Workspace Blog

A new survey reveals how businesses are using different forms of communication and the shift towards more flexible and remote work environments.

It used to be that the average worker would report to work and earn a salary based on performance and attendance; yet time spent at the office has become almost irrelevant as an indicator of a worker’s value or their output.

The workplace today is radically shifting as remote working becomes more widely accepted and tech-savvy workers are increasingly bringing their own personal technology choices into the workplace. A new generation of communication and collaboration tools are empowering businesses of all sizes to enable a more flexible and productive workforce.

To better understand the evolution of the changing workplace and how different forms of communication are being used in business, Skype commissioned a survey through Incites Research, which surveyed 1,000 technology-enabled professionals in the US, including 500 business end users and 500 technology decision makers across small, medium and large size businesses.

Today at the GigaOm Network Future of Work conference, these survey results will be revealed by workshop moderator, Michael Wolf, VP of Research at GigaOm, and will be discussed among a group of panelists from Skype and other companies.

Among the most interesting takeaways of the living workplace survey:

• Flexible and remote work environments have become commonly accepted and are important for hiring and productivity, with 62 percent of reporting firms employing remote workers.
• Remote workers are spending, on average, 40 percent of their time away from their office.
• Two-thirds (67 percent) of organizations allow their workers to bring in their own personal technology into the workplace.
• Respondents of the survey said they are harnessing many different modes of business communication. The two communications tools expected to have a decline in usage in the next year are e-mail and landline phones, while the communications tool that is expected to have the biggest gain in usage next year is video calling.
• And yet, the two most indispensible communications tools that have the highest usage in business are e-mail and mobile phones.

The survey presentation to be shared at today’s GigaOm conference is available here:

While all of these finding are quite interesting, I think it boils down to this – the transformation of the workplace is being enabled by communications tools of all kinds – from mobiles, VoIP, social media, to video calling.

These technologies are truly bridging the divide between dispersed workforces in different locations, across many geographies, which ultimately empowers businesses to grow faster, scale, and save on costs. It is making a big difference in the way information is shared, ideas are communicated, and how work is getting is done, and that, in itself, can give businesses an edge in a hyper –competitive global business environment.