Glean released a new report that shows remote or hybrid employees spend at least two hours a day – on average — looking for the documents, information or people they need to do their jobs. That adds up to 25 percent of their workweek.
The “Hybrid Workplace Habits & Hangups,” report surveyed 1,043 knowledge workers and was conducted by The Harris Poll.
Another finding shows more employees are so frustrated with having to search across every company app or service for th information they need that 43 percent would consider leaving a job if there wasn’t an efficient or easy way to access it.
The new, digital way of working also presents challenges that leave too much room for confusion and annoyance among colleagues. The survey shows 20 percent have gotten into work disagreements because of misunderstandings due to virtual communication, while 45 percent of employed Americans get annoyed when coworkers ask them for documents or information, they are unable to find.
New features in Glean help combat these issues as the company continues its efforts to make finding information as simple as a web search and empower employees with the resources they need.
The pandemic proved knowledge workers can work wherever and whenever they prefer, with countless applications and tools enabling an asynchronous, hybrid workforce. But the sheer amount of information that exists within those tools creates a new problem: the frustrating, wasteful amount of time employees spend trying to find what they need.
Given the staggering time wasted, it’s no surprise that having an easy way to search or access the information that lives across those apps is a priority for knowledge workers.
Additional survey findings include:
- Duplication despair – 26 percent of employees have created a work item they later discovered already existed.
- Is that in Slack or email or Teams or Box? – 24 percent are guilty of asking a colleague for documents and information rather than taking the time to find it themselves.
- Silence, please – 18 percent say they get interrupted by coworkers at least five times an hour.
- Companies need to step up their organization game – 45 percent of employed Americans think their company’s process for organizing shared documents and information is stuck in the dark ages and needs to modernize.
“We’re all spending more time asking and answering questions digitally,” said Arvind Jain, co-founder and CEO of Glean (pictured). “This survey highlights how frustrating and time-consuming employees find the process of searching for answers and information that should be easily accessible. All aspects of work, from onboarding to material creation to customer support can be made more efficient by having prior knowledge instantly available for reference. We continue that mission at Glean with our latest product updates that provide dispersed teams with the ability to connect not only to work and information but to each other.”
Glean’s unified search and discovery experience indexes dozens of applications, understanding context, language, behavior and employee relationships, to deliver personalized results instantly. Since launching last September, the company has seen incredible customer engagement, reporting an average of 45 percent DAU/MAU over the last 12 full work weeks. This ratio of daily active users to monthly active users is a strong indicator of consistent daily usage and engagement for enterprise SaaS products, where ratings over 20 percent are considered good and those over 40 percent, excellent.
Yo reduce the amount of time spent duplicating work and ease remote onboarding, Glean released iOS and Android apps, along with features to meet the needs of its growing customer base.
By putting a company’s knowledge at employees’ fingertips, allowing them to glean the information they need, organizations see an increase in productivity, efficiency and the overall employee experience. Customers like Aurora and Confluent report saving 2-3 hours per employee per week — freeing up time to focus on high-value work like shipping code, closing deals, or resolving support issues.
For more information, visit www.glean.com.
