5 Warning Signs You Have Poor Workplace Collaboration
Improving workplace collaboration is more critical than ever. The virtual work environment requires businesses to think about what tools they are using to improve collaboration and productivity between their teams.
Take the first step in improving productivity and collaboration for your business by learning the warning signs your team is struggling.
Warning Sign #1
Employees primarily collaborate using email attachments, leading to multiple file versions.
Lobbing files back and forth using email attachments creates multiple versions of the same file. It also creates confusion as people tend to apply overlapping edits – leading to the need for merging changes.
Endless versioning is a workplace productivity drain
This practice is a drain on productivity and establishes a culture for bad practices where continuous correction is accepted as the norm.
Warning Sign #2
Multiple tools are used to collaborate and data is disconnected between them.
Different business departments often use a multitude of preferred tools for similar tasks. For example, the marketing department may use one type of CRM while the sales team uses another.
Fragmented tools make workplace collaboration difficult
Using varying and fragmented tools means people spend hours importing data between applications. And worse, each department has its own ways of collecting and managing that data – so collection methods are not the same and data does not align smoothly.
Warning Sign #3
Applications are expensive and complex to set up.
Setting up new tools can chew up a lot of time. Typically, you have to import data, invite new users, train, and then deploy. This is why deciding which tools to implement is important and should not require frequent changes.
Improve the efficiency of your tools by enlisting productivity and collaboration experts. Consult on how your business can create a secure, powerful, and unified technology suite while maximizing your licensing and reducing IT costs.
Warning Sign #4
Access to tools and applications is device and/or location dependent.
Today’s worker uses multiple devices, and with the impact of COVID-19 they need to work from anywhere. The ability to collaborate with teammates cannot be roadblocked because people are home or they don’t have access to their office desktop.
Accessibility struggles kill collaboration and productivity
If your organization struggles with this, it’s a double warning sign – you have both collaboration and productivity issues.
Investing in the right technology, and the right workplace collaboration tools, like Microsoft Teams or Sharepoint, is key to helping your team work efficiently.
Warning Sign #5
People need to wait for meetings before they can move forward on tasks.
Efficiency suffers when people are waiting to do their jobs. With the right collaboration tools and mature cultures, people are enabled to collaborate more efficiently, moving initiatives forward faster without the need to wait for meeting cycles. This combined solution has a big impact on a business’s overall agility and potential success.
