Organisations of all sizes live and breathe on the ability to communicate and collaborate. Not so long ago, collaboration existed solely within the office or over the phone. That has all changed.
Technology has evolved to provide us with a myriad of collaboration options, from messaging services to video collaboration to product management software, the choices are abundant and seemingly endless.
It’s no surprise that with the all of choices in ways to collaborate, workers and teams are developing their own preferences in how they communicate and work together and are introducing these preferred tools into the workplace — with or without the approval of I.T. In today’s workplace, this means that there is a proliferation of tools and platforms, from embedded UC platforms from Cisco or IBM to newer team collaboration tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Workplace by Facebook and others.
A new report from NextPlane examines the extent of this growing rift and its impact on collaboration and productivity. We surveyed 750 people across multiple industries to find out more about the tools professionals use to collaborate.
We found that 63 percent of respondents expressed loyalty to the technology products they use for their jobs. And it doesn’t stop on an individual level — 42 percent of teams have loyalty to technology products, with some citing that they'd prefer to use tools outside of what their company provides, and some citing that they only use the products they're familiar with.
But do these preferences bleed into the workplace? Yes, they do. In fact, nearly half of professionals (46 percent) said they or their team have introduced new technology into their workplace. Unified collaboration tools, like Slack and Microsoft Teams, are examples of the types of technologies workers are organically introducing into the workplace and building strong allegiances toward. Just look at the tremendous growth of Slack.
Professionals are circumventing I.T. to use their preferred technology. And it’s working. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of respondents said they’ve been successful in implementing their choice of tech tools.
Not only are workers and teams taking action in dictating which tools they use to do their jobs, but they are also becoming more vocal in their disapproval of I.T. having full reign on the technology used in the workplace. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they would be resistant to IT or management dictating which software or tools they use, and 40 percent said their team would be resistant to such a mandate.
The reasons for pushback against I.T. reflect the notion that individuals and teams know how to do their jobs best and should have a say in the tools they use to do their work.
When it comes to the reasons individuals specifically would be resistant to strict IT mandates:
