Research by two Dorset Chamber members has inspired a fight against stress and inefficiency caused by poorly designed IT systems.
They are raising awareness to the importance of ensuring that tasks required by employees should be simple to perform and not take longer using a computer.
Gemma Murphy, Managing Director of View HR, lists the following issues that can have an impact on the productivity of an employee’s day. When they are unable to perform their job in a timely manner, it means they will be less efficient, and this then adds to the stress of the day. Often Employees are having to stay on out of their contractual hours to complete work. This then impacts on their overall happiness and wellbeing. The issues include: –
- Lack of user ability due to the slowness or indeed lack of training on old systems.
- Waiting for things to load or the failure for things to correctly load and having to start again, due to data loss.
- Having to look up data on different systems.
- Unable to solve client’s problems in a timely manner or service them correctly.
- Security and compliance issues.
“We are finding that poor systems are a key complaint that pops up on employee’s surveys, employees want to get on with their jobs, they don’t want to have to play catch up out of hours just because the system is failing them. Also, not everyone has a Manager who understands the impact of poor systems and the delays this can cause, in some cases, we’ve seen employers question an employee’s productivity but it’s their systems causing the performance issue! This is stressful,” said Gemma Murphy.
Richard Austin, Director, at Ringwood based KFA Connect, which designs and develops IT solutions said that they have seen many examples of ageing and disparate systems within organisations over the years.
“Integrated systems relieve pressure on employees by reducing errors and streamlining day to day tasks. Well designed, simple-to-use systems help employees to work efficiently, raise productivity and reduce time pressures. It’s amazing the time it frees up when staff are not having to use poorly designed systems that simply do not match their business processes; time which can be much better spent proactively growing the business.”
“Additionally, companies should keep their systems up to date with the latest operating systems and browsers, to protect their employees from the anxieties of a cyber-attack,” said Richard Austin.
For further information visit www.kfa.co.uk