Collaboration tools are not new. But they are continuously evolving to meet the challenges today’s knowledge workers need to successfully work in teams. Collaboration tools are used by individuals or integrated into Business 2.0 software or Web 2.0 applications, where they serve as a whiteboard, message center, shared calendar, file share, and more in one platform. This integration makes project management simpler but also opens up many ways in which users interact with collaboration tools during the course of their day. When choosing a collaboration tool for your business, finding one that supports easier communication, access to files when you need them, and finding
Collaboration tools help a company work as a team. The reason you chose collaboration tools is to improve communication, solve problems together, or to have more fun. “Team members can communicate more effectively and efficiently with the increasing availability of mobile devices and personal computers—most of which include rich media capabilities such as audio, video, and web conferencing.” With webcam and voice capabilities today it has never been easier to collaborate from wherever you are.
You receive too many emails
Is your mailbox full? Did you receive the same file in 5 different versions? So of course, you don’t know which one is the one you need!
23% of workers think emails harm their productivity, moreover, the time spent to manage them constitutes 28% of total work time.
Emails have revolutionized communication (whether personal or professional) and have facilitated many exchanges, however using a chat tool which is divided into projects is way more practical.
There’s no need to write again and again ‘Hello’, ‘Best Regards’ and so on at each and every email you write. With a chat tool, you can talk to your colleagues, suppliers, and clients as if it was a Facebook conversation or a text conversation, with more short and immediate messages. You can also often add emojis, gifs, pictures, files and so on.
You really don’t know which tasks are the most important.
When you are working on a lot of projects, it can get difficult to know which one to begin with. Collaborative tools can help you place priorities and get a clear vision of the different deadlines.
You have organization issues
You really don’t know anymore to whom the tasks are assigned to, who does what and when are the deadlines…
When working in teams, work organization can get difficult. However, a collaborative tool can help you see clearer who is assigned to the different tasks and when they are due so the work organization is improved.
Increased security
If you handle sensitive data as part of your job, you’ll know the severe consequences of a data breach.
Emails can accidentally be sent to the wrong person, leaving your organisation vulnerable.
An online collaboration tool gives you total control over who sees your data. You can set permissions, only allowing certain individuals or teams to view a document or a series of documents.
Leading vendors also put strict security measures in place to ensure that the software can’t be hacked.
Reduce the number of tools you use
You’ll no doubt have a long list of tools that you use on a daily basis.
You might use Excel to record holiday requests; a survey tool such as Survey Monkey to interview key stakeholders, a productivity app like Todoist to manage your tasks – the list goes on.
Wouldn’t it be better to have everything in one place? With a collaboration tool, you can then use just one login and access a wide range of tools and data at your fingertips. No need to remember a million different passwords either!
Increase productivity
You would hope so right? There is no point implementing a collaboration tool if it’s not going to increase productivity.
Luckily, they do. Research has found that these tools can improve team efficiency by 20%, which in turn leads to more effective collaboration in the workplace.
One key reason for this is that your stakeholders can access all of the information they need easily, in one place.
This can help cut down the time that they spend searching for documents.
Statistics suggest that employees spend 1.8 hours every day—9.3 hours per week, on average—searching and gathering information.
With this reduced, your colleagues can spend more time being productive and less time on boring, admin related tasks.
Document version control
With people sending multiple versions of a document, it’s almost impossible to know which one is definitive.
Online collaboration software gives you back this control, by clearly showing the latest version of a document. The added benefit is that all the comments related to the document are located in one place for easy access and analysis.
Capture ideas
How often have you discovered a great idea to improve your organisation, sent it to your boss and never got a response?
The main for this is that it got lost in the sea of emails they receive every day.
An online tool, allows you to capture all of your ideas in one location. Also, because these tools are easily searchable, you and your colleagues can easily track down an idea if required.
It helps us problem-solve
What do you do when you’re stumped? Say you’ve made a lot of progress on your project, but you’ve encountered a roadblock which seems to withstand everything you throw at it. You’re out of ideas, progress has screeched to a grinding halt, and your deadline is rapidly approaching. Do you give up?
No, of course not; you ask for help or find another perspective. You might schedule a brain-storm/whiteboarding session with your team or ask a colleague for their take. In short, you collaborate with your team to solve the problem at hand. When a group of people pool their knowledge, skills, and expertise, then talk problems out and debate potential solutions, projects that were stalled will begin to move forward once again.
But collaboration doesn’t have to be a last resort. Collaboration ought to inform the way your team works—it should be baked in. The more eyes on a given project from the get-go, the easier it becomes to spot problems (and solve them).
Collaboration helps people learn from each other
One of the best things about working collaboratively with people who bring different skill sets and backgrounds to the table is learning from their experience. Collaborating with team members or even different teams should be thought of as a learning experience, and you should try to make the most of it.
This means asking for feedback and opinions, sharing knowledge, finding out how your collaborators approach their side of the project, and gaining a better sense of how they work. Learning from colleagues is not just a benefit of collaboration, it’s the first step towards building a workplace culture centered around learning and development.
Teams that collaborate not only have an opportunity to learn from each other—their mistakes, successes, failures, workflow, etc.—they’ll also gain an understanding of the other team’s perspective. You get a chance to hear their side of things: their pain points, priorities, even the way they think. Which can be extremely valuable as you work together going forward.
Collaboration boosts morale across your organization
As connections are made between teams and departments, people will naturally trust each other more, which can gradually boost the morale of your entire organization. After all, organizations aren’t going to be successful if there’s a lack of trust and low morale. Regularly working together with people outside of your own team or department is one of the most effective ways to build trust.
This also works in reverse: the higher your company’s morale, the higher the likelihood that your people will feel comfortable working alongside team members from other departments. This is also attractive to top performing candidates who are increasingly looking for more open, engaged workplaces.
Collaboration makes us more efficient workers
Working independently has its advantages. We can focus entirely on one project without having to factor in how much time we’ll lose if we get distracted, or how to wrangle a team together in time to meet a short deadline. If the task at hand requires independence, then by all means, go for it.
But for many types of projects, collaboration is just more efficient. When the project is complex and demanding, we have to be able to admit to ourselves that we’ll need help. It’ll have to be a group effort. And that’s where collaboration comes in. It helps us divide up a heavy workload, find creative solutions to tough problems, and wrap our heads around the big picture.
An organization that makes collaboration a big part of its culture is bound to normalize this style of working, thereby creating a more efficient (and more appealing) workplace.
Conclusion
Collaboration tools allow employees to communicate more effectively, handle complex tasks by breaking them down, centralize all content under one roof, and empower people to be more productive. Collaboration tools are recommended for knowledge workers who have complex tasks to accomplish.