Employees are the backbone of any organisation. When staff members are performing as expected, it ensures your business hits the right productivity levels. That means more sales, lower expenses, and greater efficiency. Yet all it takes is a single subpar employee to see all of those positives diminish. Optimising performance should always be the goal – and that can be achieved through workplace collaboration. The right approach to collaboration can enhance communication, productivity, and much more across your company. If you’re struggling to think of ways to boost collaboration, the following ideas will detail how to improve this part of your business.
A healthy work environment is the first step to improving your collaborative efforts. Employees need to feel both comfortable and safe while they’re at work. For example, a staff member doesn’t want to be hesitant to share their thoughts and ideas due to the fear of being potentially ridiculed or worse demoted. A supportive and healthy work environment helps foster a workspace where employees feel relaxed and respected, and importantly able to collaborate with colleagues.
Collaboration cannot happen without communication and due to the rise of remote work, communication has become a more pressing issue. Not everyone is around for in-person meetings or go to someone’s desk to ask a question. The result: you need to incorporate the right communication tools into your strategy. Microsoft Teams and Slack are popular options for communicating effectively via video and text.
Cloud technology is an excellent tool to promote collaboration efforts between your employees. This is the case with sharing files across the cloud. For example, GoAnywhere cloud file sharing can be installed in the cloud on-premises, or within a hybrid environment. This allows your employees to not just access files whenever and wherever needed, but also to work and edit on these files concurrently. That means even if team members are spread across the world, they can work seamlessly together.
Automation isn’t necessarily a direct influence on your collaborative efforts. However, it can go some way to enhancing the mood and motivation of your employees. Rather than spending time doing tedious, time-consuming administrative assignments, employees can focus on more interesting tasks. The more they feel like they are contributing significantly at work and the happier they are to complete their duties, the more positive they will be to collaborate with the rest of their team.
Getting away from the work setting is a great way for employees to build healthy relationships. Rather than simply seeing their job titles, an employee can discover the human side of their peers. You cannot expect employees to arrange all of this socialising on their own. This is where organising team building activities, the occasional Friday night out after work, and lunch at a nearby restaurant can help people unwind and get to better know their colleagues.