Collaborate or resign?

Corel has published the results of its first “Collaboration Survey”, finding that 41% of enterprise employees have left or would consider leaving their job due to poor collaboration. Two-thirds of the survey respondents (64%) also claim that poor collaboration is costing them at least 3 hours per week in productivity, with 20% claiming they are wasting as many as 6 hours per week.  

“Collaboration, in terms of how we work together, and the tools we use to do so, is firmly under the spotlight at present,” said Scott Day, Chief People Officer at Corel. “Prior to the pandemic, we underappreciated how easy it was to collaborate. Now, with the shift to new hybrid models of working, cracks in how we work together have begun to show and the onus is on businesses to actively seek new models of collaboration that suit the way that their employees want to work.”  

The survey, which polled 2,027 officer workers from the UK, US, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Australia found that employees lay blame for poor collaboration within their organization on leadership. More than three-quarters (78%) of the employees claim their businesses’ leadership could be doing more to promote collaboration within the organisation, with 27% claiming that their organisation hasn’t invested in the right collaboration tools.  

When pressed on the pain of their current collaboration tools, the respondents gave a range of responses:  

• 70% believe better collaboration would improve employee productivity and time savings   

• 64% believe better collaboration would improve innovation, creativity, and engagement   

• 61% believe better collaboration would improve greater business growth opportunities   

• More than half believe better collaboration would have a positive impact on employee morale (60%)  

“The survey results paint a dim picture for business leaders. We are now at the next stage of work where hybrid working has moved from being an employee request, to an employee expectation. Business leaders need to embrace this change, making a concerted effort to create a working environment that makes it easy for employees to work together–and a critical part of this means investing in the right tools. Failure to do so will see businesses struggle to attract and retain their best talent and they will be at a competitive disadvantage as a result,” Day added.