New research shows that the UK's largest organisations are spending a huge amount of time getting to grips with desktop applications.

The survey carried out by Trainers, part of Highams Systems, found a great loss in office productivity due to a lack of essential IT training.

Improving Office Productivity was carried out during March 2000 with key professionals responsible for training at the UK's largest manufacturing, telecommunications and finance companies from the Times Top 2000.

It highlighted that companies in all sectors recognise poor knowledge of desktop software as the greatest contributor to loss of productivity.

Loss of productivity is also the main factor driving the need for improved training.

Astonishingly, two out of five companies don't use any form of pre- or post-course assessment to measure the effectiveness of their training, and over 25 per cent of organisations fail to make any follow up after training at all.

All this points to a lack of formal training plans throughout UK organisations, and results in less effective training and a poor level of the necessary IT skills among staff.