Almost half of Australian professionals are feeling demoralised from information overload that threatens both work practices and output, potentially leading to ‘information rage’ concludes a new survey.
In a global study of 1,700 white collar workers released LexisNexis, 49 percent of professionals report feeling dejected and frustrated at being unable to manage all the information that comes their way at work and said that if the amount of information they receive continues to increase, over half (51 percent) believe they would soon reach a ‘breaking point’ where they can’t handle any more.
Marc K. Peter, Director of Technology and Business Development at LexisNexis Pacific, said this survey indicates the inundation of information is taking a heavy psychological toll on Australian workers.
“Australian workers are finding that the Information Age is causing ‘information rage’,” said Mr. Peter. “We see ‘information rage’ as being driven by three things: a surfeit of information, the lack of relevance of the majority of that information, and the inability of organisational systems to deal with the information well,” said Mr. Peter.
The research also found:
- 50% of Australian professionals say that on average, only about half of the information that comes their way every day at work is actually important to them getting their job done.
- In Australia, only 40% of email received is important to getting a worker’s job done – the lowest of any country polled.
- 88% of Australian workers wish they could spend less time organising, and more time using, the information that comes their way.
- Only one in five (22%) Australian professionals responded that their company has offered training in information management in the past two years, despite 60% wanting their companies to do so.
“From the figures, we can assume Australians are effectively spending less than two-and-a-half days a week actually doing their job and the rest of the time trawling through e-mails and other information, over half of which do not have direct relevance to their day-to-day priorities.” said Mr Peter.
