A worryingly large proportion of UK office workers do not understand the technology available to them, or are not using it to its full potential. That’s according to a survey of more than 1000 office workers commissioned by TechSmith, the world’s leading provider of screen capture and recording solutions.
The findings paint a picture of a productivity shortfall that will continue to grow and detrimentally affect British business success if allowed to continue.
A cross section of full time office workers were asked to reveal their usual approach to a selection of every day tasks, as well as indicate familiarity with basic features of Microsoft Word. The results showed that a large proportion of office workers are not familiar with, or do not use, many of the basic time and resource saving tools available at their fingertips.
Key results included:
- 45% don’t know how to merge a Word document. 6% have no understanding on any basic Word functions
- 55% don’t seek help online if unsure of how to complete tasks, whilst 40% rely on expensive internal resources. 23% ask the person sitting next to them
- More than one third of respondents still print off documents in order to provide feedback to colleagues, rather than using tools available on their PC to highlight comments and changes
- 48% of office workers rely on sending hyperlinks in order to share web content with colleagues, despite the fact that these links can expire and the information cannot be viewed if a colleague is working off line.
Matt Pierce, training manager at TechSmith, comments: “We know that businesses today dedicate increasing amounts of time, money effort and energy researching and investing in sophisticated technologies and productivity tools, but it seems that many do not provide regular basic training to ensure the tools are used for the benefit of individuals and companies. This survey points to the fact that it really is time to go back to basics.
“Basic IT skills training for each and every employee is not realistic for all organisations. Generic online help tools, used by only 45 per cent of respondents, are clearly not helping enough. What’s needed is a simple solution that can enable organisations to quickly and easily create effective, customised training resources that can be accessed by employees whenever they need help.”
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the survey was carried out by Research Now plc among 1,009 UK full-time office workers aged 18-64, working in non-technical roles.
