Making staff the key tool in information management and not computers is the most effective way to avoid data breaches, say Loughborough University researchers.

Academics have partnered with Leicestershire County Council (LCC) to examine how staff training and changes to organisational culture can significantly improve information management.

Experts spent several weeks at the council, observing staff, conducting interviews and running workshops and were then able to identify the key areas where staff needed further training: sharing; security; storage; retention and disposal; search and retrieval.

For many staff this was the first time they had had the opportunity to discuss and think about how they used and managed their information. The work brought information management to the foreground of their thinking.

The project found that people fall into different character types, which were mapped as characters, such as Miss Retention, Mr Sharer, etc. For example, some people hoard information on their computers, while others save it in shared drives with, if necessary, password protection.

Understanding these different styles of storing and using information enabled the council and university to develop a range of interventions. A series of "talking heads" case studies were filmed, an e-learning package for teaching information security developed and workshops created to guide staff and managers.

“In many organisations, the emphasis is on technological solutions and the role it can play in managing and providing access to information, rather than the organisational culture and individual capabilities,” adds Loughborough’s Dr Mark Hepworth.

“More emphasis should be placed on people, giving them the opportunity to think about how they handle information and the impact of this on their work. Unless organisations take a proactive step to enable staff to make a radical shift in thinking and to take a systematic approach to managing their information, little will change.”