Which Collaboration Tool is Best for the Digital Workplace?

There are many tools available today that allow workers to connect, collaborate and exchange ideas, share updates and network across the digital workplace. However, over the past two years, a lot of air in the discussion has been sucked in by two in particular: Slack and Teams.

It’s arguable that the reason why Salesforce’s Slack and Microsoft Teams have been leading the conversation in recent years is because of the highly publicized mudslinging between the two companies. The current debate is centered on data published by Microsoft showing that Teams have greater traction in the enterprise. Slack questioned how Microsoft compiles its usage numbers into Teams, leading to some interesting exchanges between the two companies.

SaaS intelligence firm Productiv recently analyzed the issue by analyzing an anonymous subset of data to determine how Productiv’s customers ’employees use the two apps. Results over 60 days in July and August 2021 showed Slack leading the way, with 83 percent of users committed to Slack, compared to 42 percent of users committed to Teams.

So, is Microsoft lying? No. The results of the Productiv study were less black and white. Writing about the research, Kristin Crosier and Jin Baik of Productiv said that while Slack has more dedicated users, Teams is still in the lead for some specific use cases.

The State of the Current Interaction

In the fast -moving digital workplace, the arguments can seem close to irrelevant. Microsoft and Slack have been slugging it since the beginning, so nothing is paying too much attention. More important is the interaction with collaboration tools and how workers interact with these products.

In its analysis, Productiv measured interaction-defined as something that happens when a user logs in and completes a task using an app or a platform-on the following variables:

• Interaction with each application within one day, seven days, 30 days and 60 days.
• How interaction varies with particular teams.
• The distribution of engagement percentages among companies.
• How to use the features of each application.

The findings indicate that Slack has higher engagement, with more than twice the daily user interaction compared to Teams. However, that’s not the only story. According to research, while Slack has more chatting users, Teams have prevailed for meetings. There are three striking figures:

• Private messages: Within 30 days, 89 percent of participating Slack users interacted with private messages, compared to 60 percent for Teams.
• Group messages: 92 percent of users interacting with Slack used the group messaging feature within 30 days, compared to 11 percent of Dedicated Teams users.
• Word attendance: 62 percent of engaged Teams users attended a meeting within 30 days, compared to 13 percent of engaged users who attended a meeting via Slack.

This is unlikely to be surprising for anyone with access to both platforms in their workplace. Explaining the difference in use cases, Crosier and Baik wrote: “Microsoft Team’s out-of-the-box integration with Outlook may help explain why meeting attendance is higher for Teams.”

Related Article: The Future of Video in the Virtual Collaboration Market

Should Businesses Deploy the Same Tool?

Considering users typically interact with Slack and Teams for a variety of purposes, what should organizations do?

George Prior, vice president of IT at Vista, Calif.-based ServiceNow provider NewRocket, said that was the case for Slack vs. Teams depend on the use of an organization that intends to make the platforms. Despite the usage differences, the two share some basic collaboration capabilities such as video conferencing, instant messaging, file sharing and integration with other systems.

“Both tools offer such functionality and have some variations,” Prior said. “Teams have definitely targeted higher use of video because it has replaced Skype, so it’s natural to pivot. MS Teams is also one [unified communication as a service] system, so telephone and video teleconferencing are natural branches. Slack is very specific to messaging and uses that. “

Does this mean businesses should use the same tools? According to Prior, there is no financial sense to deploy both tools because they are too overlapping and not different enough. In an organization with centralized IT, one usually chooses the CIO. Only in organizations where there is some decentralization do you expect to see the same tools deployed, he said.

“From a management perspective, managing both products requires higher headcount and security controls, so it’s likely to ignore the need for both,” Prior said. “In very small organizations that are, for example, 50 seats or less, this is probably more likely for [both Slack and Teams] to deploy. However, once you’ve reached SMB space and higher, you’re unlikely to have both except in certain usage situations. “

Related Article: Collaboration Tools for Remote Workers Are No Longer Enough

Find the Right Mix of Synchronous and Asynchronous

User interaction with the two collaboration tools varies depending on user intention, says Anique Drumright, vice president of product at asynchronous video messaging platform Loom.

In the live video, there is a lot of live discussion but it can take a while. Citing a recent Loom survey, Drumright said when meetings were reduced by 40 percent (equivalent to two days per week), the company found that productivity was 71 percent higher because employees felt more power and autonomy.

Meanwhile, text communication is faster and more measurable but has removed nuance, tone and humanity. The key to finding the right tool to ensure employee engagement lies in finding the right mix between synchronous and asynchronous communication to improve productivity, flexibility and autonomy in the workplace.

Related Article: Loom Updates Video Collaboration Platform to Support Asynchronous Work

There Are Other Collaborative Solutions

Teams and Slack are both solid platforms that work for businesses that use them, but there are other solutions that offer powerful capabilities and a seamless user experience. To find the most suitable for their teams, Brian Peterson, co-founder and chief technology officer at San Francisco-based Dialpad, said organizations should first evaluate their specific needs.

Do they need a chat? Video conferencing? A unified telephone system? How are customer interaction or contact center capabilities? A properly equipped and unified AI-enabled communication platform can bear the burden of meticulous work by identifying action items in real time, retrieving resources as they are mentioned in calls, even analysis of the overall sentiment of the call. Teams or Slack can’t do that.

“At the end of the day, businesses can certainly use multiple platforms, but they will end up with a patchwork solution that creates inefficiencies, confusion and misalignment,” Peterson said. “It might be better to find a platform that actually does everything a business needs – and does it elegantly.”

Organizations using a single unified platform often experience smoother internal and external workflows and improved communication. But the Teams vs. Slack offers the wrong sense of choice because there are many more platforms on the market today that are evolving in business communications.

However, what is interesting here is the context in which these apps work. Slack is now part of Salesforce and although Salesforce has already begun to take steps with Slack, the overall strategy is not entirely clear. Microsoft continues to form Teams but there is another full -fledged social network that hasn’t received much attention in recent years: Yammer.

Related Article: What Can We Do If We Work Together Better?

So, What Should Businesses Do?

Matthew Paxton, founder of gaming server company Hypernia based in Richmond, Virginia, said Yammer does a great job with interaction at a time when employee interaction is more important than ever. In his opinion, Yammer will play a bigger role in Microsoft’s engagement strategy in the coming years.

“The focus over the next decade and beyond will be on enabling employee engagement across the organization and communications for Microsoft 365 clients,” he said. “Yammer will also prioritize providing a world-class community building experience to help individuals connect with shared interests, identities and training areas.”

That said, it would be hard to bother with the Teams role in the video collaboration space right now. In fact, it seems credible its role in organizations will only grow stronger. However, Slack is a strong competitor. It’s easy to use and even the free version offers great functionality. It’s also possible that Salesforce will invest heavily in developing Slack video elements to compete with Teams.

But beyond Slack and Teams, there are many other tools and apps that can do the job as well. As with any technology, organizations need to carefully determine their investment needs and capabilities before choosing to implement a solution, especially one that is meant to be integrated into other systems.

When two or more solutions offer identical functionality, such as Teams and Slack, it’s important to eliminate market noise and conduct a truly in-depth comparison.