‘Poor’ comms and collaboration tools cost UK plc over £7,500 per employee per year

Continued deployment of antiquated collaboration tools is holding back UK businesses to the tune of multiple thousands of pounds a year, according to a global study commissioned by Mitel across a variety of verticals from the UK, the US, France, Germany and Australia.

The study – Workplace productivity and communications technology survey: How employee communications and collaboration impacts your bottom line – involved 2,500 business professionals and was conducted by research firm Vanson Bourne with advisement and analysis from KelCor. It found that globally, an average of 13% of an employee’s day is wasted because of communications inefficiencies, equating to more than an hour a day in an average 40-hour working week.

Almost half (47%) of respondents said they have experienced friction between employees and/or departments because of inefficient communications and collaboration, and nearly a quarter (24%) said inefficient communications have had a negative impact on customer satisfaction.

The study concluded that the cost of lost business, employee attrition or missed opportunities is having a hidden impact on many organisations’ bottom line. It noted that, on a global basis, communications inefficiencies resulting in more than $10,000 per employee per year being wasted.

In the UK alone, poor communications and collaboration solutions were found to be costing UK businesses the equivalent of £7,675 per employee per year. That equated to more than one-third of the average UK office worker’s salary being wasted, the report said.

Despite the widespread availability of advanced unified collaboration and communications technology, as many as half of UK offices regard face-to-face meetings as the most effective communications medium, while respondents indicated that more than one-fifth of the time spent in meetings was wasted.

Employees were inclined to “use what they know” when it came to communications and collaboration tools. Phone and email still dominated the top five most-used communications methods (97% each), while face-to-face meetings were still considered the most effective way to communicate (53%).

The good news was that the survey respondents were generally optimistic about how technology can help them improve their personal productivity. Lack of training and resistance to change were seen as the biggest inhibitors in the adoption of modern communications and collaboration tools, but three-quarters of respondents felt better communications and collaboration tools would improve their personal productivity. Respondents expected to use online shared workspaces (45%), chat/messaging (51%) and video (39%) tools more frequently in the future.