To ensure company culture is aligned with the collaboration solutions employed by workplaces, today’s leaders must invest in technologies that drive engagement, understand the unique differences across their workforce and implement inclusive policies. This will also ensure that every member of the team does their most effective and productive work, wherever and whenever that may be.

Recent research from cloud-based communications platform Fuze reveals that organisations are implementing the latest technology to reach peak workplace productivity, facilitating an overall cultural shift in how we work.

Incorporating global usage data, ‘The ‘Productivity @ Work’ report reflects on engagement with the Fuze platform by more than five million workers across Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the USA. This includes 2.5 million meetings, 20 million calls, and 33 million messages.

The report’s key findings are as follows:

• Communications and collaboration preferences are often as diverse as the workforce they support – by understanding these preferences, companies can implement solutions to support a collaborative work environment and empower their workers

• Video and screen sharing support employee engagement and meeting efficacy, reducing the opportunity for multitasking (a proven productivity-killer) – When users turn on their video or screen share during meetings, attendees stay connected for 87% of the time. Without a screen share, they only remain connected for 75% of the meeting. With an average meeting time in the United Kingdom of 36.3 minutes, this increase in attendance translates to an extra 4.4 minutes of engagement

The Fuze report also uncovers how technology can improve communication and collaboration processes and enable workers to be more productive. Key data and insights include:

• Global meeting productivity – Meetings with members from one country last an average of 19 minutes but adding team members from an additional country makes the meeting length double to 38 minutes. Including four or more countries triples the length of the meeting to 57 minutes. The duration of a meeting should increase for each new country added to reach maximum productivity. Organisations should also consider switching calendar settings to 25 and 50 minutes to ensure that meetings start on time by allowing employees ample time to get from one meeting to another

• Engaging distributed teams – While video and screen share meetings are shown to improve meeting engagement, only 23% of global respondents report that they use both screen share and video during meetings. This gap creates an opportunity for companies to build meeting cultures that improve employee engagement and productivity

Having already impacted the customer experience and daily lives on consumers, technology will now continue to reshape the workforce, influencing worker preferences and the growing desire for flexible work policies.

Unprecedented connectedness and consumer-level experiences will be essential to keep the future workforce engaged and productive. Technology leaders must redesign and invest in workplace innovation now to support tomorrow’s distributed, dynamic and on-demand workforce.