Research released by Sinequa reveals that UK workers face greater challenges finding information in the workplace than their US counterparts.
While nearly half of UK workers think it is harder than it should be to find information at work, only just over a third of US workers agree. Similarly, 71 percent of UK workers say it’s harder to find information on work systems than it is to find information on search engines like Google, compared to 57 percent of US workers.
While Sinequa’s research reveals that employees in both the UK and the US face challenges when searching for information at work, US employees report fewer problems than UK workers on average. The difference between the countries may partly be accounted for by the differing emphasis on tools designed to help with search needs. Two times more US respondents (14 percent) than UK respondents (seven percent) said their organisation had implemented an intelligent enterprise search tool to help adapt to new working environments.
Despite differences in the implementation of intelligent search tools, both US and UK workers report similar adoption of other tools to adapt to new working practices. Meanwhile, 72 percent of US workers and 73 percent of UK workers have had more regular virtual meetings to keep the team updated on activities and workload since the pandemic altered working patterns.
Sinequa VP Stéphane Kirchacker said: “While finding information in the work environment is clearly a challenge faced by office workers regardless of their location, it’s interesting to note that UK workers report more problems on average than their US counterparts. All organisations stand to gain from improving access to information and improving their search capabilities. It’s vital that these tools are considered as part of the digital workplace to help boost the productivity and efficiency of workers, and prevent lost or wasted time searching unnecessarily across multiple platforms. With the right tools in place, workers can be effective regardless of whether they are working at home or in the office.”
As companies continue to adapt to the new working world, the most typical model moving forwards in both the US and the UK remains a hybrid model, with a mix of working from home and working in the office. However, US employees report a broader spread across other models of working.
More US employees (30 percent) than UK employees (23 percent) are already back in the office full time. At the same time, there are more US employees (16 percent) than UK employees (six percent) undertaking a slow return to the office, with a couple of days a week until they build up to a full return.
