Experts say information overload is damaging mental health and impacting productivity. Picture: ThinkStock
Source: news.com.au
THE culture of modern business needs to change with workers drowning under a deluge of emails and information, experts have warned.
Corporations are failing to help staff cope with the technological barrage, daily meetings and constant connection, leading to rising levels of stress and psychological illness and costing billions in lost productivity.
Psychologists and experts say the information glut is becoming a major issue for firms who are searching for realistic answers to the problem.
A recent report, commissioned by Hitachi Data Systems, found 40 per cent of companies in Australia and New Zealand are suffering from the information glut, up from 34 per cent two years ago.
The report also found 81 per cent of companies surveyed now considered it important to manage data growth, up from 68 per cent two years ago.
Dr Ben Searle, senior lecturer of Psychology at Macquarie University, said information overload was now a major source of psychological illness in the workplace and is expected to become an increasing problem.
Common solutions offered by managers such as only checking emails at certain times during the day were difficult to implement and often did not work.
“These solutions won’t work if your company doesn’t embrace it,” Dr Searle said. “If a culture exists where a reply to an email is expected straight away, it will not work.”
He said changes needed to be part of company policies handed down to workers from the top.
Marc Peter, director of technology at LexisNexis which conducted an International Workplace Productivity study last year, said many employees were reaching “breaking point” with the amount of information they receive and there was a huge need for employers to step in and help.
Mr Peter said most workers admit data overload is causing their quality of work to suffer, making them feel demoralised and looking for guidance from employers.
“There are two key drivers for information overload," he said. "A lot of the information is irrelevant for the person who is receiving it and the second one is there is an inability of systems and processes in organisations to manage information efficiently.”
Scroll down for tips to cope with information overload
Most workers receive an average of 36 emails a day and huge volumes of other information. Add to this social media, instant messenger, daily meetings and the ever-present telephone plus the arrival of new technologies which employees are expected embrace to stay ahead of the game.
Macquarie University's Dr Searle said trying to straddle all these technologies is a productivity killer and could lead to further stress.
“Switching from iPad, to smartphone, to laptop can increase stress,” he said. “And if you are working on a complex task it is important to remove yourself from interruptions.”
Are you drowning in data? Test yourself here:
Hitachi Data Systems general manager Neville Vincent said while Australians worked incredibly hard in the developed economies they were probably one of the least productive.
"We are verging on an information disorder, beyond an information glut," Mr Vincent said.
"To use the gluttony/obesity analogy, people have recognised that they are putting on weight, from an additional information mismanagement perspective.
"But they are not actually doing anything about it."
Solutions offered are often a combination of data-management technology, willpower, and embracing some common principles, such as only checking emails twice a day.
The inescapable data deluge
Being unable to escape information is another source of “information rage”.
A survey last month by news.com.au found one in four people say they “can’t escape” working on their own time, mostly due to work emails being synched to smartphones.
The survey also revealed constant interruptions and meetings were impacting their productivity.
Of 31,260 respondents, 30 per cent said their top wish to boost their own productivity would be to work away from constant interruptions, while another one in four said “fewer meetings”.
Dr Searle said these constant interruptions are one of the biggest productivity killers and causes of severe stress.
How to survive: Focus, Filter and Forget
Management consultants McKinsey urge workers to embrace three principles to deal with data overload: find time to focus, filter out noise and forget about work when you can.
Finding time to think and having alone time is one of the most important coping mechanisms. Conversely, multitasking is a terrible coping mechanism.
“A body of scientific evidence demonstrates fairly conclusively that multitasking makes human beings less productive, less creative, and less able to make good decisions,” says the article.
Filtering out the noise by shutting down e-mail, closing web browsers and having phone calls go automatically to voice mail can also help, they say.
According to Mr Peter the three ways organisations can help is through investment into information management and decide how information is filtered, train employees and providing the tools and workflow and productivity technology.
Tips to avoid choking on emails
1. Cull reading material ruthlessly. Throw out anything you don’t need to read.
2. Focus on the quality of information, rather than quantity.
3. Set a time limit before using the internet. Only look up information you need.
4. Set rules for your emails so they are automatically organised into a relevant folder as soon as you receive them.
4. Planning a project or campaign often means trying to assimilate lots of data in different formats and from different sources. It’s often easier to organise this data visually – like a spider diagram or mind map.
5. Check emails and voicemails twice a day, at most.
6. Delete unwanted emails immediately.
7. Take regular breaks. Walk away from the machines. Giving the brain downtime to process information is a critical element of learning and thinking creatively.