Employees say Slack should stay after the pandemic

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, collaboration platforms such as Slack have become the primary communication tool for the majority of organisations.

Wakefield Research has conducted a new survey of users who use Slack and similar platforms at work.

The survey involves users and IT decision-makers from companies who have used tech like Slack in their work flow over the last year.

The aim is to gain an understanding of the value of these collaboration platforms. Specifically how their use might be redefining and shaping the trends that will determine the future of work.

Conducted in February 2021, the survey includes respondents from a total of 3000 users and 1,200 IT decision-makers in Australia, the US, the UK, France, Germany and Japan, with a breakdown of 500 users and 200 IT decision-makers in each country.

The research team believes that old tools and ways of working didn't support remote work after the pandemic led to many companies having to change the way they operated.

They say before the pandemic, 45% of organisations were not using collaboration platforms. And now 12 months on, 80% of Australians are using platforms like Slack as their primary business communication tool, saving a total of 101 minutes a day by switching away from email.

Some key findings in the Australian section of the report are that traditional communication is fast being replaced by collaboration platforms:

• Slack users estimate they save 101 minutes a day, the equivalent of an entire workday, using Slack instead of email.
• 96% of Slack users say they prefer Slack to video calls for connecting with their team.
• 36% (more than 1 in 3) users would rather go without work email than without their collaboration platform/s, like Slack.

Employees have strong opinions on their tech stack:

• All Slack users (100%) want to keep using Slack even after the pandemic, especially for users collaborating at a time that works best for them (35%), improving alignment across teams (38%) and increasing individual productivity (38%).
• 98% of users say business communication platforms are important to carry out their work.
• Most users (96%) believe it's easier to connect with their managers and company leaders on a more personal level over Slack.

According to the survey, the way people work has changed:

• 45% of organisations had not used a collaboration platform prior to the pandemic.
• 83% of users are interested in a software tool that allows them to work asynchronously.
• Users think that an average of 37% of their meetings could be replaced by a Slack thread.
• 80% of Australians are using tools like Slack as their primary business communications platform compared to before the pandemic.