Workers wasting too much time to figure out tasks at hand

Employees worldwide spend more than 25 per cent of their time searching for the information they need to perform their jobs, and managers more than half of their time executing routine tasks, a new report said on Tuesday.

It's a problem IT has largely created by steadily implementing technology they thought would simplify work, that has only made it more difficult, said the research from desktop virtualisation firm Citrix and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

Within a typical company, the average employee needs to navigate four or more applications just to execute a single business process. And accessing them requires managing multiple passwords and interfaces. All of this takes time and focus away from people doing what they want -- and are paid to do, the findings showed.

"People today want the freedom to work when, where and how they want. And they expect things to be as easy as they are in their personal lives," said Tim Minahan, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Chief Marketing Officer, Citrix.

"To attract and retain talent in today's tight labour market, companies need to rethink what 'workplace' means and create digital environments that accommodate traditional, remote and gig workers and deliver the tools, and information they need to do their best work in a simple, unified way," he added.

The report surveyed more than 1,100 senior executives across eight countries and industry sectors.

"Nearly 36 per cent cited enhancing customer experience and satisfaction as the top reason for improving employee experience, just behind productivity and employee engagement (40 per cent), 31 per cent listed profitability, and 30 per cent called out talent retention," said the report.

When it comes to creating a world-class employee experience, nearly identical numbers of IT and HR executives (74 per cent and 75 per cent, respectively) indicated they feel personally responsible for improving it.