IT illiterates 'hold back business'

The UK is losing millions of working hours a week due to a lack of basic IT literacy, according to a report published on Friday by City & Guilds, the UK's principal body for work-related accreditations.

The study highlights the burden that a lack of basic IT skills puts on the economy, as everyday IT issues are resolved by staff who happen to have some IT knowledge but are not employed to fix IT problems.

Some 5.3 million workers "in the know" about IT lose 2.5 hours per week in dealing with their colleagues' problems, the study found.

The majority of companies, 59 percent, rely on staff with no official IT role to sort out daily computing problems, the study found. Small companies with six to 10 employees were the worst offenders, with 65 percent relying on non-specialised staff members to put in extra hours to fix IT issues.

More than one-third (35 percent) of workers have failed to get a job done on time due to lack of IT knowledge and trained support, the study found. More than half of these workers, 54 percent, tried to solve their IT problems themselves, potentially leading to more problems, City & Guilds said.

"In many companies, IT issues are passed on to existing staff in an attempt to keep costs down," Ken Gaines, City & Guilds' product manager for IT user qualifications, said in a statement. "However, without proper training, novices can end up costing companies far more in terms of productivity levels."

The solution isn't necessarily to hire more IT support staff, but for employers to support the development of better IT skills among employees, City & Guilds said.

The organisation found that call centres have relatively high levels of everyday IT training, with 56 percent of employees having the skills to get themselves out of IT difficulties. Lawyers and civil servants, on the other hand, were found to be more likely to rely on their colleagues to put in extra time to resolve problems.

IT literacy isn't necessarily better among younger staff. While 43 percent of workers between 19 and 21 years of age had failed to get a job done on time through a lack of everyday IT skills, the figure dropped to 36 percent for those aged between 31 and 35, City & Guilds said.

One in 20 workers responded to IT problems by leaving their desk, in the hope that the issue will go away by the time they return, the study found.

Original article: IT illiteracy drags on UK economy from ZDNet UK