5 Top Tips to Improve Business Collaboration

With remote working on the rise, global business and the move to a more fluid and flexible working model business are seeking the right technology to keep their teams connected.

There's an incorrect assumption from companies that if they invest in collaboration technology their employees will adopt it immediately and that it will work perfectly. Sadly this often isn't the case. Finding the right solution for your business is a combination of listening to your employees and creating a strategy for how you will use it.

When used correctly digital collaboration tools solve many of the challenges associated with remote working, helping staff feel involved and the wider business remain connected.

      Here are our 5 top tips to improve your business collaboration

Make a Plan

Fail to plan and plan to fail as the old adage goes. You can't expect a new collaboration tool to instantly solve your businesses communication problems. Implementation and adoption need to be carefully managed and a robust training plan set up for employees. Whether this is structured training sessions or a buddy system, effective training will lead to higher levels of adoption.

Encourage

Encouraging the adoption of new technology is always important if you want your employees to embrace it. Without encouragement, you run the risk of only one or two of your employees choosing to use it and the solution becoming redundant.

Make sure to seek feedback from the team members who are using it and to offer support to those who need it. As confidence grows adoption levels will follow.

Seek Balance

In an always-on world sometimes staying connected can become a distraction in itself with messages constantly pinging on our phones and laptops, making focussing on tasks harder.

Some companies have found success in implementing "quiet times" when notifications are turned to silent. Platforms such as Microsoft Teams have the ability to schedule focus time where notifications are muted or setting quiet hours so that contact is minimised outside of working hours . Allowing people to take a break from being constantly available is important for employee wellbeing.

Whilst staying connected is important, employees can feel overwhelmed and overloaded if they cannot switch off.

Think Globally

If you run a global business, collaboration tools are often seen as a way of breaking the boundaries of timezones. A quick IM can be picked up once the user is online, but remember to still take time to schedule catch-ups.

Real-time catch-ups are essential to discuss any issues that may have arisen whilst users are offline and also gives employees a chance to give and seek feedback. They form the foundations of successful working relationships and increased job satisfaction.

Increase Efficiency

Collaboration tools need to be efficient to get the most out of them. Document and file sharing, collaborative documents and tasks all need to be shared via document apps like Dropbox or SharePoint rather than sending multiple versions.
This way you can ensure that everyone is always viewing and working on the latest version.

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