One in six employees lies to cover up mistakes caused by using the wrong version of a document, according to a study.

The report, Document Mayhem in the UK and Ireland, also found that 10% of respondents believed that incorrect documents had been re-used in the organisation, and that 67% of managers and their staff had unwittingly relied on wrong information.

The report, carried out by market researcher Dynamic Markets on behalf of Tower Software, also found that 49% of employees stored files in multiple locations, while one fifth stored files on memory sticks despite the security and compliance risks.
Philippa Ochonski, marketing manager at Tower Software, said she was surprised at the scale of the problem: “There are a large number of people admitting to handling information wrongly and lying to cover it up. And people will only admit to so much on a survey. If this is what they are admitting to, what is the real scale of the problem? It is a worrying situation.”

More public sector employees (55%) stored computer files and email in a particular place out of habit, compared with private sector staff (36%). However, 6% of private sector employees said they worked on the wrong or out-of-date version of a file about once a week; no-one in the public sector admitted to such practices.
Ochonski said there were good reasons for the public sector’s lead in information management: “A lot of the public sector is ahead in implementing successful information systems. Their drivers ­ the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act ­ have all had a deadline for putting systems in place. These have been strict systems, very much top-down, and they remove the ability to save documents anywhere else.

“The private sector has the same drivers of regulation but hasn’t had the implementation deadlines.”

The research covered an equal split of public and private sector organisations, and researchers spoke to senior managers and general employees in organisations in the UK and Ireland.