This document summarizes a survey of 2,000 US employees about their adoption and use of collaboration tools at work. The key findings are:
1. Most employees regularly use collaboration technologies like social networking, messaging apps, and intranets at work, mirroring their personal technology adoption behaviors.
2. Adoption of collaboration tools is fairly consistent across age groups up to age 45, though it drops slightly for older employees. However, very few employees in any age group reported never using collaboration tools.
3. While adoption is lower in older age groups, almost all employees use some form of collaboration tool other than email to get work done. Age alone is not a significant barrier to adoption.
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Employee Adoption of Collaboration Tools Survey Finds Widespread Usage Across Ages
1. Employee Adoption
of Collaboration Tools
in 2018
AUGUST 2018
BY CHARLENE LI, PRINCIPAL ANALYST
Includes findings from a survey of 2,000 U.S. employees
RESEARCH REPORT
PREVIEW VERSION
2. 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
3 THE 6 TYPES OF ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION TOOLS
4 EMPLOYEE ADOPTION OF COLLABORATION TOOLS:
KEY FINDINGS OF 2018 SURVEY
10 STRATEGIES TI DRIVE EMPLOYEE COLLABORATION TOOL ADOPTION
12 ABOUT US
13 METHODOLOGY
13 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
13 HOW TO WORK WITH ALTIMETER
1
3. 2
For many of us, the default way we collaborate with each other
in the workplace is email. Yes, that tried and true, reverse-
chronological stream of messages that rules our lives. There are
innumerable ways that email is terrible for group collaboration,
primarily the fact that multiple messages between a team of
people are hard to follow and track over a period of time. To
solve these issues, enterprises now deploy a wide variety of
collaboration software, which range in complexity from simple
chat interfaces to full-fledged project management platforms that
integrate with multiple parts of the business.
2
4. 3
THE SIX TYPES
OF ENTERPRISE
COLLABORATION
TOOLS
Enterprise collaboration tools enable two
major capabilities: communication and
information sharing. Since every organization
communicates and shares information in their
own unique way, there are many different
collaboration tools to serve their needs. To
simplify things, we divided the enterprise
collaboration space into six categories,
which are not mutually exclusive or
collectively exhaustive:
INTRANETS
The granddaddy of enterprise
collaboration, these internal web
pages serve as a central repository
of knowledge for an organization.
Examples include Jive, Confluence,
IBM Connections, Igloo,
and SharePoint.
PROJECT- OR TEAM-BASED
COLLABORATION PLATFORMS
These platforms enable not just
sharing documents and information
but also messaging within a group.
Examples include IBM Connections,
Microsoft Teams, Slack,
and Yammer.
MESSAGING
Similar to consumer messaging
apps, enterprise messaging tools
facilitate individual or group
messaging, but typically with single
sign on (SSO) and authentication.
Examples include Slack, HipChat,
Skype for Business, Microsoft
Teams, and Google Hangouts Chat.
VIDEO CONFERENCING
This technology has been around for
decades but has evolved to include
various collaboration features like
screen sharing, meeting recordings,
chat, and virtual whiteboarding.
Examples include Skype, Zoom,
and FaceTime.
SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
Although consumer-oriented in
nature, sites like Facebook, Twitter,
and certainly LinkedIn are used at
work to connect employees to
each other. New offerings like
Workplace by Facebook also blur
the lines between general social
networking sites and workplace
collaboration tools.
EMPLOYEE ADVOCACY
These tools allow enterprises
to share company information
with their employees and enable
employees to post and share that
content on their private social
networks thereby amplifying the
company’s brand awareness efforts.
We have previously conducted
research on employee advocacy
platforms, exploring their unique
opportunities and challenges.
Examples include Bambu, Dynamic
Signal, EveryoneSocial, Hootsuite
Amplify, LinkedIn Elevate, Social
Chorus, Smarp, Sociabble,
and Trapit.
5. 4
EMPLOYEE ADOPTION
OF COLLABORATION
TOOLS: KEY FINDINGS
OF 2018 SURVEY
To better understand adoption and use
of these tools, Altimeter surveyed 2,000
employees in the United States on their
individual use of these six enterprise
collaboration tools in Q1 2018. We uncovered
these four key findings:
#1: Work adoption emulates
personal adoption of technologies
We asked employees to share how often
they used a set of technologies—like social
networking and messaging apps—in their
personal lives and then similar tools at work.
Only 8 percent of those surveyed reported
never having used any of the six enterprise
collaboration tools we asked about. This
means that the vast majority of employees are
using some form of collaboration tool other
than email to get work done. An astounding
58 percent said they use social networking
sites at work at least weekly, while 53 percent
said they use their company’s intranet at least
weekly (see Figure 1a). In terms of adoption,
messaging followed closely behind, with 45
percent of those surveyed saying they use it at
least weekly.
In contrast, project or team-based
collaboration platforms and video
conferencing had significantly lower
adoption percentages. Only 38 percent of
those surveyed use project or team-based
collaboration platforms at least weekly.
Similarly, video conferencing is used by only
36 percent of employees at least weekly. Part
of the issue may be that these collaboration
platforms are not as relevant to certain roles
within an organization, such as if you work in a
retail or manufacturing environment.
What struck us about these adoption numbers
is that they suggest employees use tools to
collaborate at work that they likely already
use in their personal lives, namely social
networking and messaging apps. We also
surveyed employees on their personal use
of three of these tools —social networking,
messaging, and video conferencing —to
stay in touch with others (see Figure 1b). An
astounding 84 percent of employees engage
with social networking apps at least weekly for
personal use, so it’s logical that they extend
that behavior into their work lives. Similarly,
69 percent of employees use messaging apps
in their personal lives. Video conferencing
is the exception: at-work adoption of video
conferencing is higher than personal
use adoption, most likely because work
necessitates more remote connections than in
our personal lives.
4
6. 5
50% 19% 8% 9% 14%Messaging
70% 14% 5% 4 7%Social Networking
Figure 1a: Most employees regularly use collaboration technologies at work
"How often do you use each of the following technologies at work?"
Figure 1b: Adoption of communication tools in the workplace mirrors consumer adoption
"How often do you use each of the following technologies?"
41% 17% 7% 8% 27%Social Networking
40% 13% 9% 8% 30%Intranet
28% 18% 10% 10% 35%Messaging
21% 17% 10% 11% 40%Collaboration
16% 20% 15% 13% 35%Video Conferencing
8% 11% 9% 10% 62%Employee Advocacy
Daily Weekly Monthly Rarely Never
14% 23% 18% 20% 25%Video Conferencing
Daily Weekly Monthly Rarely Never
Source: Altimeter Employee Experience Survey, Q1 2018; Base: U.S. employees, n=2,000
7. 6
#2: Age Isn’t a Significant Factor
in Adoption
One of the biggest pushbacks we get from
executives when we recommend they adopt
enterprise collaboration tools is that an older
population of employees won’t use them. That
is true to some extent. Our data shows that
across all the tools we measured, weekly active
use is fairly consistent among users of all age
groups up to age 45 (see Figure 2). Although
the percentage of people that use these tools
drops for older employees, only 13 percent
of employees ages 45-54 and 14 percent of
employees ages 55-64 reported never using
any of these six collaboration tools. This means
that while their use is lower compared to that
of younger cohorts, almost all older employees
are using some form of collaboration tool.
Across all age groups, we also found lower
adoption of collaboration tools at work
compared to adoption for personal use (see
Figure 3). Adoption of social networking and
messaging for personal use, for example,
is lower for employees age 45 and older,
meaning that their adoption at work is lower
as well. The exception is video conferencing:
older employees are much more likely to use it
at work than in their personal lives.
6
Figure 2: Adoption of social networking, messaging, and project-based collaboration
platforms is lower among those age 45+
"How often do you use each of the following technologies at work?"
Percentage that use these platforms at least weekly, by age.
Social Networking Intranet Messaging Collaboration Platform
Video Conferencing Employee Advocacy
Age 25-29 30-34 35-44 45-54 55-64
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
66%
47%
54%
50%
44%
42%
26%
56%
30%
34%
30%
8%
Source: Altimeter Employee Experience Survey, Q1 2018; Base: U.S. employees, n=2,000