One in Six Employees Lies to Cover up Errors at Work

Survey from TOWER Software reveals that organisations are routinely exposed to outcomes such as legal action, penalties, dismissals, losing customers and bad publicity by employees failing on basic computer file management

A new survey from enterprise content management company, TOWER Software, today reveals that one in six (16%) employees lies to cover up mistakes that have resulted from the wrong version of information being presented to colleagues, management, suppliers and/or customers, because of poor computer file management. The report, 'Document Mayhem in the UK and Republic of Ireland' reveals that 67% of employees at middle manager or below think people in their organisation might have unknowingly presented the wrong version of information in this way, with 10% saying that the information was then re-used elsewhere. According to the independent survey conducted for TOWER Software by Dynamic Markets, 35% of men are embarrassed by these mistakes compared to just 13% of women.

Paul Brenchley, Vice President for TOWER Software in EMEA explains, "The most common outcome from these errors among respondents was personal embarrassment (23%). But, this pales against the business reality of losing customers, legal battles, staff dismissals, poor publicity and worst of all - failing to meet regulatory compliance such as Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II, MIFID, e-government and beyond. Perhaps more worrying, is that these statistics are just the errors that we know about, or that people are prepared to admit to. The problem is probably far greater, particularly as the errors are perpetuated by the re-use of wrong or out of date computer files, documents and email. 63% of employees questioned say negative consequences have resulted from the presentation of incorrect information. 8% say legal action was taken out against their organisation, 7% say they suffered bad publicity and 6% say they actually lost customers."

85% of all senior managers are dealing with at least one business issue related to risk mitigation, regulation, compliance or growth. 40% are dealing with all of them. Yet, over a third (34%) of employees at middle manager or below have worked on a wrong or out of date version of a computer file or document because colleagues have worked on it and not saved it correctly. This happens to more employees in the private sector (6%) where there is a lower take-up of EDRM systems such as TRIM Context solution, than the public sector. According to TOWER Software this is because the public sector has been more heavily regulated, for longer. Almost half (47%) of those surveyed admit fewer mistakes would be made by employees if computer files were shared in a proper manner. Almost a third (30%) believes they would be better able to meet regulatory compliance, and 27% think there would be better corporate governance.

"Also interesting is that 35% of employees think a computer file sharing system would allow them to track the source of leaked email," concludes Brenchley. "Technically, email content is a corporate file, and should be treated as such. Anecdotes such as government agency employees leaking confidential reports to the press is indicative of the growing corporate risk posed by poor email management."

www.towersoft.com/emea