Member Article

Up to £15 billion wasted looking for ‘lost’ documents at work

We all rely on our IT at work to get the job done, and there’s nothing more frustrating than when it just stops working or takes an eternity to carry out a simple request. But how much time do we actually waste dealing with issues that the technology throws up.

We recently worked with research experts Censuswide to ask over 1,000 people in the UK with desk-based jobs what’s slowing them up at work and why.

Trying to locate ‘lost’ documents was one of the biggest bugbears that we found.

Of those who responded, over two thirds wasted either up to or even over an hour each day looking for documents and 20% said they had to then waste even more time creating documents from scratch.

If you take that hour each day that people are wasting and extrapolate it across the UK, then businesses could be wasting as much as £15 billion every year while employees search for documents.

With everything online instantly accessible it seems ludicrous that so many employees are being held up by their own company’s network and systems.

As part of the survey we also wanted to find out what staff perceive as being important in helping them do a better job, and while almost 50% would see the value in better technology, 93% said that quick access to the documents and information would enable them to be much more efficient at work.

In today’s market where companies are determined to improve efficiencies to meet profitability targets, employees need to focus on their jobs and helping grow the business. They do not need to waste time searching the server for lost PowerPoint presentations or Excel spread sheets.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Infomentum .