Member Article

Fuze study reveals peak productivity at work is powered by culture and technology

Cloud-based communications platform Fuze, today published a new global study, which reveals that the latest technology is enabling organisations to reach peak productivity by facilitating an overall cultural shift in how we work.

The Fuze report, Productivity @ Work: The Fuze Communications Index, incorporates global usage data reflecting engagement with the Fuze platform by more than five million workers in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the USA, including 2.5 million meetings, 20 million calls, and 33 million messages. The report found that communications and collaboration preferences are often as diverse as the workforce they support. By understanding these preferences, companies can empower their employees by implementing solutions to support a collaborative work environment.

The report reveals that video and screen share meetings support employee engagement and meeting efficacy by reducing the opportunity for multitasking, a proven productivity-killer. When users turn on their video or screen share during the meeting, attendees stay connected for 87 percent of the time. Without a screen share, they only remain connected for 75 percent of the meeting. With an average meeting time in the United Kingdom of 36.3 minutes, this increase in attendance translates to an extra 4.4 minutes of engagement.

“Our research shows that today’s leaders have a responsibility to not only invest in technologies that drive engagement, but also to implement inclusive policies that ensure company culture is aligned with the collaboration solutions they employ,” said Colin Doherty, chief executive officer of Fuze. “Enterprise leaders need to understand the unique differences across their workforce in order to empower all employees to do their most effective and productive work, wherever and whenever.”

The Fuze report also uncovers how technology can improve communication and collaboration processes and enable workers to be more productive. Key data and insights include:

• Global meeting productivity––On average, meetings with members from one country last 19 minutes, but when adding team members from an additional country, the meeting length doubles to 38 minutes. Including four or more countries triples the length of the meeting to 57 minutes. The duration of a meeting should increase for each new country added to reach maximum productivity. Additionally, organisations should consider switching calendar settings to 25 and 50 minutes to ensure that meetings start on time by allowing employees ample time to get from one meeting to another.

• Engaging distributed teams––While video and screen share meetings are shown to improve meeting engagement, only 23 percent of global respondents report that they use both video and screen share during meetings. This gap creates an opportunity for companies to build meeting cultures that improve employee engagement and productivity.

“Technology has already made a dramatic impact on our work lives, as it has on the customer experience, and it will continue to reshape the workforce,” said Roopam Jain, industry director, Connected Work Practice at Frost & Sullivan. “It will have a similar impact on worker preferences and desires for flexible work policies. Technology leaders must invest now in workplace innovation and redesign to support the distributed, dynamic, and on-demand workforce of tomorrow that will require unprecedented connectedness and top-notch experiences to stay engaged and productive.”

For the report, one year (2018) of global Fuze meeting data was analysed, consisting of scheduled ad-hoc and regularly occurring meetings. The report also analysed the characteristics of Fuze user calls, messages, and meetings from three months (December 2018-February 2019) where a user participated in at least one call, message, and meeting.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Bradlee Allen .