The findings of the study shed light on the significant challenges and opportunities facing workplace collaboration. The study, which surveyed 3,301 employees across various industries and work environments across Middle East and Africa, and 396 employees in Qatar, uncovered key trends and insights into the factors hindering effective collaboration.
Despite post-pandemic workplace shifting companies towards hybrid and remote work arrangements, the survey revealed that most businesses have returned to the office, with 60% of respondents working fully on-site and 32% adopting a hybrid model. Only 8% were working fully remotely.
When it comes to technology usage, respondents relied heavily on digital tools. While 51% used 1-5 apps daily, 31% used 5-10, and 18% used more than 10. The ability to track tasks in a unified view was crucial for many, with 76% of those using it reporting time savings of up to 3 hours. However, 77% of those manually tracking tasks or not tracking at all saw similar potential time savings with a unified view.
Information accessibility was a challenge for many, with 25% reporting limited or no access and over 24% needing occasional assistance. Despite this, respondents expressed confidence in their companies’ resilience and a desire for improved collaboration practices.
The study’s findings highlighted the importance of technology adoption and effective collaboration tools. While a majority recognised the value of quick access to information and AI-powered automation, the survey also revealed a significant lag in technology implementation.
Many companies have yet to adopt new solutions, with 72% reporting no changes in the past two years, suggesting a missed opportunity given the competitive advantage offered by AI and streamlined workflows.
The study revealed a disparity in the perceived need for improvements in communication and collaboration tools. Only 8% of remote workers identified areas for improvement, while 32% of hybrid workers and a substantial 60% of fully on-site workers expressed a need for changes.
According to the findings, remote workers emerged as more likely to adopt new technologies and use a wider range of apps. However, they also faced unique challenges in accessing relevant data and information. On-site and hybrid workers, on the other hand, expressed a greater need for improvements in communication and collaboration tools.
“Our enterprise collaboration platform, Zoho Workplace, pioneered the unified experience way back in 2017. Our vision has been validated with the survey results that have highlighted the lack of access to necessary data, challenges in tracking tasks, and difficulties in communication within the organisation. Moreover, as we build apps for various business functions and understand how they interoperate, we have created a communication layer across our offerings to foster contextual collaboration,” said Hyther Nizam, Zoho President Middle East and Africa.
The survey was intended to investigate workplace technology adoption trends in the Middle East and Africa. The survey collected responses from employees in Qatar, covering demographics, technology usage, influencing factors, satisfaction levels, and areas for improvement.
A convenience sampling method was used to recruit participants from various industries and organisations, with the survey administered online using Zoho Survey. It was restricted to organisations with more than 50 employees. The study was carried out with utmost confidentiality – ensuring voluntary participation and data anonymisation.
Zoho Workplace is a unified collaboration platform that brings together communication, collaboration and productivity applications that shows all relevant information and tasks in a single view. It comprises email, chat, online meeting, webinar, office suite, word processor, spreadsheet and presentation, file storage, and social intranet. Over the past two years, Zoho Workplace has seen a global uptake due to rising need for collaboration tools in the post-pandemic world, and migration from other global players when they increased their pricing.
With 55+ apps in nearly every major business category, including sales, marketing, customer support, accounting and back-office operations, and an array of productivity and collaboration tools, Zoho Corporation is one of the world’s most prolific technology companies. With 100 million users around the world, across hundreds of thousands of companies, rely on Zoho every day to run their businesses.
Zoho respects user privacy and does not have an ad-revenue model in any part of its business, including its free products. The company is privately held and is headquartered in Chennai, India. Additional offices are in the United States, India, Japan, China, Canada, Singapore, Mexico, Australia, the Netherlands, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.