How to improve operational efficiency with forms and checklist

Improving operational efficiency should be listed as a top priority for any business. Operational efficiency done well leads to a reduction in time, effort, materials, and costs, while still maintaining a high-quality service. In your strive for the ultimate operational efficiency, you should definitely consider standardizing your communication flows with digital forms and checklists. In this blog post, we will dive into the old way of processing forms and checklists, the power of digitizing your forms and checklists, and share how you can turn inefficient manual tasks into a streamlined digital process.

Guido Schmitz

March 27, 2023

How to improve operational efficiency with forms and checklist

Table of contents

The inefficient old way of processing forms and checklists

Most organizations with deskless workers (e.g., in retail and hospitality) currently still use the good old pen and paper to fill in forms, checklists, and all sorts of other internal reports and requests. However, this way of working has numerous inefficiencies. We’ve listed the most noticeable ones below:

  • Lack of structure

With unstructured communication, certain information can be forgotten to submit, which requires back-and-forth communication and adds a communicational burden.

  • Lack of accessibility

Forms and checklists are not easily accessible because they are in different places. It is often not clear where to go for which form/request.

  • Inefficiency due to changing processes

Changing processes via paper-based forms is inefficient. If a form or checklist is updated, this needs to be sent and printed out for all locations and departments involved.

  • Quality assurance

Inconsistent quality across locations due to procedural standards that differ per location or department.

  • Unknown statuses

Form submissions and their statuses can fall between the cracks because form submissions get lost on paper or in the inboxes of people involved.

  • Speed of the processes

Paperwork makes processes slower. Which can be dangerous for critical workflows like safety hazard reports or incident reports.

  • Lack of overview

It’s challenging to keep a clear overview of form submissions and their statuses.

The power of digitizing your forms and checklists

The powerful alternative to outdated pens and paperwork is digitizing your forms and checklists. It helps you overcome all inefficiencies mentioned above that occur with paper-based forms and checklists. An overview of the benefits of digitizing your forms and checklists:

  • Quality control and consistency across your organization

Due to centralizing your forms and checklists via your internal communication platform, you are sure to maintain quality and a consistent process that is adopted the same regardless of the location. For example, your employees in London will follow the same procedures for filing a customer complaint as those in Edinburgh.

  • Reduce operational risk

By having your processes clear for all employees, you can ensure that everyone follows company guidelines and thus reduce operational risk.

  • Accessibility and usage

Employees knowing where to go for any form, checklist, request, or report will undoubtedly lead to a higher usage rate. Want to refer a friend to work for your organization? Simply head over to the designated employee referral form in your easily accessible employee app.

  • Less paper use

Well, this one is relatively self-explanatory. Digitizing your forms and checklists support your CSR goals within your organization by significantly reducing your paper waste.

  • Structured and swift communication

Constant back-and-forth communication over statuses and other follow-ups will forever belong to the history books. Digitizing and structuring your processes helps you remove unnecessary communicational burdens and increase the speed of processes.

  • Always up-to-date

Need to adjust one of your forms and checklists? Just update the form in your employee app, and your employees will instantly use the updated version.

  • Keep a clear overview

Make sure your employees receive automatic status updates and get a clear overview of all submissions in a clear dashboard.

Ultimately, all these benefits of digitizing your forms and checklists lead to an increase in operational efficiency and a positive employee experience.

How to create forms and checklists in minutes

Below we will describe the 4-step process of creating a form or checklist via Oneteam’s employee app.

Step 1: Pick one of the 30+ templates or start from scratch

You can start from scratch or simply get started with one of the 30+ templates. Some of the templates included: vacation requests, sick leave, incident reports, expense forms, and uniform orders. It’s possible to edit the templates to your liking and choose any input field you like, including text answers, multiple choice, checkmarks, sliders, and date/time. Also, easily add photos, videos, PDFs, and other file types. If you created a template that’s specific to your organization, you can also save your newly created form or checklist as a template and share it within your organization.

Step 2: Use the advanced audience selector and share the form or checklist with anyone in the organization

Now it’s time to decide who will be able to access your form or checklist. Use the advanced audience selector to make your forms and checklists available to all or a selected group of employees based on their location and/or department.

Ready to go live? Publish the form or checklist!

Use the advanced audience selector to select all or a selected group of employees

Step 3: Analyze the real-time submission reports and automatically communicate statuses

Keep track of all submissions and easily filter them by date, location, function group, status, and even on question input. Automatically keep your employees informed on the statuses while the submission progresses.

Step 4: Export submissions to relevant systems

Want to push certain forms directly to your other systems? We’ve got you covered. Automatically forward submissions to other HR systems via our Webhook integration or send submissions as PDFs to an email of choice.

Automatically forward submissions to other HR systems via our Webhook integration

Offer the ultimate employee experience with an all-in-one employee app

Are you ready to standardize your communication flows with digital forms and checklists? Oneteam’s forms and checklist component offers organizations the ultimate solution to improve efficiency, quality, and accessibility. Give your employees the best possible mobile experience by providing the forms and checklists directly in their native all-in-one employee app.  


But what about the rest of your employee experience? That’s where Oneteam is different from point solutions that just offer one solution for the employee experience. We’ve created a page with more information on point solutions versus an all-in-one employee app. Oneteam’s all-in-one employee app offers mid-market organizations the ultimate solution to make their frontline workforce successful and engaged. Internal communication, onboarding, eLearning, surveys, forms & checklists, schedule & payslip integrations, and much more. It’s all in Oneteam. Want to learn more? Watch the explainer video below and request a guided demo.

Guido Schmitz

Guido Schmitz

Guido Schmitz is the co-founder of Oneteam and responsible for building the employee app of the future. He works closely with customers and the product team to improve our platform and deliver more value. Fun fact about Guido: Started coding at the age of 13 and never stopped doing so. He’s passionate about building great software products that make an impact. Hyper-focused on user experience to make sure Oneteam is the #1 employee app out there.

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