A new survey found that 55 per cent of workers face challenges collaborating with individuals in other locations or outside the organisation.
62 per cent also face challenges with the tools the company provides for collaboration. However surprisingly, 57 per cent believe their work collaboration tools give more flexibility than personal collaboration tools.
Almost half of workers which were surveyed claimed they still use their personal email accounts for work email.
32 per cent of employees prefer to collaborate online rather than in-person, as a quarter feel uncomfortable in in-person collaboration meetings.
Over half of the employees that were surveyed in the UK don’t always consider the security of the information they are sharing when collaborating with others. Another 21 per cent of employees in the UK are knowingly going against IT departments to use unapproved services to collaborate.
Using chat and text as a method of collaboration splits opinion amongst UK workers with 42 per cent stating it as their preferred method of collaboration whilst 29 per cent list it as the least effective form of collaboration along with corporate internet sites.
The most common challenges given for using company collaborations tools are documents not being kept up-to-date, and not all employees use the same tools and some stakeholders are excluded.
Sydney Sloan, Chief Marketing Officer for Alfresco, said: “Today’s workers are a company’s true competitive advantage and they should be given the tools they need to collaborate, reduce workplace hurdles and be efficient ultimately, helping grow their company’s bottom line. They want tools that are intuitive, mobile, easy to use and open, while also making sure they don’t get their company into serious security or compliance breaches.”
