Workers get to grips with messaging

Workers are being overloaded with more electronic messages than ever before, but are dealing with them better than ever due to growing familiarity with new technology.

The latest research from messaging firm Pitney Bowes claims that mobile technologies are increasingly being used to give UK knowledge workers ever more control over communication at work.

Employees worldwide are receiving two per cent more communications this year than the year before. However, less people report being overwhelmed by information overload than on previous surveys.

In the UK, 23 per cent of people said they often feel overwhelmed by messages, down four per cent on the previous year.

Over the past three years, while the numbers of workers feeling overwhelmed in the UK has fallen by 17 per cent, the amount of messages received has risen by 11 per cent.

By far the fastest growing methods of communication are email and mobile phones. Fixed-line phone use has fallen across the world.

Pitney Bowes vice president Meredith Fischer said the reductions in stress were down to knowledge workers using technology more intelligently and instinctively.

She said: "People are far more comfortable to turn things off, to use different channels for different things. People have realised that the same information tools they use to give them 24-hour connectivity can also create a wall around you when necessary."

Fischer stressed the increasing importance of mobile technologies to give workers control: "People are talking about "in-corridor" messaging - using the moments between meetings, before work and between destinations to get control of their messages."

Pitney Bowes is a US-based document management specialist and has been conducting the study yearly since 1998.