By Tara Penner

The business climate that Peter Drucker predicted in 1959 has come to pass.

Instead of machinery and muscle ruling modern industry, knowledge workers have taken over. Architects, engineers, scientists, content writers, software developers and lawyers have, and are continuing to radically reconfigure the way that the business world operates.

These types of workers, which are engaged primarily in the analysis and manipulation of information, rely heavily on technology to access the documents and data that inform their ideas, analysis and decisions.

For companies that depend heavily on knowledge workers and understand how productivity plays into their competitive edge, it’s important to ask: are your employees equipped with the right tools to help them find and use your business’ vital information?

The high cost of a lack of access

For businesses, time really is money and not having access to the right information, when and where it’s needed, can cost your company a lot of it.

According to IDC and AIIM, among others, the average knowledge worker spends 15-35% of their time looking for information; often sifting through out-dated, redundant or incorrect documents.

As a simple example: a staff member needs to submit travel expenses. For this particular person, it isn’t a common event, so they have to look for the claim form. They search the shared drive to discover several versions in different folders. After opening a few of the files to try and determine which one they should use, they decide to email their supervisor and ask.

This process may only take twenty minutes, but how often does a comparable situation arise? How many other team members are having similar experiences? These twenty minute increments can quickly become a significant loss, especially to small businesses.

Where does the time go?

In addition to time spent simply searching for information, these workers spend an additional 15% of their time recreating or reworking similar documents that already exist, but could not be found.

That means that up to half of a knowledge worker’s day may be spent on the search, retrieval and recreation of information. For businesses that rely heavily on knowledge workers, an enterprise strategy to share information is a much more vital investment because those outdated, obsolete or ‘unfindable’ versions aren’t just an annoyance. They can, and do, dramatically impact the productivity and bottom line of your organization.

What could go right?

Knowledge workers will always spend a significant portion of their days gathering information, making decisions and composing, revising and submitting documents, but there are ways to simplify and streamline these processes.

By making information management an important part of your business you support your workers, which increases their productivity and reduces wasted time and frustration.

Having a knowledge management strategy won’t wholly eliminate wasted time, but it will help ensure your knowledge workers are spending more of their time on the innovation and creativity that makes them such a valuable part of your business.

– Tara Penner is the Principal Consultant at Pivot Data, a document and data management consulting practice located in Kimberley. An AIIM-Certified Information Professional, her experience includes work with small businesses and not-for-profits to some of the largest engineering companies in the world. When not sitting in front of her laptop, you’ll generally find Tara in the trails or on the ski hill with her human and animal family and friends. For more information or to contact Tara, visit www.pivotdata.ca.

Article Share