Shouldn’t ‘Paperwork’ be an Obsolete Reference?

I did a quick search on Twitter today re: “HR Paperwork” and a bunch of stuff came up.  Did the same re: “Accounting Paperwork” and “Marketing Paperwork” and “IT Paperwork” and not a whole lot surfaced.  Granted, most of the HR paperwork tweets related to new jobs, onboarding, etc, but it related to paperwork none the less.  It wasn’t unusual either for the tweet to include the word “hate” or “tired” or “dread.”  Why oh why do we insist on so much damn paper in HR…and why is that paperwork often so confusing?  Beyond I9s, W4s, and the other regulated stuff, do we really need everything else?  Why isn’t the entire onboarding process automated?  How many of us still use hardcopy performance assessment forms?  Do you require hardcopy status change requests/leaves, etc?  Why?  Even if you don’t have a robust ERP or HRIS, technology can still be leveraged to help our people get back to what they are paid to do (and it ain’t fillin’ out paperwork).  Just ask yourself, “do we really need this?” or “is there another way to get this?” or “can I at least fill some of this out for them…”