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How to Prepare Staff for The Upgrade to Collaborative Working

How to Prepare Staff for The Upgrade to Collaborative Working

Improvements in technology mean that there are always new ways to improve your business’ efficiency. Collaborative working represents a new frontier in increases in employee efficiency, with a range of technological tools poised to give companies a far higher level of connectivity. There are a few things that you can do to prepare your employees for a move to new, more collaborative, modes of working.

Unified communications

Unified communications offer a chance to vastly improve the efficiency of your business, while making savings across the board and giving your employees the chance to work more closely together. The simple idea behind unified communications is that your business centralises all its communication technology needs to a single system with external support.  Having a single system through which all phone calls, video-calling and data pass can streamline communications within the office as it means information can be found; there need be no more fussing between half a dozen different programs such as Facebook and WhatsApp for messages and memos being sent.

If you choose to invest in Unified Communications by Gamma you should very quickly find that your calling costs go down. With a secure, high-quality service for making calls and video conferencing it also becomes much easier for employees to effectively telecommute, while keeping in clear communication with their employers. This ability to telecommute at least some of the time can create closer bonds between workers and make collaborative work more effective, due to the reduced stress under which they are able to work when freed up from commuting for at least some of the time.

Review the seating plan

Adopting a freer seating plan can allow different workers to work together in different teams according to the needs of the day, promoting flexibility. While it can be hard for employees to get used to a policy of hotdesking after being used to having their own effects at work,  if you combine this with the option of telecommuting at least once a week employees will be happier to move around during the time they are in the office, allowing for new alignments of talent and ideas.

Team-building exercises across the business

Team-building exercises and trips away have existed as an idea in the business psyche for decades, but they can be particularly worth undertaking ahead of a shift towards collaborative working. Search for a team-building expert or course who can focus on trust exercises, and work on increasing employee trust across the whole business. If you have time try putting employees in varied teams where they will get to work together with almost everyone who they will have the chance to interact with in the new collaborative framework ahead.

Do give each department time to do some exercises together, so they can work on their team unity, but also make sure to mix people up so everyone has a chance to realise how many different people and tasks go into making the business a success. It can be worthwhile to hire a professional, but you can also find team-building games and activities online, which can represent a saving if you feel confident having someone from the office lead them.

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