According to an independent report titled ‘Document Mayhem in the Netherlands and the Nordics’  commissioned by enterprise content management company, TOWER Software, "the habits of employees in the Netherlands and the Nordics are worse than their peers in the UK and Republic of Ireland (ROI) in terms of computer file management."  The report points out that more employees from those countries save computer files with their own personalised names or suffixes, and routinely working on the wrong or out-of-date files. As a result, these employees are also almost twice as likely to call, or be called by a colleague whilst off sick or on holiday to track down computer file information.

Consider these staggering figures from the press release: Almost half (46%) of the Dutch and Nordic employees, compared to around one third (34%) of those in the UK and ROI have spent time working on the wrong or out-of-date version of a computer file because colleagues have not saved it correctly. A quarter (26%) think this has resulted in people in their organisation unknowingly presenting the wrong version of information to colleagues, management, suppliers and/or customers at least very six months, or more frequently. This compares to just 10% in the UK.

Obviously, such instances are bound to cause disruptions in the office environment and have a significant impact on an organization’s efficiency. In fact the report says that it also affects office harmony and people relations.  Emphasizing the importance of document management/ information management in today’s organizations, David Oates, Vice President for TOWER Software across EMEA says, “Information management should be a corporate competency; from paper files, to email and computer-based documents. While not all employees feel the daily pressure of issues such as risk mitigation, compliance and regulation, the efficiency and cost-saving benefits of effective knowledge sharing is well documented.”