Too Many Collaboration Apps Are Bogging Employees Down
In January, Microsoft issued a report on the state of collaboration and productivity.
Among the findings, the company found that to empower employees in today's digital workplace, business leaders needed to not only give them more say over new technology initiatives, but also ensure they integrated collaborative apps to help everyone stay connected and share information.
Sounds logical. Yet a growing body of research shows that some employees may have reached app overload.
Have We Reached 'App Overload'?
Harvard Business Review recently carried out a study by following 20 teams across three Fortune 500 companies to examine the efficiency of the digital workplace's processes. According to the findings, workers toggle apps approximately 1,200 times every day, or about four hours a week.
This, according to the researchers, requires a massive mental effort. It also contradicts Microsoft's conclusion that workers need more apps to collaborate more effectively.
In its 2022 State of Workplace Technology report, Freshwork adds to the conversation by revealing that 89% of the global IT professionals surveyed said "bloated technology" leads to significant time wasted each week. So much so that half of them are willing to give up vacation time to make it stop.
It seems employers — most of whom are new to remote work models — are opting to provide employees with more options than not, perhaps in fear of losing some to inadequate tools and technology. After all, much of the collaboration we experience today is embedded in processes that are less than five years old.
Then, it becomes a matter of preferences. If that's the case, Microsoft's guideline to give employees more say in technology decisions may be a crucial one to remember.
The Problem With Collaboration Apps
According to Alan Pelz-Sharpe, founder and principal analyst at IT advisory firm Deep Analysis, two factors are at work here.
"Firstly," he said, "toggling between true work applications, which is a necessity — though it could be relieved to some degree by the use of integration tools and RPA.
"Secondly, multiple collaboration apps, which are trickier to deal with," he said. “Even in firms that have decided to only use Teams or Slack, for example, almost everyone will be using other collaboration apps.”
The reason for that, he said, is that each app has its own purpose, and every employee has a preferred way of communicating. Some workers may rely on some collaboration apps for their chat functionality, while others may prefer an app for its file-sharing or real-time collaboration capability.
“It’s messy and at times frustrating," Pelz-Sharpe said, "but we probably underestimate the human ability to hop channels and find a combination that meets their specific needs.”
He argues this issue isn't likely to be fixed by corporate dreams of hyper-automation and digital transformation which, in practical terms, are likely to lead to more tech — not less.
The vision and the reality of highly complex, multigenerational IT stacks makes the risk and logic of ripping and replacing technologies not worth the effort. So, instead of replacing, organizations tend to augment and build atop the old.
Related Article: Explosion of Apps Stymying, Not Streamlining, Productivity
Is There a Fix to App Bloat?
There are solutions to the app bloat problem, but only if organizations are prepared to go to the root cause.
To start, companies must come to the realization that precious resources are wasted when somebody spends their time manually keying the exact same data into multiple applications. That is a problem that can — and should — be fixed, hence the popularity of RPA, though to date, few have fixed these problems, instead focusing on more interesting projects.
In addition, a lack of interest in undertaking through-and-through business analysis and monitoring technology outcomes is hindering efforts to manage bloatware.
“Many of these issues are hard to grasp and resolve," Pelz-Sharpe said. "And if the situation works well enough, though not perfect, it will be unlikely to get the attention and investment it needs to be resolved."
Interestingly, he said, the current economic situation could, in fact, help resolve the situation.
“A recession brings a lot of focus to productivity, efficiency and cost-cutting, so some of the bigger, more critical issues will get some love and attention,” he said. “I don’t think the situation will improve, but not sure it will get worse either.”
Related Article: Is 2023 the Year of the Workspace App?
Measuring Toggling Time
The fact that employees spend time "toggling" between collaboration apps may sound problematic, but Gabriela Mauch, VP of customer success and productivity lab at workforce analytics software company ActivTrak, said companies need to be careful not to overreact to a process that may actually be productive.
While there is no doubt that the excessive toggling uncovered in the HBR research can indicate an inefficient use of collaboration tools, ActivTrack's own research (a forthcoming State of the Workplace report due in March) found there are several "context switching" situations (when users shift their attention between different tasks, apps or projects) that contribute to productivity.
The company has found that employees averaged 300 context switches per day in 2022 — down from 304 in 2021 — and that 90% of all context switches are to a productive application (91% in 2021).
This means that companies interested in fixing the toggling issue should focus on gathering valuable insights around the nature — the 'why' — of the toggle and whether it is contributing to a productive outcome or a distraction, rather than tallying up the time employees spend toggling, she said.
Learning Opportunities
Addressing the difference between HBR’s 1,200 "toggles' a day and ActivTrak's 300 context switches, Mauch said it likely stems from a reasonable buffer of behavior that does not factor in toggles until a threshold is exceeded. For example, when a user accesses more than two applications or sites, or four screen views within a minute (default threshold).
The reality is, she said, over 60% of employees experience focus sessions in 0-30 minute increments, with the average lasting 14-minutes. This has hardly changed in the past year (a mere 6 seconds longer in 2022 vs. 2021), suggesting that focus has not deteriorated but improved.
Before reflexively removing collaboration tools from the environment, organizations should consider how to introduce norms that mitigate the harmful effects of tool distractions. For example, Mauch said that decreasing the pressure to immediately respond to communication notifications and setting a 2-hour response expectation can have a profound impact on context switching.
“The bottom line is that not all context switches and toggles are created equally,” she said. “A bit more granularity coupled with healthy coaching and dialogue is likely to curb the collaboration technology overload that poses threats to employee productivity and fatigue.”
Management's Role in App Bloat
While individual employees can control how they use collaboration applications by establishing limits and prioritizing their use, management has its own set of objectives on the table.
Surya Sanchez, founder of Miami-based DeepIdea Lab, an IT consultancy focused on automating and improving the productivity of other businesses, said this may entail evaluating the kinds and quantity of collaboration apps used at work, optimizing workflows and giving staff members the training and assistance they need to use these apps more efficiently.
The solution to the problem of collaboration app overload in the office will ultimately involve cooperation from management and individual employees.
"App saturation will probably harm the workplace if it keeps getting worse," Sanchez said. "Overwhelming and stressing employees can result in decreased productivity, higher attrition and even burnout. Moreover, the use of numerous collaboration apps may result in information silos, which hinder team cooperation and communication."
Management may, for instance, consider integrating tools and technologies that reduce the need for employees to switch between multiple collaboration apps, resulting in a more streamlined and efficient work process, he said.
Related Article: How to Measure Success by Focusing on Outcomes
2023 Will Be an App Consolidation Year
In the end, the issue of collaboration app or tech stack overload requires a company-wide solution, according to Leon Papkoff, a workplace strategist and the chief product officer at CXApp, because the problem affects management just as much as employees.
By deploying multiple point solutions to solve siloed business needs, organizations are inherently creating friction in the ecosystem. The cost of managing multiple systems leads to increased overhead and unmanageable workflows. And the cost of delivering a bad experience to employees is unquantifiable.
As more collaboration apps and niche technologies enter the workplace, companies will begin to see app usage decline, he said. "It becomes too complicated for employees to login, toggle and effectively be efficient. Now is the time for decision-makers to look at techniques or solutions that consolidate the workplace tech stack, making it easier and 'sticker' for employees to use."
And it's not in the distant future. Papkoff expects the consolidation of applications in the workplace will begin in 2023.
"If companies don’t start to look for ways to create a more consolidate approach to technology in the workplace and a more streamlined employee experience, it will just become too much."
The result is that employees will stop using platforms altogether, resulting in slower production and lower engagement, he said. Employees will become disinterested, and each department will be forced to prove ROI on the system they’re already using or want to continue to use. Teams of all shapes and sizes will become even more frustrated.
"There is a dawning realization that no matter how much we spend on IT, much, if not most, of the important work activities are undertaken by human workers in their heads," said Pelz-Sharpe.
Ironically, he said, the rise of interest in automation and AI is awakening many business leaders to the reality of tech’s limitations. “The myriad of workarounds that their staff undertake to get their work done are not because the workers are inefficient, but that the big promises of technology vendors and systems integrators fall short."
About the Author
David is a full-time journalist based in Ireland. A partisan of ‘green’ living and conservation, he is particularly interested in information management and how enterprise content management, analytics, big data and cloud computing impact on it.
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