2011 was a tough year for many UK businesses and this is likely to continue in 2012. In recognition of this David Cameron has called for Britain to “go for growth” to avoid the crises seen in the Eurozone – lowering costs and driving productivity will be a key survival (and success) strategy. So how well is British business placed to do this and are employees adequately equipped to step up and drive the efficiencies that employers will want and more importantly need to see?
We recently conducted research that gives a snapshot of employee sentiment and how well they are coping with the demands of today’s workload. It showed that British workers are already finding it difficult to navigate, organise and digest all of the information that they have to deal with each day, which is making them unhappy and costing business. In today’s digital age a typical office worker is constantly receiving data from a range of different sources – within a few minutes you can be faced with multiple emails, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spread sheets, tweets and Facebook messages, all demanding attention. And that’s without considering actions from meetings or any ad-hoc verbal requests that get thrown in. Even when data from an individual source seems relatively manageable it doesn’t take much for it to add up and it’s leaving UK workers struggling.
Our study found that whilst the average amount of emails received each day by office workers is 36, a third of these are still going unread. Further results from the survey showed that we attend one meeting, make five telephone or conference calls and despite the social media hype, 20 per cent of us spend any time on social networking sites during a typical day at the office. The problem that we are experiencing is not just the amount of information that we are receiving, but the fact that it is coming from different sources, something that is leaving us feeling overwhelmed because we are not equipped to manage it. In fact two thirds of office workers say that this has a negative impact on their job. It is also the reason that more than one in ten are enjoying their job less and what’s more, it’s having a knock on impact for business. The average office worker spends over 21 minutes a day, the equivalent of over two working weeks per year, searching for information that they’ve seen but can’t find. This equates to a cost of over £1,200 a year for every employee and with 10 million officers workers in the UK, this costs UK business £12.4 billion a year.
Given that 2012 has been touted by many as the year of “big data”, this feeling of being overwhelmed is only going to get worse. According to IDC, the world produced one zettabyte (1,000,000,000,000 gigabytes) of data in 2010. This mind-boggling data explosion was fuelled by over 5 billion mobile phones, 39 billion pieces of content shared on Facebook each month and 20 billion Internet searches in the same period, all of which are set to increase in 2012, making it more important than ever to equip ourselves with the right tools to cope.
Trying to manage this information using traditional methods and office tools is clearly a struggle, but why? We worked with neurobiologist Mo Costandi whilst looking into our research findings and he echoes the same sentiments you’ll hear from renowned writer Nicolas Carr – the brain simply isn’t good at multi-tasking. As soon as we start switching between tasks or trying to multitask our productivity levels suffer. So when there are emails, documents, meetings, tweets and telephone calls to deal with it can be very hard to assimilate all this information in a meaningful and organised way.
Conventional office tools and ways of working can make coping even more difficult as they present information in a linear format. Attempts to capture ideas, turn them into something usable and manage information effectively with traditional software can be hit and miss. Word documents and spreadsheets can be uninspiring and too detailed for executives that require overviews and top line ideas that are easy to comprehend and digest. These tools have their place in business, but ultimately dictate a linear train of thought, which can contradict the free-flowing nature of the mind. It’s more effective to work in a non-linear format such as a spider diagram or mind map, as this mirrors the brains natural processing flow – where you have one central theme but can easily branch off into further detail where required and visualise connections between information and ideas.
Companies need to encourage new ways of working and help their employees better manage information, both individually and as teams. We’re helping them to do this by providing a collaborative work management platform that focuses on visualising information in a non-linear way to dramatically improve how people retain information, work better together, accomplish goals and be more productive. Businesses need to recognise and appreciate the way the brain naturally works in order to support the multitasking that is required of employees today.
The way we work today involves assimilating information from many sources and the fact we’re struggling to do this is a very real business issue – one that will only increase now that we’re entering the big data era. We can’t afford to be held back by the volume of information when the climate is so tough. By making small changes to our working behaviour, as individuals and teams, there’s no reason why we can’t prosper in 2012.
If you want to find out if you’re drowning in data we have a quick and simple test you can take, which will also give you hints and tips on better managing your workload. Just visit www.mydmi.co.uk.
