More or Less: How Too Many UC May Lead to Information Overload

When communication apps first hit the market, the expectation of enterprises was to leverage them to save time and increase productivity. In many organizations, however, the exact opposite is what has been happening — time-wasting and less productivity.

The major reason being that organizations have adopted too many of these modern communication tools and their employees now have many apps to manage while at the workplace. Employees are spending a large part of their time switching between programs instead of focusing on how to boost productivity. Having many apps to manage could be distracting and frustrating sometimes for both the employer and the employees.

Many organizations choose to adopt many communication tools to increase workspace communications and make day-to-day work more frictionless. But, increased communication is not the same as effective communication and organizations need to start to understand this. Increased communication could bring about information overload which in turn affects productivity. Effective communication should be on the mind of high-profile companies at all times, as this is the better way to save time and boost productivity.

According to a study conducted by Cite Research, it was found that 69% of employees waste up to 32 days each year switching between apps. 68% spends up to 10 times within an hour toggling between apps, with 20% found spending six or more.

What Problem Comes with Communication Overload?

Accumulating too many communication tools are more likely to create information overload. Organizations having multiple points of contact such as email, instant messaging, text messaging, video and voice calls, may create distractions for users. Users become bogged down with notifications and attending to them all may slow down productivity.

With organizations’ adoption of too many UC tools, prioritizing important incoming messages from various apps may become more difficult. As a result, users would have to sort through hundreds of messages a day to get a handful of relevant information needed to perform the tasks at hand.

What are the Solutions to Communication Overload?

If your organization is experiencing information overload due to using too many UC tools, there are still many ways to address such a situation. Below are some of the best solutions to information overload that comes with communication apps.

Finding the Right UC Solutions

One of the best solutions to information overload arising from the use of too many communication tools is to find a unified communications (UC) system that can help with app overload. Find the right provider and solution that help your organization streamline their communication apps in a way that works for your distinctive workflow.

Using a unified single communication tool can help greatly minimize the frustrations of app overload. An ideal UC solution help unifies core communication technologies including voice, video, conferencing, mobile, chat, presence management, and many more. Use only the UC tools that can offer the most relief from app overload concerns.

Embracing a Top-Down UC Approach

Taking a top-down management approach to UC can help address the problem with communication overload. This is a management approach to UC that allows users to choose the communication tools they love most to work with. The primary idea behind this approach is to create an integrated environment that will enable different applications to interoperate with one another without friction.

As a result, all information and communication will take place smoothly within the UC platform. A top-down management approach is also known to offer an experience that’s consistent for all users that boosts productivity.

Training Users on UC Capabilities

Giving your workers training on UC capability can go a long way to address communication overload. This can as well be a crucial way IT can mitigate issues that emanate from accumulating communication tools. In many cases, users are unaware that an IT-deployed UC platform comes with all the capabilities needed to perform their tasks effectively and efficiently. If users are able to do everything they need to do for their job inside of an organization-provided UC platform, there won’t be a need to adopt extra apps.

Final Word…

The continuous increase in number of available communication tools may be advantageous, but accumulating more tools may result into information overload for users. Too many tools make it more difficult for users to classify information and flush out distractions, thereby, leading to low productivity.

Organizations need to find a better way to handle information overload to prevent sacrificing productivity. Organizations should do away from adopting too many tools and instead find the right UC solutions, embrace a top-bottom UC approach, or conduct training for users on UC capabilities.

Originally published at https://nextplane.net on January 24, 2020.