Problems related to information management - Essay Example

of the Management of the Concerned 7 August Problems Related to Information Management With the digitization of theinstitutions and organizations and a gargantuan increase in the storage, processing, retrieval and application of information, the management of information has emerged to be a pivotal issue at the workplaces around the world (Scammell 53). There are varied technological, social and human issues associated with the task of information management, which, if not addressed by the organizations and businesses in a timely and prompt manner, could snowball into inhibiting and restricting issues and problems.

Information literacy happens to be a real pressing problem noticed at the workplaces. Though organizations tend to spend a major proportion of their budgetary allocations on maintaining, updating and renewing their information infrastructure, they many a times fail to address the human factors associated with information management (Smith 19). In that context, information literacy could be deemed to be a central aspect of managing information at the workplace. A failure to initiate the employees into the basics and fundamentals of information management could expose them to a plethora of problems like an overload of information, problems faced owing to a lack of ability to locate and retrieve the required and right information, anxiety faced owing to a lack of cognizance of the essentials of information management, inadequacy in the requisite skills required to share the necessary information, day to day issues culminating into misinformation or disinformation, incumbent time constraints, and the like.

Hence, to facilitate the smooth accomplishment of information management at the work place, it is necessary that the organizations do invest in training the associated personnel in the requisite skills such as networking, time management, information analysis, data mining, team work, computer skills, online networking, resource management, etc so that they may be able to exploit information as a key to the overall organizational success. A lack of information literacy and improper information management at the workplace could hamper productivity in multiple ways (Milner 4).

It could not only lead to a loss of the much precious time in searching and finding the right information but could inevitably be accompanied by various debilitating human ramifications like a commensurate rise in the employee frustration and stress incurred owing to the wastage of scarce resources. It could also slow down the progress at the work place owing to a lack of the required information as and when it is needed and the information not being in a format in which it is required (Milner 4).

Such instances many a times also result in incomplete, inaccurate or too complex information inputs having a concomitant impact on the desired outputs. It would certainly not be wrong to say that many a times shoddy information management gives way to faulty decisions, misunderstandings and confusions at the workplace. Hence, there is no denying the fact that a lack of awareness mostly underlies the information management related issues at the workplace. Information management is a comparatively new field and the associated human work practices tend to be outdated and incompatible.

Works CitedMilner, Eileen M. Managing Information and Knowledge in the Public Sector. London: Routledge, 2000. Print. Scammell, Alison. Handbook of Information Management. London: ASLIB-IMI, 2001. Print. Smith, John B. Collective Intelligence in Computer-Based Collaboration. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004. Print.