- Workplace Distractions Cost U.S. Companies Nearly $400B in Lost
Productivity, According to a Study Conducted by the Economist
Intelligence Unit Commissioned by Dropbox
- Companion Survey Found Most Remote Workers Are More Focused at
Home, Believe Benefits of Remote Work Outweigh Negatives
- Dropbox Announces Long-Term Virtual First Strategy
Today, The Economist Intelligence Unit (“The EIU”) announced the
results of a research study commissioned by Dropbox (NASDAQ: DBX)
analyzing the macroeconomic cost of lost focus, the level at which
knowledge workers feel they can focus, and what helps and hinders
them. In response to the abrupt shift to remote work among
knowledge workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the EIU also
conducted an accompanying survey on the impacts the transition has
had on knowledge workers.
Dropbox also announced today its plan to become a Virtual First
company, an approach that provides the increased flexibility of
working in distributed teams while maintaining meaningful access to
in-person engagement.
Costs of Lost Focus
Focused attention is one of the key components of a
knowledge-driven economy, essential for creativity,
problem-solving, and productivity. For many knowledge workers,
however, the reality of their work days is a series of
interruptions that prevent them from finding time for deep
focus.
“Focus is the engine of knowledge work,” says Michael Gold, EIU
managing editor. “But increasingly people’s work lives are
fragmented by distractions that increase stress, cause errors, and
prevent people from doing their best work. So we set out to
identify and quantify the leading causes of distractions and the
implications for US knowledge workers and the data showed that the
leading causes of distraction are associated with being
in-the-office. While the costs to US companies in lost productivity
are substantial, there is also huge upside to helping knowledge
workers find their focus.”
The EIU found that 28% of working hours in knowledge work are
lost to distractions in the US, an average of 581 hours per
knowledge worker annually. Among the most taxing sources of
distraction were face-to-face interruptions from colleagues about
work-related tasks (cited by 34%), followed by checking, reading
and responding to work-related email (29%) — with almost one-fifth
of respondents checking email every few minutes and 70% checking it
at least once an hour. Other sources of distraction included
peripheral office distractions like phones ringing and background
chatter (cited by 23%), mind wandering (23%), and work-related
meetings (21%).
These disruptions translate to US companies losing $391 billion
annually in lost productivity in the sectors analyzed, or roughly
$34,448 in salary costs per knowledge worker, according to the
EIU.
But there is also tremendous opportunity here. By improving
employee focus, the EIU found that companies in the sectors
analyzed stand to gain as much as $1.2 trillion in untapped
employee output.
WFH is Working… But Has Some Downsides
The pandemic ushered in an abrupt shift to remote work almost
overnight. The EIU undertook a survey centered on questions of
focus, stress, collaboration and communication in remote work to
gain understanding of how this unprecedented shift impacted
knowledge workers. The results showed a smoother-than-expected
transition, but also surfaced several challenges.
The majority of workers believe the benefits of remote work
outweigh the drawbacks, with only 17% disagreeing with that
sentiment. Similarly, 60% of workers found the transition to remote
work “easy” (compared with only 25% who struggled).
Specifically:
- Nearly half of workers said they can focus more when working
from home, compared with less than a third who report either no
change or diminished focus.
- 42% reported spending more time on deeply focused work.
- Engagement levels have also held steady or improved, with a
third of respondents reporting they are more engaged with their
work than before and roughly the same number experiencing no change
in engagement.
- Eliminating office-based distractions is the second-highest
reason for greater engagement with work, after relief from
commuting.
But this survey also surfaced various challenges associated with
the sudden shift to remote work, particularly around work/life
boundaries, connection, and collaboration which have led to
increased stress:
- Overall, workers responded that working hours and volume of
work have both increased, as have the number of scheduled meetings
(55% say more, 18% less) and volume of email (70% say more, 5%
less).
- More than half of workers report that their work schedules have
become less structured (52% vs 24% say it’s more structured).
- Risk of miscommunication is higher in distributed work (52% say
it happens more, 13% less), and it’s considerably harder to start
new projects with multiple collaborators while remote (59% agree,
17% disagree).
Importantly, the majority of workers (56%) agreed that company
culture suffers during remote work, with only 20% disagreeing.
For full results and additional insights of both studies, please
visit here.
Dropbox Goes Virtual First
We believe the EIU data shows the dramatic shift to remote work
has largely been a success. The majority of employees already say
they don’t want to return to the pre-pandemic office schedule. But
the drawbacks have been apparent as well, with many employees
expressing a desire for increased connection with colleagues.
These insights have given us a rare opportunity to live our
mission of designing a more enlightened way of working and
fundamentally redesign the experience of knowledge work. So Dropbox
created a Virtual First approach that balances the desire for
increased flexibility and freedom in how and where we work without
sacrificing the in-person connection that is so critical to the
company and highly-valued by employees.
Being Virtual First means that remote work (outside an office)
will be the primary experience for all Dropbox employees. Our
physical spaces, called Dropbox Studios, will be hubs to spark
creativity, build community, and maintain company culture. These
spaces, however, explicitly will no longer be for daily individual
work.
“This year’s sudden shift to distributed work due to the
COVID-19 pandemic was abrupt and unprecedented,” said Drew Houston,
CEO and co-founder of Dropbox. “Even though our product was built
for this and our transition was relatively seamless, many of the
things we’ve been trying to solve for as a company have intensified
during this time — always-on hours, constant notifications,
fragmented tools. We’re laser focused on designing products to
transform how remote work happens and by living the reality of
Virtual First day to day, we think we’ll better understand our
customers’ needs and be well positioned to evolve our product
accordingly.”
By balancing the flexibility and freedom of remote work with
retaining human, in-person engagement, Dropbox hopes it will gain
the best of both worlds and see clear long-term benefits. The
company knows that this is a new way of working and is committed to
taking an iterative approach and learning along the way.
For more on the company’s virtual first approach, please visit
here.
Forward-Looking Statements Disclosure
This press release contains forward-looking statements within
the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
related to our expectations on (i) the ability of our virtual-first
policy to realize expected long-term benefits for our business,
including sustained or increased levels of employee focus and
productivity; (ii) our ability to facilitate workplace flexibility
while maintaining company culture and employee engagement; and
(iii) our ability to utilize insights from our virtual-first policy
to improve our product. Words such as “hope”, “will” and similar
expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements.
The achievement or success of the matters covered by such
forward-looking statements involves risks, uncertainties, and
assumptions. These include, among other things, (i) our ability to
attract and retain highly qualified personnel, (ii) our
expectations and management of future growth and (iii) our ability
to continue to release, gain customer acceptance of, and provide
support for additional product features and new and improved
versions of our services. Additional factors that could cause
results to differ materially from those described above can be
found in Dropbox’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter
ended June 30, 2020, which is on file with the Securities and
Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) and in other documents Dropbox
files with the SEC. If the risks materialize or assumptions prove
incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results
implied by these forward-looking statements. Dropbox assumes no
obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such
forward-looking statements after the date of this press release,
except as required by applicable law.
About Dropbox
Dropbox is the one place to keep life organized and keep work
moving. With more than 600 million registered users across 180
countries, we're on a mission to design a more enlightened way of
working. Dropbox is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, and has 12
offices around the world. For more information on our mission and
products, visit http://dropbox.com.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201013005371/en/
Media: Elisa Pandolfi press@dropbox.com
Investors: Rob Bradley ir@dropbox.com
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