‘Information rage’ on the rise, courtesy data-overload at workplace

SYDNEY - Aussies are on the verge of mental breakdown, as more and more report a never-ending avalanche of information they are bombarded with at their workplaces.

It’s called ‘information rage’, and one in every two Aussie employees is affected by it. LexisNexis conducted a survey, which revealed that 49 percent of respondents are unable to manage all the information coming their way. Of those, 51 per cent said they’re close to giving up.

An Australian employee, on an average, spends less than two-and-a-half days per week actually doing their job, while the rest of the time is spent navigating a virtual forest of information, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

For instance, only 40 per cent of emails are deemed to be of value. A classic offender is the old “cc”.

The result: employees who are unable to sort through a pile of information fast enough and end up submitting work that’s substandard.

Almost three quarters of the survey’s respondents declared their work has suffered as a result.

The information rage, therefore, is propelled by three factors: a surfeit of information from managers who worry that they aren’t sending enough information, the lack of relevance wherein managers pass on whatever they get and hope their employees take care of the filtering, and the inability of organisational systems to deal with the information well, which indicates that storing all the knowledge and making it easy to access is a struggle.

Proponents of this philosophy suggest it’s not an abundance of information that’s the problem; what’s really causing the angst is our inability to deal with it. (ANI)