The features and impact of the paperless office, with specific reference to the City of Johannesburg

Major changes are taking place in the global workplace. The European Foundation reveals that work is becoming more intensive, more than 50% of workers are working at high speed or tight deadlines most of the time, the nature of the work is driven by customer demands and the number of people working with computers has increased to 41% in 2000. The strain on the employee is ultimately reflected in the work-related health issue of muscular pains in the neck and shoulders reported by a quarter of the workforce (European Foundation, 2000). Closer to home, statistics support this trend by indicating that the number of Internet users in Africa has increased by nearly 100%, from 2.5 million in 2000 to nearly 5 million in 2001, with South Africa having two-thirds of Africa's internet population (Dudley 2001).