Can we make workplace collaboration more effective?

Are you a leader or manager who has trouble connecting with your team members?

Or are you an employee who feels like your leader/manager can't seem to connect effectively with you?

Making time to collaborate, and then making sure that collaboration is actually productive, is a major challenge for leaders around the region, according to the findings of the recently released Global Collaboration in the Workplace report commissioned by Zoom and conducted by Morning Consult.

The report, which surveyed some 8,000 knowledge workers across 16 markets, found that this is a particularly sticky issue for leaders and managers simply because their day-to-day activities involve more people and more cross-functional interaction than non-managers. Most employees have 1-2 meetings a day - but most leaders have three or more.

When collaboration just doesn't work

Unsurprisingly, almost half the leaders surveyed said they spend more time than they want to on collaboration, whether in the form of in person meetings, virtual meetings, or just email. A lot of that collaboration is bad, too. Almost 1/3 of leaders flagged out misunderstandings between team mates, lack of alignment between or within teams, and lack of engagement from coworkers, all of which take still more time to resolve.

And that's when they manage to collaborate at all. The report also flags out challenges such as difficulty in finding time on their own schedules and others’ schedules to connect, lack of visibility into what team members are doing, and not enough time in between meetings to get things done.

On top of this, 37% of the leaders surveyed said they spent at least one hour a day in meetings or chats that don't actually get anything done. 57% said that if a meeting was cancelled, whatever they did during the free time would be more productive than the meeting itself might have been.

And ineffective collaboration is expensive. Data from the report shows that over one-third of leaders spend at least one hour per day resolving issues related to bad collaboration. That equates to approximately US$16,491 per manager per year in lost productivity.

Is there a way to collaborate more effectively?

The report does highlight a few measures leaders and teams can take to make better use of their time.

Choose your communication method based on what you want to achieve. Want to be fast, organised, and share knowledge efficiently? Use instant messaging. Want to get more decisions made and have your coworkers more fully connected and engaged? Arrange an in-person meeting.

Be intentional about your in-person time. Block calendars and meeting rooms in advance, align your availability with your coworkers' presence in the office.

Prepare for meetings in advance and take follow-up action immediately after the meeting finishes. Set aside time before and after the meeting to do this.

Use less apps. The report shows that teams using more than 10 apps are twice as likely to waste time on collaboration issues than teams using less than five apps.