'Digital hide-and-seek': Workers are wasting hundreds of hours a year sourcing the information they need to carry out their role

Knowledge workers globally are wasting a quarter of their working week tracking down information, new research from Atlassian has revealed.

UK workers specifically waste an average of 9 hours a week locating the information they need to do their work, accounting for hundreds of hours annually and inflicting significant strain on teams.

Nearly two-thirds (64%) of UK employees said workloads are more overwhelming than ever, the study noted.

Staff in the UK also report spending nearly half (48%) of their working week on ‘busy work,’ or non-mission-critical work, which includes tasks such as sharing information, tracking people down, or resolving misunderstandings.

A driver of these inefficiencies is a workplace misconception on how to source information, according to Atlassian. Over half (53%) of staff think the only way to get required information is to directly ask someone or schedule a meeting.

This means 55% run into blockades when trying to complete work as they are waiting for other teams and staff members to give them information. Just over one-third (34%) feel that collaboration with other teams slows down their work.

Similarly, 55% admitted to having found out too late about an important decision made by another team, while over half of the UK workforce spends time unknowingly working on the same task as others.

“This research highlights a critical issue in the modern workplace: the systems designed to support employees are not keeping pace with the increasing demands of work,” Molly Sands, head of teamwork labs at Atlassian, said.

“As teams become more cross-functional, the inability to quickly access information is creating bottlenecks that slow progress. This 'digital hide-and-seek' not only wastes time but also stifles creativity and innovation, as employees are forced to focus on administrative tasks rather than high-impact work,” Sands added.

Knowledge workers plagued by efficiency issues

This isn’t the first research to suggest knowledge workers are struggling with inefficiencies in the workplace.

Figures from the Multiverse Skills Intelligence Report in 2024 found that knowledge workers in the UK are wasting 10% of their time owing to a lack of data skills, for example.

In a separate survey from Wrike earlier this year, respondents said their workloads had grown by almost a third between 2023 and 2024, but that they were still being hampered by efficiency problems.

Almost three-in-five UK knowledge workers expressed the desire for fewer applications and less application sprawl to reduce the inefficiencies caused by fragmented workflows.

What can businesses do?

According to Atlassian’s research, 43% of knowledge workers say they could work faster if it were easier to find the information they needed. Additionally, 41% said they could work faster if all the teams in their organization used the same processes to get work done.

The research advised businesses to create clear goals for teams, as alignment on goals means staff are 6.4 times more likely to produce better quality work and 2.2 times more likely to focus their teams on the most important work.

“If all teams worked on mission-critical projects in lockstep, life would be great. Projects would be on time and there'd be no wasted effort,” a Fortune 500 VP commented in the research.

Bryan Stallings, chief evangelist at Lucid Software, said a key hurdle to improved collaboration and productivity often lies in hybrid working setups, which impact alignment between teams.

To counter this, Stallings agreed fostering closer cross-functional collaboration is critical alongside more detailed information sharing between siloed departments.

“Fixing this problem starts with companies reevaluating their tech stack and eliminating less effective applications,” Stallings told ITPro.

“IT decision-makers need to take a well-thought-out approach, researching and only investing in platforms that connect cross-functional teams, accelerate work using visuals, and can be adapted to fit the working styles of their employees,” Stallings added.

MORE FROM ITPRO

• AI was touted as a game changer for productivity – but employees are still saddled with growing workloads
• Workers are faking productivity levels, and it’s hitting businesses hard
• Eric Schmidt admits remote work has productivity benefits, but he still wants staff in the office