In a world of excess information, middle managers spend more than a quarter of their time searching for needed information, but what they find is often wrong – a waste of valuable time and effort.
An online survey by Accenture of middle managers in the UK and the US has found widespread frustration with how companies govern information distribution or determine what data is useful. Of 1,000 individuals surveyed, 59 percent said they routinely miss information that exists elsewhere within the company which might be valuable to their jobs. In addition, 42 percent said they accidentally use the wrong information at least once a week, and 53 percent said less than half of the information they receive is valuable.
Surprisingly, 45 percent of respondents said gathering information about what other parts of their company are doing is an enormous challenge, whereas only 31 percent felt that competitor information is hard to get. Having to compile information from numerous sources is a difficult aspect of managing information, according to 57 percent of respondents.
Part of the problem is how managers gather and store information, says Accenture. The majority of managers in the survey said they store their most valuable information on their computer or individual e-mail accounts, while only 16 percent use a collaborative workplace such as a company’s intranet portal. “Information is becoming a burden on knowledge workers and will remain so until companies consolidate and streamline the stores and sources of intelligence,” said Accenture executive Greg Todd.