Fear of losing historical traces and version conflicts, the risk of breaking the chain if someone downloads… All of these elements help explain the retreat from file-based collaboration.
The OICN (Observatory of Information Overload and Digital Collaboration) frames this phenomenon as one it itself observed between the two most recent iterations of its annual framework.
The collective was born in 2023, driven by Mailoop and Mazars. Its aim: to study the social, organizational and environmental impacts of information overload. Today it brings together members from organizations such as Groupe ADP, Dalkia, La Poste, Orange, the CNAF, the Normandie Region and the City of Paris.
A lot of storage, little collaboration
The OICN has up to now published three editions of its framework, focusing on digital practices in professional settings. The latest is based on metadata analysis of 190 million emails and 3 million meetings. It covers 17,000 people (78% employees, 16% managers, 6% executives), with an equal mix of public and private sector organizations.
Collaboration on files remains quite sporadic. Across the sample, 23% do not use it. Only 1% engage in it at least once a week. For most (58%), it happens less than once a month.
Nevertheless, there is a trend toward keeping many useless files: 46% of stored files were not opened in the last six months. The OICN explains this, among other factors, by:
- Illusion of unlimited and infinite storage
- Email viewed as a “professional memory”
- Difficulty in treating information as perishable
A collaborator, on average, keeps 13,138 emails and 2,308 files in the cloud; a manager, 26,728 emails and 5,338 files; a leader, 44,579 emails and 13,028 files.
An anecdotal use of collaborative groups
The use of collaborative groups – such as Teams – remains even more sporadic. 68% of employees do not use them, as do 57% of executives and 52% of managers. On average, 2.4 messages per week are posted in them (2.5 for employees, 2.4 for managers, 2.1 for executives). Almost all (97%) are posted by 10% of users. The OICN sees in this a reflection of a difficulty in sharing information horizontally without retaining control.
When weighed against emails and chat, these groups account for a negligible share of the message volume in organizations equipped with collaborative tools. Specifically, 0.2% for employees, 0.1% for managers, and even less for executives.
Chat accounts for nearly three quarters of messages sent (74%). Over one year, the volume has nearly doubled (+90%), in contrast to emails, which have fallen (-57%).
The weekly usage rate of chat reaches 71% among managers, 65% among employees, and 55% among executives. For the latter, communication nevertheless remains predominantly via email (84%). The same pattern holds for managers (52%), but not for employees (38%).
Meetings: the “tunnels,” not so rare
From one year to the next, the number of emails sent has declined. Meanwhile, the number of recipients and emails received has risen. The growth of remote work creates a need for written traces, notes the OICN on this topic.
The majority of executives (72%) do not go a week without sending emails. The same goes for 52% of managers and 24% of employees.
The share of emails sent outside the 9 a.m.–6 p.m. window ranges from 14% for employees to 27% for executives.
“Meeting tunnels” (more than 6 hours in a single day) occur on average nine times per year for employees, 20 times for managers and 41 times for executives. At these respective hierarchical levels, participating in meetings consumes about 6 hours, 12 1/2 hours and 18 1/2 hours.
