Asana Confirms You're in Too Many Meetings, Microsoft Brings OpenAI to Power Platform, More News
If you think you spend too much time in useless meetings, new research from Asana is here to tell you you're right. The company's latest research found an increase in what it describes as "pointless work."
The fourth edition of the annual Anatomy of Work Global Index found that employees spend more than half of their time (58%) on “work about work” rather than on the strategic priorities of their roles. The results are based on a global survey of 9,615 knowledge workers.
Unnecessary meetings, searching for data and poor work coordination account for the majority of the pointless efforts.
The figure has only shown mild fluctuations over the last few years, which suggests this wasted time is now part of the workplace status quo. The time spent in unnecessary meetings by the average worker is now at 2.8 hours per week — up from 2.7 hours in 2022.
For leaders, the figures are even worse. The report shows those in leadership roles waste 3.6 hours in meetings, and that they are 30% more likely than the average knowledge worker to miss deadlines due to video calls and/or meetings.
Beyond highlighting the weaknesses, the report also explores solutions to the problem. Respondents to the survey stated that improving work processes could save over four hours per week or six working weeks per year.
In this respect it is worth noting that 55% of organizations that claim to have good collaboration processes have reported revenue growth over the past three years — double that of those organizations reporting they are not collaborative.
There are implications for workplace engagement too. Ninety-two percent of workers in collaborative organizations believe their work has value, as opposed to 50% of their peers in non-collaborative organizations. The majority of workers in collaborative organizations (79%) also say they feel able to meet workplace challenges.
The evidence that enterprise collaboration adds to both engagement and the bottom line is growing. At the end of January, Microsoft also published research that highlighted this issue.
In that research, Microsoft noted that empowering people to have more say when it comes to new technology initiatives and using collaborative apps to stay connected and share information in the flow of work are two of the main ways to enable work.
“As organizations navigate this new world of work, 85% of employees cited collaboration tools as one of the most necessary parts of their company’s digital transformation efforts,” Microsoft's report reads.
Asana’s 2023 Anatomy of Work Global Index and more information about the findings are available for download here.
Microsoft Brings OpenAI Into Power Platform
Microsoft continues to roll out new integrations as a result of its OpenAI partnership, with the latest related to its no-code/low-code Power Platform.
According to a post by Richard Riley, GM of Power Platform product marketing, the company added OpenAI to a line of business-intelligence and app-development tools within Power Platform. Of particular note is its addition to Power Virtual Agent and AI Builder.
Power Virtual Agents is the platform's visual drag and drop tool to build chatbots.
True to its name, AI Builder provides AI models that are designed to optimize business processes. Riley states that AI Builder has “democratized” access to complex AI models for use in Power Apps and Power Automate. This means the addition of AI models for category classification, object detection, prediction, sentiment analysis among other things.
Prebuilt templates allow users to work with the model to build prompts for workflows. AI Builder will be available via a limited preview.
Low-code/no-code tools have gained ground with their low barrier to entry for even non-technical people. It will be interesting to watch how the combination with OpenAI will impact the digital workplace.
The speed at which Microsoft has integrated the OpenAI technology into so many of its tools and platforms, including Microsoft Azure, Microsoft365 and, of course, Bing is impressive. And there's a lot more to come.
Google Docs, Sheets, Slides Get a Makeover
Google continues to update its Workspace apps, with the company announcing improvements to Google Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides this week. According to post about the development, Docs, Sheets and Slides are getting a new interface to help users find frequently used actions faster, as well as new commenting and improved formatting additions.
Learning Opportunities
While the announcement brings no new functionalities, it reflects a significant change in the user interface as the company moved features in an attempt to reduce clutter.
The new user interface was designed according to Google Material Design 3 principles and is built to streamline core collaboration journeys across Google products, according to the blog post.
The company also announced upgrades to Drive, including making it easier to share, download and delete multiple files at the same time, as well as enabling key actions (such as share, download, edit) in-line when you hover over a file. The changes also include new search chips (including type, owner and last modified) to help users find files.
The updates may seem like small change when compared with other workplace technology announcements. However, they are consistent with the evolution of G Suite (now Workspace), which over the years has become second only to Microsoft 365 in terms of workplace tech market penetration.
Lucid Software Launches New Marketplace and Integrations
Lucid Software this week rolled out 15 new integrations with major enterprise software providers across the Lucid Visual Collaboration Suite. These new integrations can be found in Lucid's newly launched marketplace.
The company's stated goal is to help customers streamline processes and workflows without having to give up their preferred workplace apps within their company’s tech stack.
Lucid has been working on quite a number of integrations over the past few months, the most notable of which is its SharePoint integration.
The company announced its Microsoft SharePoint integration with the Lucid Visual Collaboration Suite in January. With it, customers can embed Lucidchart documents and Lucidspark boards directly into SharePoint sites.
Lucid was launched in 2010 by CTO and co-founder Ben Dilts and former Google employee Karl Sun. To date, the company has raised $670.5 million.
MentorcliQ Raises $80M
Finally this week, Columbus, Ohio-based employee mentoring software provider MentorcliQ announced a successful $80 million funding round, led by PSG.
This brings its total raised to over $100 million. According to a statement from the company, it will use the funding to increase R&D, expand its DEIB offerings and increase its employee base.
Mentoring is an often overlooked driver of workplace engagement. A 2016 study by Deloitte found that 81% of millennials would stay five or more years at a company when they have a mentor. Opportunities for growth and learning continue to top employees' requirements when considering new roles.
MentorcliQ co-founder Phil George told TechCrunch that companies will continue to invest in mentoring as they look for ways to get the best out of existing talent. The company is part of a flourishing market for mentoring platforms, with G2 listing 74 companies in the space.
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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