What do you do with your office copier?
67% of Canadian Office Workers Admit to Printing or Copying Personal Documents at Work
From driving directions to photographs to resumes, it seems Canadians are being sneaky about printing personal materials at the office. A new survey released today by Canon Canada and conducted by Ipsos Reid, reveals the Top Five Office Offences using office printers/copiers/multifunction printing devices (MFP).
#1 Personal Printing at Work: Sixty-seven per cent of Canadian office workers have printed or copied personal material using the centralized office printer/copier. Driving directions are printed most often (39%), followed closely by resumes (34%) and photos (18%). Interestingly, men are more likely than women to print driving directions at work (45% versus 35%, respectively).
#2 Snooping by the Printer: It seems when waiting for a print job to finish, many Canadians tend to peek at documents left by colleagues at or near the printer. Over one quarter of office workers (28%) admit to reading materials left near the printer, which could potentially include confidential information.
#3 Attempting to Fix Devices On their Own: Although office equipment is increasingly user-friendly, vendors often recommend that employees contact their IT department/office managers or service technicians to fix any problems. But according to the survey, when employees run into problems with the office printer/copier/MFP, most are eager to take on the role of office handyman - even though they may not be properly trained on how to fix the problem. Specifically, three out of four workers (76%) admit to trying to fix a machine themselves if they see an error message appear or the machine stops during a printing or copying job.
#4 Failure to Track Printing Costs: Of the 365 employees who have used a multi-function printing device (MFP) with an input codes feature in the past six months, two-thirds (67%) admit they don’t know how to input client codes or passwords on their MFP. This means the employer has no method to track printing costs or bill back costs to clients.
#5 Not Printing in Colour while Admitting It is More Effective: Sixty-nine per cent of employees say they have printed a document in colour that was more effective than black and white, but 43 per cent of the same group say they never personally print in colour. Employees who never print in colour cite a lack of access (45%) as the key reason. Interestingly, a significant number of office workers believe that the cost of colour printing is higher than it actually is. Thirty per cent of office workers think that the cost of printing in colour is 31 cents or more, when the actual average cost of colour printing today is 13 cents per page.
The survey also shows a generation gap, with 18-34 year olds more likely to print personal materials (73%) than employees age 35 and older (65%).
Quebec employees lead the country when it comes to attempting to fix office equipment themselves, with 82 per cent admitting to this Office Offence (compared to 76% overall).
Although printers today are part of the corporate network, employees still turn to the office administration team for help. Employees are twice as likely (13%) to contact the office manager/admin versus IT (6%) when the office printer stops or an error message appears
The survey polled 1,126 workers across Canada over the age of 18. These employees work at companies with 10 or more employees and have used a centralized office printers/copiers/multifunction printing device in the past six months. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within ±2.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what would have been, had this entire population been polled. The online survey was conducted between April 1st and April 10th, 2006.
[15 May 2006]
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Originally Posted by Tren Bull
