In remote and distributed workplaces, it’s a different challenge to build and maintain strong business collaboration. But collaboration is key to success – creating more efficiency, increasing productivity, and boosting your bottom line. The first step in enabling business collaboration is fostering a culture that makes it a priority. Use these seven best practices to improve collaboration in your business.
1. Enable a Collaboration and Communication Solution
Leveraging a single business collaboration platform for calling, meetings, video conferencing, chat, whiteboarding, and screen-sharing creates an environment conducive to effective collaboration. With a centralized solution, you put collaboration tools at your team’s fingertips. You can also empower them to collaborate on a range of devices and from remote locations, making it easier for them to work on their own terms, no matter the time zone or location.
2. Communicate Your Company’s Goals and Objectives
Get everyone on the same page when it comes to your company goals. Make everyone a participant in company-wide initiatives and create buy-in across the organizations. Each team member will be more productive and engaged when they understand how they can contribute to success – and what’s in it for them.
3. Make Connecting Easy
If you give your teams an all-in-one app, they have all the connection tools they need in a single business collaboration platform. They don’t have to hunt for the right app or manage multiple login credentials when it’s time to connect with others.
You also relieve your team members of the burden of having to check their calendars and verify when others are free because your system can automatically keep availability statuses up-to-date. Whether you need a quick chat, a video call, or a full-fledged meeting, all options are at your team’s fingertips.
4. Lead by Example
Prioritize having your leadership set the tone by embracing collaboration and communication tools. This involves leadership both championing a collaborative environment and demonstrating the effectiveness of collaboration tools by using them. Take company-wide meetings as an opportunity to introduce and promote new functionality and encourage participation across the organization. Collaboration must start at the top.
5. Design More Engaging Meetings
With the right solution, your virtual meetings can be more engaging, productive, and enjoyable. Weave in:
- Whiteboarding
- Screen sharing
- Question and answer sessions
- Emoji sharing
- Interactive GIFs
- In-meeting chat
6. Encourage Social Engagement
Encourage relationship-building between employees to create teams of allies ready to interact, solve problems, and rely on each other to meet challenges. Show your teams how to use your communication and collaboration solution to connect, and encourage them to have fun with the system and each other as they use it. Even if your teams are remote, encourage interaction about hobbies, pets, family, and other personal interests. Hold ice breakers at the beginning of recurring meetings. Ask about people’s weekends. Creating an environment built on mutual appreciation and trust will lead to heightened efficiency and business collaboration when your people are in the trenches.
7. Promote Face-to-Face Communication
Face-to-face communication, even with a widely distributed workforce, is relatively easy when you have effective video conferencing technology at your disposal. By encouraging team members to turn on their cameras, verbal and non-verbal communication are equally facilitated, allowing for more authentic interactions. As a result, you’ll gain many of the benefits of in-person meetings along with the sharing and communication features your digital collaboration tools make possible.
Improve Business Collaboration with TPx
TPx helps you achieve your collaboration goals using an award-winning unified communications solution, UCx with Webex, giving you access to best-in-class calling and business collaboration tools. Schedule a demo and see it for yourself.