Highfive, the video conferencing system, recently announced the results of its 2015 Workplace Culture and Communication Report, which details how the proliferation of communication tools affects the way people work and engage with their fellow employees.
More than 1,200 professionals in traditional office settings across industries and regions completed the survey in August 2015.
The good news? Employees generally like who they work with.
The bad news? They are highly distracted and struggling to overcome generational and gender differences in the workplace.
"We’re seeing that while today’s technology is connecting us in more ways than ever before, it’s also pulling us apart, often redirecting our attention away from the task at hand," said Shan Sinha, co-founder and CEO of Highfive. "As businesses continue to grow and adopt new technologies, they face the challenge of balancing productivity and distraction. The insights from our dataset show what tools and environments best keep employees both happy and productive—and ultimately build great culture in the modern workplace."
Meeting distractions aren’t just anecdotal
Although advances in technology are helping to connect remote employees and offices and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, productivity is on the rise, workers are dealing with more distractions than ever before.
The 2015 Workplace Culture and Communication Report highlights the disconnect: 49 percent of workers say it’s okay to multitask in a meeting, but 45 percent state that their biggest problem with meetings is that participants aren’t paying attention.
Some demographic groups—notably, men and millennials—are more susceptible to workplace diversions. More than half (54 percent) of millennials regularly do unrelated tasks while on conference calls, and 45 percent check their phones during in-person meetings. Even outside of meetings, millennials are more likely than others to use work time for personal reasons—25 percent have taken to a conference room to vent to others.
Additionally, men tend to lack focus in the workplace more than women. 69 percent of men admit to engaging in non-work activities in meetings—including everything from taking selfies to checking fantasy sports and sending personal emails. Men also send an average of 5.94 electronic messages during meetings, while women send 3.70.
Employers improve productivity and keep workers connected with tactics varying from blocking access to specific websites (27 percent) to work-from-home days (24 percent) to adding productivity tools to reduce email/meeting volume (15 percent).
However, despite new tools and products being introduced every day, none have been able to strike the correct balance: allowing workers to communicate easily but stay focused on the task at hand.
The silver lining: People actually like their coworkers
Despite the distractions, though, there is a silver lining. Today’s workers are happy and communicating in more ways than ever before—even with a more globally dispersed workforce. 65 percent of workers under the age of 44 now work remotely, with a fairly even spread across all sizes of businesses. With technology facilitating easier communication across long distances, 81 percent of people like their coworkers and enjoy their company.
Along with workers enjoying spending time together, 64 percent of employees prefer in-person meetings to alternatives like email, instant message or conference calls. They’re also more likely to pay attention to their colleagues when in person: currently, people are 45 percent more likely to focus during an in-person meeting than on a conference call. In fact, half of all workers (and 66 percent of remote workers) would remove conference calls from their lives entirely if possible. It’s evident that conference calls, though ubiquitous, are not fulfilling our need for face-to-face communication.
What it means for businesses today
It’s clear that today’s connected office environment has an impact on not only workplace communication, but also overall productivity and happiness.
Over 45 percent of workers say the biggest problem with meetings is that participants aren’t paying attention. 15 percent of employers are using productivity tools for better communication, but they aren’t delivering on those promises.
No matter where we are, one thing is clear—a lot more than work is happening at the office.
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