An article discusses how slow and outdated technology wastes office workers time.
Valuable time is wasted dealing with technology in the office instead of being productive, suggests Real Business, and the reasons are “old devices and software that is not user friendly”.
The average office worker in the UK “wastes at least 21 days” per year on trying to fix problems, says new research from Sharp, and this costs “businesses over £2,100 ($2,670/€2,385) per employee per year”. Compared to Europe, the UK is the “third least productive” with France and Italy wasting more time.
Searching for files on the server was listed as the biggest time waster at 23 minutes a day because of “poor search tools”, and printers were highly listed too, causing a loss of seven minutes a day “waiting for it to warm up”,. and a further 10 minutes waiting for the printed pages.
Sheffield was named as the worst town in the UK for “outdated technology”, and employees waste an “average of 53 minutes” a day: that’s 28 days a year. Meanwhile in Manchester, although featuring the most helpful workers, saw the most “tech illiterate” with 15 minutes a day wasted helping colleagues with technical problems.
The article notes that this wasted time due to poor systems and technology means “lost opportunities, lost profits and even lost employees”. In a survey, 80 percent said that their office used out-of-date technology, while 53 percent said that they “would be more productive” if it was up-to-date, and 14 percent said that they “would stop looking for another job”, which the article said suggests “a big opportunity for businesses to improve both output and staff retention”.
Up-to-date technology can “support the changing needs of employees” and enable “businesses to get the best out of their team”, said the report, which in turn will develop motivation and productivity in the workplace.
The article suggests that office equipment needs to have connectivity and “automate routine tasks”, and that printers with sensors that “wake up” as they are approached and can “easily store and immediately access copies of documents directly from MFPs” will have a big impact on office productivity.
In conclusion, the report said that even with the right “hardware and software” attitudes need to change as well, and that making “efficiency a priority” and “changing behaviours” were all part of the strategy.