There are any number of reasons why your team prints too much at work. These are the eight most common types we’ve observed up close. Read on after this list to see how to solve the curse of the team that prints too much.
1) The “print all of the things” employee
Almost every workplace has that person who prints out their emails. There is no rhyme or reason for it to happen, but they do it.
2) The “I’ll just print a few of these out for the committee” employee
This person sees no harm in running off a few dozen copies of the latest minutes from last night’s committee meeting.
3) The “Oh Timmy, this is the best piece of art ever” employee
Every painting / crayon / montage their little one brings home from school is scanned, (color) printed, and blu-tacked in the hallway at home. Every. Single. Picture. Closely related to the “This must go into my scrapbook” and “This will look so good on my wall” printers.
4) The “I’ll print this because it’s important, then I’ll forget to pick it up” employee
This person assigns great importance to documents up until they’ve pressed CTRL-P or CMD-P. And then, just like magic, they forget they printed it. And it sits, uncollected, in the printer tray.
5) The “This digital report is important, so I’d better print it” employee
An easy one to spot as their desk has a number of thick collections of A4/Letter-sized printouts stapled together gathering dust. “The reports are much easier to read when printed,” they say. No, actually they’re easier to ignore.
6) The “I’m going on holiday, better print out all my travel docs. Twice” employee
Rarely sighted over the recent pandemic-affected years, but emerging once again to be a force to be reckoned with.
7) The “I like to mark up changes to the document with highlighters and red pen” employee
Also known as the “I’m not sure I understand how comments and track changes work in a document” person.
8) The “Everything is better in A3” employee
Restricted to workplaces with an A3 printer, it’s basically the same person who has a 60-inch Ultra Super High Definition Really Really Big TV in their living room. Size really does matter for these people. NOTE: if you have an A1 printer, that employee will be with you until the end. Or until you get rid of the A1 printer.
Do any of these types resonate with you? Add any more you can think of in the comments below so we can include them here!
Otherwise, read on to solve the problem of the over-printing team!
How to control a team that prints too much
The number one simplest way to limit the amount of printing in your team is to add print management software into your print environment.
Because with print management software, you can:
- Control how much people can print
- Decide whether they can print in colour or only black and white
- Guide them to print double sided (duplex) instead of only on one side of the paper (simplex)
- Track how much each person is printing (handy right?)
- And much, much more than you imagined was possible in the world of printing stuff!
In this situation, it’s all about gaining back control of your print environment. WITHOUT print management software, your team can print unhindered, which is great for Bob when he wants to print his football club’s newsletter 50 times. In color. WITH print management software in place, YOU control the who, when, where, why, and what of printing.
Which print management software do I need?
If you have a simple print environment - and by that I mean you’re in a single location with a few dozen desktop printers and maybe a few multifunction devices (basically anything from a couple up to a few hundred printers) - you should get started with something like PaperCut Pocket. It’s super, duper easy to install (you can do it yourself in minutes) and you’ll immediately be able to bring control to your print environment. PaperCut Pocket is all hosted in the cloud, if that’s the way you like to manage your infrastructure.
There’s also a simple-to-install version of PaperCut that sits on a server or always-on computer called PaperCut NG. You can download and run it for 40 days for free.
Want to see what else print management software can do?
