Retainify
- Jul 13, 2021
- 2 min read

How Increased Use of Collaboration Tools in the Workplace Affects Employee Engagement

Updated: Mar 2, 2022

The use of digital collaboration and communication tools in the workplace, whether in-office or in person, has increased dramatically during the pandemic.

Platforms like Slack and Microsoft teams have had a combined number of over 230 million daily users in the past year. While these tools are intended to increase productivity amongst employees and their teams, they have also been a distraction.

In a survey published by HR Dive, respondents, mainly millennials and Gen z employees, named personal conversations (41%) and incoming requests (39%) to be significant distractions during work hours.

According to a University of California Irvine study, it takes nearly 30 minutes to refocus after one gets distracted. Therefore, by constantly being interrupted by notifications, distraction is quite common in workplaces where employees heavily use digital tools.

Managers have begun calling on their IT department to monitor how their employees are using collaboration apps. Employees being distracted is only one reason some managers are not too keen on the heavy use of collaboration and communication tools.

An article published by Reasonal has stated that the average worker is interrupted somewhere between 4 to 12 times every hour.

Another article states that the increased use of these digital tools and platforms can cause information overflow and loss. Information is constantly sent back and forth between managers and their employees, given how convenient it is to communicate with colleagues using digital tools. Employees have also found it difficult to locate particular information, files, etc., overtask managers like Trello and Asana.

19% of an employee's time is spent finding information and files.

Retainify can help garner feedback from employees and managers so that that business understands what's working and what's not working with these tools and processes. If you want to learn more about integrating collaboration and communication tools into your workspace, check out our website for resources!

For more information on what Retainify can do for you and your employees, schedule a time to meet with us.

Questions or feedback?

Schedule A Meeting With Retainify

Citations:

Estrada, Sheryl. Collaborative apps boost work productivity but cause distractions. Retrieved July 13, 2021, from https://www.hrdive.com/news/collaborative-apps-boost-remote-work-productivity-but-cause-distractions/574750/
Tillack, Natalie. Distractions at work: How interruptions affect productivity. Retrieved July 13, 2021, from https://reason.al/blog/interruptions-at-work/

How Increased Use of Collaboration Tools in the Workplace Affects Employee Engagement

The use of digital collaboration and communication tools in the workplace, whether in-office or in person, has increased dramatically during the pandemic.

Platforms like Slack and Microsoft teams have had a combined number of over 230 million daily users in the past year. While these tools are intended to increase productivity amongst employees and their teams, they have also been a distraction.

According to a University of California Irvine study, it takes nearly 30 minutes to refocus after one gets distracted. Therefore, by constantly being interrupted by notifications, distraction is quite common in workplaces where employees heavily use digital tools.

Managers have begun calling on their IT department to monitor how their employees are using collaboration apps. Employees being distracted is only one reason some managers are not too keen on the heavy use of collaboration and communication tools.

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