email is employees’ least preferred mode of communication in Singapore

Emails have long been the cornerstone of communication in the office, but a new study released by Slack found that it is actually the least preferred means of communication among Singaporean professionals (15%).

The study surveyed 2,000 professionals across Asia Pacific, including 500 respondents in Singapore.

Among Singaporeans, 64% find effective communication a key factor for thriving teams. On the other hand, a lack of communication (54%) and poor leadership (52%) are the factors behind poor team effectiveness.

Face-to-face communication is currently the most utilised form of interaction at work (72%), followed by emails (63%).

The top reasons behind the aversion include employees finding email responses to be too slow (74%), employees often getting copied into irrelevant email threads (62%) and employees spending too much time writing emails (48%).

At least 80% of Singaporeans agree that technology tools can help teams work more efficiently and better communicate.

However, they are faced with barriers to using such tools, including a lack of organisational requirement to do so (38%) and that software are only rolled out with directives from upper management teams (29%).

Among organisation in Singapore, 19% find it challenging to implement new technology internally.

According to Singaporeans, the top contributing factor to an effective team is communication (64%). In fact, 66% of Singaporeans would prefer to over-communicate than under-communicate, and 88% of them would still like to see communication increase internally.