Only four in ten workers think company meetings are effective forms of communication

New research from Sigma, has found that only four in ten workers think meetings are fully effective, with one in ten saying they are not at all effective.

When asked how well teams communicate and whether improvements could be made, a third of respondents (33.6%) said internal communications needed to be overhauled completely, and 58.4% said improvements could be made.

In was also found that, a third of businesses (31%) did not have policies in place to support agile and remote working. However, despite this two thirds of respondents (66%) said they would like to be able to work remotely.

Hilary Stephenson, Managing Director at Sigma UK, said: “Coronavirus has radically changed the way many millions of workers meet and collaborate, compounding the difficulties many already faced due to a lack of preparation and digital infrastructure.

Our research demonstrates that even before the pandemic, increasing numbers of workers were keen to work remotely. However, they rely on the digital systems that companies have in place to enable remote collaboration between colleagues and our research suggests that many feel that the tools they have available are inadequate.”

When questioned about the ease with which it was possible to collaborate with colleagues working in agile settings, almost one in ten said it was difficult (7.5%) or very difficult (0.6%).

But some companies are getting it right, with 30.1% saying collaboration is very easy, 48% saying it is easy and 13.9% saying it is neither easy or difficult.

Hilary Stephenson, said: “Remote working is becoming the ‘new normal’ for UK workers, but we found that almost a third (31%) of employees are still unable to take advantage of working remotely.

Of course, this may be due to the type of industry in which they operate, but it’s clear that – regardless of sector – there is huge demand amongst workers for this type of flexible policy. Amongst those workers who don’t already have remote or flexible working, two-thirds say that they would like to have it.

Flexible working is only going to become more commonplace and it’s imperative that communications platforms that enable this to work seamlessly are improved across the board. Our research suggests that eight per cent of workers – that’s 2.5 million workers – find it either difficult or very difficult to communicate with colleagues when they are working out of the office.”

To find read the full report visit: www.designedbysigma.com/modernworklife.