Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Latest NewsInformation & consultationKnowledge managementProductivityPerformance management

Half of workers waste two hours a day looking for stuff

by Nic Paton 6 May 2025
by Nic Paton 6 May 2025 Shutterstock
Shutterstock

More than half of workers (53%) waste up to two hours a day simply trying to find information critical to getting their job done.

In all, UK workers waste up to 520 hours a year searching for information – the equivalent of £12,900 of their salary, the poll of more than 2,000 knowledge workers by software firm Lucid has argued.

Workplace productivity

Civil servants say three days in office reduces productivity

Why more social mobility means more productivity – and more growth

Long Covid costing UK plc billions in lost productivity – study

More than four in 10 UK workers (44%) also complained of missing objectives at work because of information gaps.

Similarly, 31% believed projects regularly missed deadlines or failed to meet company objectives because of missing details.

Recreating processes or documentation because of difficulty accessing the original information happens daily, according to 34% of UK workers, highlighting significant operational inefficiency, said Lucid.

As a result, almost half (48%) of workers believe standardising these processes could save them up to 10 hours each week.

According to 44% of workers, technical and system limitations are the leading barrier, followed by balancing process compliance with other business priorities (43%), and ensuring consistent enforcement across the organisation (42%).

Time wasted in or around meetings was another common bugbear, with 41% of UK workers saying it could take up to three hours to form a team consensus around what work needed to be done.

More than a third (37%) commonly left meetings unsure of what they were expected to do next. As a result, 47% stated that their project teams lack alignment.

Too many different tools that slow collaboration and decision-making was a further issue. Nearly a third (29%) of those polled said they used between six and 10 tools or products daily at work. Yet 24% believed having too many systems to check was their biggest challenge when searching for information work.

Dan Lawyer, chief product officer at Lucid Software, said: “In today’s fast-moving workplace, clarity can’t be optional. Workers are spending too much time searching for basic information needed to do their job which is crippling productivity and making it more difficult to move projects forward,” he added.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

 

HR roles in IT, internet and new media on Personnel Today


Browse more HR roles in IT, internet and new media

Nic Paton

Nic Paton is consultant editor at Personnel Today. One of the country's foremost workplace health journalists, Nic has written for Personnel Today and Occupational Health & Wellbeing since 2001, and edited the magazine from 2018.

previous post
Resident doctors to ballot for strike action
next post
Private sector median pay increases remain at 3.5%

You may also like

HMRC releases research on removing salary sacrifice tax...

28 May 2025

Call-handler sues Met Police over reinstatement of offensive...

28 May 2025

WFH for important meeting was acceptable, tribunal rules

28 May 2025

KFC to create over 7,000 jobs

28 May 2025

Consulting giant McKinsey cuts headcount by 10%

28 May 2025

Scrapping Level 7 apprenticeship funding is a ‘major...

27 May 2025

Higher-level apprenticeship funding to be limited to under-22s

27 May 2025

HS2 labour supplier ‘falsely’ declared PAYE to inflate...

27 May 2025

Volvo to cut around 3,000 roles in restructure

27 May 2025

Three ways technology can boost wellbeing outcomes

27 May 2025

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+