Are organisations investing in information skills?
Jinfo Blog

By Robin Neidorf

Abstract

The ability to interact effectively with information is a job requirement for nearly every worker in the digital age. Regardless of job title, we're all sorting through reams of information, finding and selecting the most important bits, analysing it and communicating it constantly. The wrong information can be costly; missing information can be time-consuming; incomplete information can be devastating.

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The ability to interact effectively with information is a job requirement for nearly every worker in the digital age. Regardless of job title, we're all sorting through reams of information, finding and selecting the most important bits, analysing it and communicating it constantly. The wrong information can be costly; missing information can be time-consuming; incomplete information can be devastating.

So how are organisations today investing in their workers' information skills? Not terribly strategically, it seems, based on initial responses to the FreePint Research Survey: Balance of Work for Information Managers and End Users.

The main focus of the project design was to identify ways in which the relationship (and work balance) between end users and information managers may have shifted. Whilst those results prove intriguing, the related issue of organisational investment in the information skills of all workers has emerged as a key finding:

• The most important form of investment is peer-to-peer training. Skilled workers are indeed a valuable resource in improving the skills of their peers, but will they necessarily have the strategic vision for what needs to be shared? Do they have the time and real support needed to become peer trainers? Peer-to-peer training may be cost-effective, but it addresses mainly short-term objectives.

• Organisations earn middling marks for information strategy. Fewer than half the respondents to date agree with the statements: "My organisation invests appropriately in information skills for all knowledge workers" and "Information professionals are appropriately included in decision-making".

Information managers responding to the survey report that improving the information skills of non-specialist colleagues is a priority for the coming year. Other important priorities also relate to helping the average knowledge worker be more effective information practitioners, such as improving the intranet or KM resources, improving discoverability of resources and expanding the access of workers to information products and tools.

There is still time to add your insights to the survey, which will continue to collect data through to 31 March 2011. All survey participants who provide an email address will receive a copy of the resulting report; your responses, however, will remain fully anonymous.

Complete the survey now>>

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