ActivTrak Survey: SMBs Cite Productivity as a Top Concern as 43% More Companies Transition to a Remote Workforce
Early data shows 94% increase in time spent in communication and collaboration tools
According to ActivTrak, survey data published , more than 98% of small and medium-sized business (SMB) respondents now have a remote workforce, a 43% increase since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. With the majority of teams now working from home, companies surveyed rank productivity as the top concern of both employers and employees. In fact, ensuring productivity is almost twice as important as the next closest concerns of security (for employers), and communication (for employees).
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“The speed and scale with which teams have had to convert to a remote workforce has been truly impressive, and in many ways, I think companies have been surprised to see how well they’ve been able to do so”
The survey of 167 companies captures input from a wide range of SMBs, with the largest numbers in Software/Services (14%), Construction/Engineering (11%), and Other (10%) categories, and ranging in size from 51-250 (34%), 11-50 (25%), and 1-10 (19%) employees.
Mirroring companies’ productivity concerns, 86% of respondents ranked productivity tools as the most important technologies for supporting a remote workforce, followed by conferencing tools and live chat tools. Coincidently, these interest levels also reflect the increased use of such tools across a recent sampling of ActivTrak’s 6,500 customers.
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From March 15 to April 15 (post-shelter), more than 300 SMBs from ActivTrak’s customer base spent 82% more time in remote communication tools such as Zoom, Skype, RingCentral, and Slack, compared to the prior 30-day period (pre-shelter). When looking at collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams, LogMeIn and Trello, that figure jumps to 94%.
Yet despite seeking to empower employees to work remotely, 41% of SMB employers have not created a dedicated remote work policy that offers clear guidelines and expectations for how to do so. More than half of the SMB companies surveyed confirm they plan to re-evaluate their remote workforce expectations for employees following the pandemic.
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