How analytics will impact the future of work

Most people think that the best way to share files is by uploading them directly in Slack. However, file links are often a better option. Uploading files can take longer to upload, is less secure, and can become very messy with edits and final versions. There are many downsides to using file uploads over file links, and unfortunately, many organizations are still stuck in the past using file uploads, which can result in the potential of using outdated information and failures in communication. This article will look at the best ways to share file links in Slack.

Are you curious about Slack analytics? Just like me, I am fairly confident that you want to understand how people use your Slack workspace or even how your team's Slack usage benchmarks against others in the industry. Perhaps you just want to improve your team's Slack usage and improve collaboration. Either way, that can’t be done with Slacks built-in analytics - that only tells you the numbers of messages sent and read, and active people… how disappointing.

If any of the above rings an alarm bell then you are in the right place. Read on to learn what real Slack analytics should reveal about your workspace usage, and how we create actionable recommendations to guide you and your team by following Slack best practices.

Keeping communication channels organized is essential if you want your teams to stay productive and avoid wasting time searching for important information. A Slack thread is communication that occurs through Slack under one message in the form of a reply. This allows information to remain relevant and accessible to the master topic/question, whilst also keeping channels clutter-free. 

Company culture is a key criteria for being an asset to your startup. It can influence many aspects of your success from how effectively you build a product to how quickly you gain traction with your target market, to customer brand loyalty and how aligned your employees are to your focus strategy.

Building and maintaining this culture takes time and effort, but the payoff can be huge — both for your company and for your personal growth.

As entrepreneurs, we are often motivated by our desire to prove ourselves. This motivation can blind us to other possibilities. When we begin our venture, we might overlook the difficulties that might be associated with pursuing said endeavor.

Instead, we focus on how to secure the next funding round—whether it be via investment or debt financing—and often lose sight of some factors that can bring huge rewards such as Return on Culture, Collaboration in the workplace, A shared common goal and Competitive Advantage.

How to create a positive culture in the workplace

Your culture is anything but static; it evolves and changes depending on the needs of the day. This means that some companies will be more successful than others. But, understanding what makes for a good company culture can help you determine how your business will thrive.

In this article, I will define ‘what is workplace culture’ and highlight '10 proven strategies' as it relates to team composition, talent acquisition and retention, business strategy, open communication and how leadership teams enable the best possible team ethos.

In order to have a productive and high-functioning team, it is important to maintain morale. Maintaining morale can be difficult, however, when team members feel like they are not being heard or their work is not appreciated. There are a number of ways to improve team morale that do not involve giving everyone a raise or increasing the office space. 

Multitasking is often seen as a virtue. However, research and more recently, data shows that it’s actually a bad habit that can lead to mistakes, lower productivity, and missed deadlines. Multitasking is the act of doing more than one thing at a time and could include messaging on Slack while on a sales call, typing emails while in a team meeting, and using multiple SaaS tools simultaneously. It might make you feel superhuman and busy, but in the reality, things never get done and lots of work gets left behind.

Based on various research studies, it is said that 2.1 hours a day is the average time lost to interruptions. What makes this even worse, it takes roughly around 25 minutes to recover from an interruption and get back into focus time. Unfortunately, interruptions are even more prevalent when we consider emails, communication platforms, notifications, and smartphone alerts.

Lost productivity costs businesses $588 billion per year.

As you see, interruptions can have a serious impact on time, money, and productivity. In a study conducted in 2009, it was found that the estimated cost of lost productivity due to interruptions was $588 billion per year in the US alone.

The average person gets interrupted once every 8 minutes - 7 times an hour - 50-60 average interruptions per day!

According to time management research and studies, it was concluded that most people spend more than half of their working day being interrupted. The average person gets interrupted once every 8 minutes. This equates to around 7 times an hour, or a staggering 50-60 average interruptions per day!

Innovation requires our full attention, but in a world riddled with distractions, it's getting increasingly harder to find time to focus. The deep work we do during these focus time moments drives most of the value we are able to generate.

Researchers believe humans can enter deep work for a maximum of four hours per day, while two to three hours of deep work per day is the sweet spot for being able to deliver meaningful projects.

However, the reality of a usual workday can make it difficult to achieve due to:

• Tedious and repetitive admin
• Ad-hoc communications from the team
• Constant updates from digital platforms

Read on to discover why it's important for teams to have as much focus time as possible, how you can use Flowtrace as a deep work tracker, and how you can get even more focused as an individual contributor or a leader at your organisation!

The SPACE Framework is essential when it comes to measuring productivity in organizations and across teams. However, it is most useful when applied to development teams as it provides a means to assess and compare the productivity of developers across multiple areas including review times, pull requests, and collaboration across teams. In this way, organizations can identify which processes are most productive and adapt those processes that are the least productive accordingly.

The SPACE framework is a model for understanding and measuring productivity across different teams and organization-wide. It was developed by Nicole Forsgren, a member of the DORA team and a co-author of the book Accelerate. The goal of the framework is to delve deeper into the aspects of productivity to identify areas of improvement, understand working patterns, and evaluate the effectiveness of core business functions.