Bayt.com Survey: 76% Of MENA Professionals Are Satisfied With Virtual Communication Effectiveness In Their Company

Bayt.com, the Middle East’s #1 job site, has recently conducted the Virtual Communication in the MENA poll to highlight the importance of virtual communication and how it has transformed recruitment practices in the digital era.

According to the survey, 85% of respondents agree that online job sites make it easier to communicate with employers during COVID-19. In fact, online job sites (44%) emerge as a key method of communicating with potential employers during the pandemic, followed by emails (38%), social media (9%), instant messaging (6%) and virtual job fairs (3%).

Ola Haddad, Director of Human Resources at Bayt.com said: “Our latest survey aimed to gather insights on virtual communication in the MENA region to help employers and jobseekers better understand its effect on hiring mechanisms and strategies, measure preferences, and identify trends in the evolving hiring and job hunting landscape. This data is useful because we will not only help jobseekers to improve their job search techniques, we will also help organizations recruit and retain top talent during these challenging times.”

Virtual communication is popular and beneficial, and is used by many organizations and institutions in the MENA to enhance the engagement and productivity of employees. Respondents highlighted key benefits of virtual communication, which include saving time and cost (36%), increased productivity (28%), flexibility (17%), contacting managers and colleagues easily (13%) as well as keeping records without difficulty (7%).

Survey results indicated a growing trend in the usage of virtual communication– a whopping 92% of respondents claim that they have all the resources and tools they need to communicate virtually with their manager and colleagues and79% revealed that their employer uses a task management software. Moreover, 56% rated the virtual communication in their companies as very effective and 20% consider it as somewhat effective.

During recent months, there has been a shift from working in an office environment to working remotely. Good communication practices are vital to the success of a remote team. As lines of communication between remote workers are much more complex – respondents suggested that they can be kept in the loop by organizing daily team huddles and all-hands meetings (28%), using chat and messaging platforms (9%), setting up a company intranet/portal (8%), conducting online training sessions (3%) and all of the aforementioned methods (52%).

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: UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, and others.