically, robotic accounting automation means that employees are presented with high-value work when it’s ready to be completed, without having to do the tedious, backend tasks to prepare the work items. This frees them to focus on real priorities!

Be Flexible

As discussed in our previous post, Preparing Your Business for the Millennial Takeover, today’s workers are looking for a workplace with flexibility. Millennial-friendly companies tend to be those that offer relaxed dress codes, flexible schedules, and the possibility of working from home. Here are some strategies for using technology to increase your company’s flexibility:

The Cloud – Whether they’re using robotic process automation, document management software, or another solution, many companies are storing documents and processes in the cloud. This allows team members to access them whenever they need to, and it helps companies better manage their local storage capacity.

Working Remotely – All of the technology discussed above can help you allow your team members to work remotely. This will make your team happy, and it will also help you free yourself of geographical limitations when hiring. Just make sure that you clearly define the rules for employees working from home.

Millennial-Friendly Policies – The more you keep up with technological advances, the more millennial-friendly your workplace will be able to be. You don’t have to go as far as providing your employees with a fleet of on-demand cars (like Google did), but consider that the millennial generation (those born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s) grew up with computers in their bedrooms and cellphones in their hands. Investing in workplace technology can help companies who are trying to recruit new talent and train up the next generation of business leaders.

As you consider your company’s future, think of investing in technology as a way to improve not only your employees’ work experience, but also your business practices as a whole. What it boils down to is this: technology will allow your team members to save time and to do higher level work. This is a win-win because it makes your employees happier while also improving your bottom line.

Here at DocuPhase, we use our own platform, which includes robotic process automation and document management solutions. Our employees enjoy the flexibility these solutions bring, and we enjoy doing higher level work. In fact, there are no administrative assistant jobs here at DocuPhase. We have the bots for that! If you’re interested in joining the team, check out our current job postings.

To see a custom demo of our platform (robotic accounting automation and document management software), sign up here. Your employees will thank you!