‘A wholesale shift in thinking’: Qatalog and the workplace of the future

Former Amazon man Tariq Rauf tells Martin Friel about his quest to streamline office life by pulling together Zoom, Slack, Teams and other key software in one virtual ‘work hub’

Rauf: ‘More emails don’t mean more output – it’s the opposite’ (Qatalog)

The way office work is conducted is changing rapidly as flexible and remote working becomes the norm. We’ve largely completed the logistical shift, employing a range of digital workplace tools – from Zoom and Google Chat to Slack and Teams – to help businesses facilitate that change.

But enforced, en masse remote working has tested the capabilities of these tools to the limit and it feels like something isn’t quite right. They’re not making it easier to engage or find resources and they certainly don’t appear to be making us more productive.

“Zoom Fatigue” rapidly became a thing for millions of people working at home. One survey of over 1,700 managers and employees, conducted by Virtira Consulting, found that 49 per cent experienced a high degree of exhaustion as a direct result of endless video calls.