Employees waste a fifth of time searching for information needed to do their job effectively

Employees waste 19.8 per cent of their time – the equivalent of one day per working week – searching for information to do their job effectively, according to research released today by Interact.

Results of the Interact Customer Analysis Survey show implementing intelligent social intranets which push content to people results in a 19.8 per cent increase in efficiency in the workplace. In addition, the effectiveness of internal processes increases by 21 per cent, repeated internal queries drop by 15 per cent, internal email traffic drops by 10 per cent and employee engagement increases by 9 per cent.

Nigel Danson, CEO of Interact, explains, “Productivity is critical to business success, it is therefore vital that inefficient internal processes are identified and eliminated. When an employee requires information to do their job effectively, finding relevant information can be an arduous task. Businesses therefore must meet the demand for accurate and relevant content which supports specific business and employee requirements to enable people to get work done efficiently.”

The research from Interact comes on the back of the launch of Interact Intranet 7, a solution which blends productivity and social tools to aid communication, collaboration and completing key business processes. It has a unique intelligence store that ensures the right content intelligently finds the right people – eliminating processes which waste both time and money.

Nigel says, “Far too often intranets are technology-focused, when to be most effective they must focus on the specific requirements and needs of the business, the employees and the tasks they need to do. By using a mix of productivity and social tools such as ‘suggestions’, ‘recommendations’ and ’timelines’, Interact 7 identifies individuals’ trends and intelligently pushes them the most relevant content based on their interactions and key business processes.

“This improves efficiency and productivity by enabling employees to access information specifically relevant to them, on demand. A culture of collaboration and idea sharing is promoted in familiar virtual surroundings by using corporate social networking and micro blogs.”