Sponsored Post by Nicky Chenery
The pandemic has fast-tracked the take-up of “workstream collaboration”.
This next generation of productivity and collaboration tools is designed to make it easier for colleagues to work together from afar. Even as the threat of COVID-19 eventually eases, working from home is set to become a lot more common in the new normal.
For many organisations, it appears the pandemic has forever severed the link between location and productivity. With this comes the ongoing idea of the hybrid office, as staff relocate during the week to stagger time spent at their desks. While they might be spread across town, or across the world, they still need to work together efficiently and effectively.
Here are a few ways to ensure your teams are connected, no matter their geographic location.
Put what your team need at their fingertips
Pre-pandemic in the physical world, employers leaned on open plan offices or co-working spaces to bring people together. Now that our work environment has shifted, how can employers foster collaboration for a dispersed workforce?
By creating real-time virtual workspaces, workstream collaboration (WSC) services is a great example of this, consolidating and streamlining all our ways of working online. They’re a powerful tool for ensuring that all your people are on the same page and working as a close-knit team.
As remote working becomes more common, WSC looks destined to play a key role as organisations look for ways to reduce impediments to productivity.
The category is still in its infancy but, according to Gartner, the strength of WSC is that it puts everything you need at your fingertips, without locking you into a closed ecosystem.
This allows WSC to provide transparency and visibility for teams, so employees no longer have to piece together confusing emails chains or text messages and instead find information efficiently. When it comes to productivity, it incorporates project management and certain operational and compliance capabilities such as iAuditor by SafetyCulture to ensure the job is done right.
Employers should do an internal audit of current tools to check whether they’re accommodating workplace collaboration. Can teams see and respond to urgent information in real-time? Have you created shared virtual workspaces and multiple channels for communication, resource sharing, and workflow management?
Stop productivity sinkholes
Alongside their core business systems, most organisations are already swamped with productivity and collaboration tools.
Rather than add to the pile, WSC looks to keep them all in order by providing multi-channel communication in a shared workspace.
Not only can email become a productivity sinkhole, it can also become a silo of valuable information which needs to be unlocked. WSC can integrate with email to ensure that essential information is available to all the relevant stakeholders on a project, where and when they need it.
The burden of email led to the rise of business-grade instant message tools like Slack. Before too long, the barrage of business chat notifications can also become overwhelming. WSC makes this torrent of notifications easier to manage, allowing teams to prioritise where their attention is required most urgently.
One of WSC’s key strengths is that it allows collaboration and team conversations to occur in the context of the work being done, rather than dispersing key information across different platforms.
Employers should create a central data and knowledge repository for team members. Make once hidden data available to all in order to inform critical decision-making and eliminate any bottlenecks.
Free your team up so they can add value
Rather than dictate how your team works, effective WSC tools allow your organisation to design business processes, workflows and task management to suit the way they work.
This can include automating routine tasks and processes, in order to free up people to deal with more value-adding tasks elsewhere. When people are spoiled for choice in terms of communication and collaboration options, WSC ensures that the focus remains on productivity.
Free up time for teams with WSC to boost productivity and drive healthier work relationships. Create value by incorporating WSC tools and your employees will thank you for it.
Remember, great teams don’t just happen
Teamwork is the foundation of successful workplace collaboration. Having the right tools is critical — but equally as important are the people that use them. After all, driving towards great business outcomes hinges on your people, ensuring everyone is working together with trust and camaraderie. This starts with mentors and leaders. Foster an environment that welcomes ideas and feedback, which allows teams to better operate as a unit.
Here at SafetyCulture, we recognise that great teams and leadership don’t just happen: they’re made. For more tactics to foster great leadership in the workplace, we are bringing together industry leaders for a free global summit, Made Extraordinary. Join us as we examine how teams can achieve extraordinary collaboration through great teamwork.
About SafetyCulture Summit 2021: Made Extraordinary
Made Extraordinary brings together leaders, trailblazers and experts for two days of inspiration, industry insights, keynote sessions, and professional development. Learn how everyday teams and organisations can achieve extraordinary outcomes through great teamwork. Join Made Extraordinary physically at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, stream live from anywhere in the world, and catch up on demand in the weeks following the event.
Nicky Chenery is General Manager, EMEA, SafetyCulture
