Zoom‘s new Global Collaboration in the Workplace report, based on a survey conducted by Morning Consult of nearly 8,000 leaders and employees from 16 different countries, uncovers some key insight around how people prefer to work together, common collaboration challenges, as well as the projected costs of fixing bad collaboration

The report claims that the time spent resolving issues related to inefficient collaboration can cost organisations an estimated $16,491 (£12,412) a year per manager in wasted time, or up to $874,000 (almost £658,000) annually for an enterprise of 1,000.

Leaders Struggle With Collaboration More Than Their Employees

According to Zoom’s report, leaders were more likely to spend a significant amount of time collaborating with colleagues, especially in meetings and email. Fully remote leaders reported the highest numbers here: more than half of this group spends three or more hours a day on email (56%) and virtual meetings (52%).

Leaders also spend more time than employees resolving the following common issues related to bad collaboration and take more time to refocus between tasks:

• Participating in meetings or chats with no clear outcome or that don’t solve a problem
• Resolving misunderstandings or miscommunications
• Catching up with tasks whose deadlines have already passed
• Following up with teammates to ask about the status of a project or task

Generational Differences

While Zoom’s survey showed that leaders and employees agree that instant messaging/chat was their preferred method of collaboration, the rest of top three was different between the two groups.

The reports states that leaders found project management software and in-person meetings to be their second and third choice, respectively. For employees, it was email and then in-person meetings.

The survey also revealed that different generations prefer to collaborate in different ways.

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Baby Boomer leaders strongly preferred in-person meetings, while Gen Z leaders’ favourite method of collaboration was project management software.

IT App Overload

IT leaders are constantly bombarded with sales pitches and employee requests for new apps and tools.

Individually, each one promises to solve a problem, but the report shows that too many apps were actually associated with greater collaboration challenges.

Those who reported using more than 10 apps for work were more likely to struggle with issues like misunderstandings in communication, lack of engagement from colleagues, and lack of alignment than those who reported using fewer than five apps.

The table below shows some of the issues faced by app overload.

Source: Zoom

Poor collaboration is costing businesses valuable time and money, especially for leaders. Reducing app overload and addressing generational preferences can help streamline teamwork and improve efficiency.