Sustainability And Change Management: Steps To Long-Term Adoption

By Melinda Stoker, director of global marketing communications, Xerox DocuShare

The promise of paperless has been a dream for decades with slow progress and many challenges. In recent years, however, industries that many said would never move to digital documents, like healthcare, have jumped hurdles and are making significant progress.

So there is hope for businesses trying to migrate to more of a paperless business model. Often, the first step is to identify and communicate the benefits to the organization as the beginning of a change management program to support employees.

Many organizations are embracing values related to sustainability and defining actions to support them, thus making sustainability goals and initiatives a priority rather than a “nice-to-have” option. The 2011 McKinsey Global Survey on The Business of Sustainability found that 57 percent of respondents say their companies have integrated sustainability into strategic planning; 67 percent say sustainability has been integrated into mission and values; and 60 percent say sustainability has been integrated into external communications.