COVID-19 has brought about a remarkable shift in the way many businesses conduct their operations and engage with customers. Work From Home (WFH), online showrooms and other virtual communication tools have increased significantly since the outbreak of the pandemic.
A recent survey across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, conducted by Bayt.Com a leading online job site, found that organizations in the region are increasingly turning to virtual communication as a means of enhancing employee engagement and productivity.
Respondents to the survey highlighted key benefits of virtual communication, including 36 percent saying that it saved time and cost, 28 percent noted that it increased productivity and work flexibility (17%). Other benefits underlined by the poll participants were that it facilitated easy access to managers and colleagues (13%), and that it made the maintaining of records easier (7%).
Survey results also indicated a growing trend in the usage of virtual communication, with an overwhelming majority (92%) of respondents claiming that they had all the resources and tools needed to communicate virtually with their manager and colleagues and 79 percent revealed that their employer uses a task management software. Moreover, 56 percent of respondents rated the virtual communication in their companies as very effective, while 20 percent considered it as somewhat effective.
Good communication practices are vital to the success of a remote team. As direct interaction between remote workers have become more complex and difficult under the current circumstances, 28 percent of poll respondents said they kept in the loop by organizing daily online team huddles and all-hands meetings. In addition, 9 percent used chat and messaging platforms, 8 percent relied on using the company intranet or portal, and 3 percent used online training sessions, while 52 percent of respondents said they used all the above methods to keep in touch.
The survey also shed light on common challenges associated with virtual communication, including differences in preferred communication style (42%), technical difficulties (17%), response delay (14%), misunderstandings (13%) and finding a reliable communication tool (13%). The Virtual Communication poll is an important depiction of the region’s current techniques and tools that are used to facilitate work during challenging times. With a comprehensive overview of the virtual communication process, companies can better understand what works and how the process can be improved. Likewise, employees can identify what tools are available for them.
Data for the 2020 Virtual Communication in the MENA poll was collected online from 28 September to 26 October 2020. Results are based on a sample of 1,859 respondents from the following countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and the UAE.
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