Are you easily distracted by less tech-savvy colleagues?

Almost two thirds of British office workers get distracted by their less tech-savvy colleagues, study finds.

Solving the problems of less tech-savvy employees takes up an average of 17 minutes of our working day.

A survey of 2,000 British office workers, commissioned by Crucial, finds that Brits work with an average of four colleagues in their office that are less tech-savvy than them. These colleagues always seem to encounter IT problems at work, distracting 62 per cent of the UK workforce and costing businesses lost time fixing issues.

When comparing major UK cities, workers in London and Edinburgh are more generous with their time, helping their less tech-savvy colleagues for 17 minutes a day. Workers in Birmingham and Liverpool spend 15 minutes a day assisting colleagues with IT problems. Office workers in Plymouth lose the least amount of time, only donating nine minutes of their day.

The most common IT complaints from those who are less tech-savvy are a PC or programme freezing or running slowly (46 per cent), a PC or programme crashing (38 per cent), not being able to connect to the internet (24 per cent) and losing unsaved work (23 per cent). Office workers say that the most common fixes for their colleague’s issues were calling IT support (32 per cent) and turning off their PC (28 per cent).

More than one in five (23 per cent) British office workers admit that they feel they were one of the less tech-savvy colleagues. A third of these aren’t worried about being less tech-savvy because they have other skills, another third (34 per cent) admit trying to fix tech problems themselves but always end up calling someone else, whilst 26 per cent know someone will fix it for them anyway.

Jonathan Weech, Crucial SSD Sr. product marketing manager says, ‘Slow technology not only wastes time and money but it can be incredibly frustrating. In fact, recent Crucial research found that one in five Brits has a temper tantrum once a week due to slow technology. PCs running slowly, programmes crashing and screens freezing are all avoidable problems.’

‘Dealing with slow computers and hapless colleagues can be excruciating. But there is hope – a memory and SSD upgrade can be one of the best ways to solve this problem. You can get a lot of the time back that you spend waiting and helping others, and alleviate the stress that comes with it. Massive changes don’t need to happen to improve your computer, and a memory and SSD upgrade delivers small, sustainable changes that deliver immediate and lasting results.’

Further reading on tech-savvy workers

Owen Gough, SmallBusiness UK

Owen Gough

Owen was a reporter for Bonhill Group plc writing across the Smallbusiness.co.uk and Growthbusiness.co.uk titles before moving on to be a Digital Technology reporter for the Express.co.uk.

Related Topics

Technology