Nearly half of Singapore leaders (45%) spend at least one hour a day catching up on overdue tasks, according to a report commissioned by Zoom and conducted by Morning Consult.
An online survey was done from June 13 to June 28, 2024, among 7,969 full-time knowledge workers, including 5,100 employees and 2,869 team leaders.
Respondents were based in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France, Japan, Singapore (750), India, Australia, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Sweden.
Leaders in Singapore are not only more affected by this issue than employees (32%), but are more likely to experience this compared to leaders in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region overall (32%).
With new tripartite guidelines on flexible work arrangements coming into effect this December in Singapore, collaboration in the workplace is more complex than ever.
Not only are teams now more likely to work alongside a mixture of remote and in-office colleagues, there is also the added complexity of having multiple generations of workers under one roof, each with their own distinct ways of communicating.
The report finds that leaders and employees both report similar challenges or barriers that made it difficult for them to collaborate.
However, the day-to-day activities of team leaders tend to involve more people and more cross-functional interaction than those of employees. Leaders spend more time on collaboration and are more likely to experience related challenges.
The top challenges flagged by Singapore leaders when collaborating were difficulty in finding time on their own schedules to connect (85%); difficulty finding time on others’ schedules to connect (85%); and not enough time in between meetings to get things done (85%).
For leaders, however, the impact of ineffective collaboration is greater. Besides spending time on overdue tasks, 44% of leaders in Singapore also report spending at least one hour a day participating in meetings or chats with no clear outcome or that do not solve a problem. Similarly, leaders were more likely to say this compared to their teams (33%).
Globally, generational differences paint an interesting picture. Gen Z leaders appear to spend the most time resolving issues related to ineffective collaboration.
Almost half (48%) of Gen Z leaders say they spend one or more hours a day following up with teammates to ask about the status of a project. This is much higher than older generations, especially baby boomer leaders.
To address these collaboration challenges, the report highlights that Singapore leaders need to focus on finding the “just right” amount of time for synchronous and/or in-person collaboration.
Findings reveal that Singapore team leaders and employees generally agree on the benefits of in-person meetings and have a preference for real-time communication — out of the different forms of collaboration, they report that in-person meetings were the most effective to achieve intangible outcomes like building relationships and engagement.
Overall, both leaders (77%) and employees (64%) agree that they prefer to engage with colleagues in real-time, not asynchronously, notably more than the APAC average of 70% and 62% respectively.
However, they are aligned that their time can be used more efficiently when collaborating synchronously, for instance, in meetings. When meetings are cancelled, 64% of Singapore leaders report that the alternative use of that time is more productive than the meeting would have been, higher than the APAC average of 54%.
In fact, leaders are more likely to say so, with less than half (46%) of employees reporting the same. This is in line with the earlier finding that leaders are more impacted than employees by excessive time spent in meetings that do not achieve intended goals.
Leveraging other forms of asynchronous or non-face-to-face communication, such as instant messaging or chat, collaborative documents, whiteboard, and project management software, could help create a more balanced approach.
This would not be difficult to implement within Singapore workplaces, given that the top preferred form of collaboration for both leaders (21%) and employees (31%) is instant messaging.
