The benefits of collaborative working stem from improved flexibility and agility — two business characteristics we’ve come to see as increasingly important in recent years — to better knowledge sharing and troubleshooting.
Collaboration helps people, which, in turn, helps companies succeed.
According to Zippia, companies that actively promote collaboration at work have been linked to a reduction in employee turnover rates by as much as 50%
Achieving Effective Workplace Collaboration
Effective collaboration is more than encouraging people to take part in joint activities.
While team building activities go a long way toward introducing cross-department collaboration and comfortability in sharing information, companies need to do more than create standalone opportunities for collaboration.
For collaboration to be implemented as a core company value, the practice needs to spill into every area of the organisation, from its ethos to its digital realm.
Companies need to embed digital collaboration as part of their culture and in-person partnership, especially if they boast a hybrid or remote work policy.
If a digital workspace is crucial to you and your team, collaboration should take pride of place in this environment, becoming a permanent fixture. Yet, effective virtual collaboration takes time and naturally improves as trust, communication signals and processes develop.
Tip #1
Assign a moderator for all virtual meetings to keep track of who has had a chance to speak.
Tip #2
Clarify your company purpose to create a common goal between virtual teams.
Tip #3
Create a structured review and check-in process to ensure visibility over completed projects.
Companies can also test if workplace collaboration is effective using tailored performance metrics.
Considering all of the areas collaboration impacts, such as speed, efficiency, employee happiness, growth and expansion, companies can understand how collaboration is benefitting their operations — and what can be done to make its impact even greater.
Barriers and Risks of Collaborative Working
While collaborative working improves over time, companies need to know the upfront risks and barriers to introducing shared working practices. There are some problems to avoid and prevent from the very beginning, which can cause permanent reputational and financial damage.
Overcoming barriers to effective workplace collaboration involves surface-level issues such as goal misalignment and perceived power that are easily fixed through communication and transparency.
Risks of collaborative working include; data breaches, malware attacks, incorrect usage of software, informational overload, restricted access, compromised logins and unoptimised settings.
Yet, more sinister threats may lie on the horizon in the form of data breaches and malware attacks — which isn’t surprising given that 39% of businesses encounter some form of cyberattack in a given year.
Luckily, these more serious risks are easy to identify and mitigate with the right knowledge. They often arise due to onboarding essential online collaborative software and can be silenced by paying attention to login credentials, sharing settings and other critical aspects of software security.
Smart storage and sharing is the life force of collaboration, specifically if it's done remotely. Practices such as moving to the cloud, creating account hierarchies and opting for commercial-level software help protect against events that can dampen the success of shared work.
Choosing the Right Collaborative Tools for the Smoothest, Most Successful Transition
When it comes down to it, technology plays a vital role in facilitating collaboration. It allows teams to interact via video conferencing, receive documents and display ideas.
As such, the technology you choose greatly determines how successful your transition to collaborative working will be. The right technology can simultaneously protect you while powering your next stage of growth.
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Digital transformation, including the embrace of collaborative working, doesn't have to be carried out alone. Experts, like us, can help.
The best collaborative technologies are purpose-designed for enterprise businesses, accounting for their security needs and the plethora of functions teams will want to utilise. Tools should offer the basics of secure file storage and sharing and more, accounting for other aspects of collaboration such as team wellbeing, project creation and analysis.
Already we’re seeing trends pointing to more innovation in this field, encompassing technologies such as augmented reality, asynchronous video and automation to further enrich this offering.
After all, it can be said that workplace collaboration is the core of digital transformation, with the two having a golden thread that interlinks the practice of going digital with becoming more intuitive and in sync. As technology innovation develops, so will our ability to collaborate as we transcend borders and open up shared working practices to the world.
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