Australian workers waste time searching for information

A new report from Atlassian has highlighted significant inefficiencies faced by Australian knowledge workers, revealing that they spend a considerable 23.5% of their work week, roughly 10 hours, searching for information.

The findings from the report cast a light on the time lost by knowledge workers as they scour through emails, messaging channels, and disparate systems to find the data they need. A total of 73% of these workers reported challenges in locating the necessary information to accomplish their tasks, pointing to widespread productivity issues driven by information barriers.

Challenges in collaboration emerge as a significant theme within the report. Despite 77% of leaders acknowledging the increasing importance of inter-departmental teamwork, over one-third, or 37.5%, of knowledge workers believe that collaboration with other teams may actually hinder rather than help their work pace.

Information bottlenecks present another notable obstacle. More than half, 54.7%, of the surveyed workers expressed experiencing delays due to waiting on information from other teams. This is compounded by data from 73.7% of respondents who indicated that their team's success heavily relies on receiving information from other departments.

Despite these needs for cross-functional information sharing, the report found that 56% of organisations still find themselves duplicating efforts, as teams end up unwittingly working on similar tasks as others within the company. Additionally, 53.1% of companies operate largely in silos, limiting their collaborative potential.

Respondents also noted the significant time devoted to teamwork, with an average of over half of their working hours each week spent on tasks such as sharing information, tracking down team members, and resolving misunderstandings.

The alignment and streamlining of team goals and processes could offer a way to enhance productivity, according to the respondents. Forty-five percent believe clearer goals would speed up their work, and 46% point to aligning teams on common processes as a way to increase efficiency.

The potential role of artificial intelligence (AI) was also addressed in the report. A significant majority, 74%, recognise further possibilities for AI to aid in discovering and managing information, which they believe could ultimately improve team performance. Currently, 58.9% noted varying degrees of AI adoption within their organisations.

In the context of AI, 21% of respondents think work could proceed faster if their teams adopted more AI solutions, and about 65% believe AI would enhance the speed and quality of their work. Moreover, 52.1% indicated that AI has assisted them in becoming better team members.

The Atlassian report draws on a survey conducted with 12,000 knowledge workers from several regions, including Australia, the US, France, Germany, India, and the UK, as well as 200 executives from Fortune 1000 companies.