Kantar Research: Smells Like Teams Dispirited – Distractions and Mistakes Caused by Zoom and Teams Impacting Worker Productivity & Morale

Far from solving the UK productivity and great resignation crisis – new research reveals that the overuse of collaboration tools like Teams and Zoom during the pandemic have led UK workers to make more mistakes with younger age workers finding the tools causing them to feel disengaged from their company  and colleagues. The survey of over 1,000 British workers commissioned by Sapphire Systems reveals workers want employers to invest in helping them work faster, smarter, and simpler. The result could improve productivity, morale, creativity, and company loyalty.

The survey of 1323 adults conducted by Kantar Research in March, questioned workers using Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Cisco Webex during the COVID pandemic.

• Only 32% of UK workers found collaboration tools enabled them to complete their day jobs more effectively, with 81% stating that the constant interference such as chat distracted them from work they needed to get done.
• 71% of workers stated that distractions caused them to make mistakes in day to day tasks – some of them so bad they couldn’t bear to recall them.
• 78% stated that they spent too much time in meetings.
• 78% stated that while these tools enabled them to multitask this added stress to their jobs.
• 56% of workers said they found the tools excluded them from contributing their individual points during meetings, with 69% of 16–24-year-olds finding it most difficult to find their voice compared with only 48% of 49–54-year-olds. Female workers found the use of online meeting tools excluded them from participation.

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When questioned about what their employers could do to help them improve their productivity and engagement experience.

• 42% said they wanted employers to make routine tasks easier and faster to deliver, improving their personal productivity and reducing stress.
• 39% of workers want their employers to improve systems to do their day jobs.
• 20% of workers would like their company to provide a ‘digital robot assistant’ to complete their repetitive tasks for them automatically.

Chris Gabriel, Chief Strategy Officer at Sapphire says,

“With British companies already facing a perfect storm of the great resignation, a skills shortage, and an inflation crisis this survey shows that workers want their company to help them reduce the confusion, exclusion, and mistakes all of which is diluting productivity and causing frustration.

They want to work faster and smarter, with 1:5 already asking to be given personal digital robotic assistants to automate repetitive day to day tasks.  It is clear, workers want more investment in the tools that take them forward faster into a new era of digital productivity.”

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