New Survey Data: Why communication overload derails productivity (and how to fix it)

Loom’s 2023 survey of 1,500 U.S. office workers uncovered new and surprising insights into how people communicate, miscommunicate, and connect at work. The resulting report, “Mind the Communication Gap,” shows growing communication redundancies among office workers, underscoring a massive opportunity for business leaders to increase productivity, morale, and resource efficiency with effective communication tools.

Here’s a sneak peek at just a few of the insights you’ll find in the full report: 

• The average worker spends 3 hours and 43 minutes a day communicating via emails, messaging, video or phone calls — a whopping 252 million combined hours every day. 
• This is costing companies over $21 billion per week. 
• While 88% of office workers have preferences about how they communicate at work, 83% say they cater to others’ communications preferences and 42% say nobody has ever asked them what their communications preferences are. 
• 31% of employees struggle to find time to work because of constant interruptions.
• 85% of employees are sending the same messages or information multiple times or in multiple places at least weekly — 69% do so every day .
• 45% of employees say communicating is the most mentally taxing part of their job.

At the end of the day, mastering effective communication was, is, and will always be a fundamental element of work. This data underscores the need for thoughtful investment in the right processes and tools to keep communication running smoothly without becoming a drain on productivity.