Introduction | What exactly is digital collaboration?
The global pandemic has shown three things above all. First: Very few companies were and are prepared for the challenges of Modern Work. Second, there is no universal strategy for modern work. Third, the provision of digital collaboration tools is far from sufficient to enable teams to work together effectively.
Nevertheless, any organization that can map at least part of its workflows in a location-independent and digital way should look into the possibilities and suitable implementation strategies, because the benefits are just as undeniable as the challenges. Using shared platforms for collaboration, for example, opens up plenty of opportunities to save time. For example, important information is much more likely to be centrally accessible to all, eliminating the need for frequent queries or searches. Many tools offer straightforward communication features such as chat channels - saving a lot of time that would otherwise be spent on the odd phone call or writing an email.
Increasing flexibility in workflows is also a very clear benefit. Team members and colleagues can work on the same projects regardless of time and location, without the geographical distance having a negative effect on the results. Spontaneous meetings and agreements in case of time-critical questions or problems are also very easy. This also has a positive effect on the working atmosphere - used correctly, modern collaboration tools can also weld global teams together. This also includes simplified sharing of knowledge and information as well as the optimization of numerous workflows for increased productivity.
Where many managers still primarily think of video conferencing, modern collaboration tools have long since offered many more functions that can digitally map numerous workflows and tasks. Whether it's project management, reviews and approvals, or solutions for a creative exchange of ideas: If implemented correctly, Modern Work can do everything you need for an office job - and more!
Digitization has turned the world of work upside down... really?
At first glance, the switch to Modern Work seems to have been a success for many companies - after all, quite a few teams have been working together in the home office since 2020. However, one study found that more than half of employees have been dissatisfied with the software tools provided by their employer over time, and almost a quarter have considered quitting because of it(source). In fact, employee dissatisfaction is the biggest threat to successful collaboration tool implementation. While this is obvious, it seems to be often neglected in practice, in view of the figures.
And, hand on heart, how many of the features offered by Teams, SharePoint and all the other collaboration tools do you actually use?
(Never) change a running system
The most common problem is that employees are provided with collaboration tools but do not understand how to use them for their own workflows. Individual instruction on new applications is rare, so employees are left to find their way around the software and integrate it into their daily work.
As a result, employees use the new tools only very superficially, if at all. This is mainly due to the fact that they don't need these tools at all to perform their tasks. Of course, we have all long since become accustomed to video conferencing - but why should the to-do list that has always been scribbled on paper be transferred to a Kanban board? For employees, such instructions quickly feel like extra work or paternalism, and this is especially true for long-time employees of a company. Such a forced change in lived ways of working inevitably leads to dissatisfaction and is more likely to bring no measurable added value.
So the first major challenge is to understand for yourself what added value collaboration software can actually bring. If you can't credibly sell this to your employees, you can't demand that they learn how to use it without objection and transfer their processes, which have solidified over time, into the digital world themselves without contradiction.
Productivity - the measure of all things
Of course, a digital platform is needed that digitizes physical tasks. This includes meetings and also the management of files and documents. It also takes applications like Outlook, Excel, InDesign or Photoshop to get certain tasks done - no one will deny that. However, collaboration tools have long since replaced more than just team meetings, and when properly integrated, they can increase the productivity of organizations by 20 to 30 percent.
Ultimately, that's what it's all about: using suitable solutions to increase the productivity of individuals, the various teams and ultimately the entire company. To achieve this, collaboration tools start with the organization of processes and workflows. This includes:
- Information sharing. Sharing information is one of the most important tasks in companies. Announcements and news from top management are important for transparency. Regular updates on the status of work help identify problems early and address them together. If several internal and external employees are involved in a project, information sharing helps to ensure that everyone is always on the same page and knows when tasks are assigned to them or feedback is pending.
- Collaboration. Particularly in creative areas such as graphic design or editing, both internal participants and external service providers such as agencies work together on projects. But software developers, stakeholders and project managers also have to work very closely together, for example in integration projects. Collaboration tools offer special functions for this, such as chats, reviews, feedbacks, versioning and intelligent workflows that link everyone together. This helps avoid data chaos with outdated documents and redundant versions and makes the entire creative process more efficient.
- Overview. Project management tools help both teams and individual employees to keep track of all pending, ongoing and completed tasks. Combined with intelligent task management, everyone knows which tasks have been assigned to them and can react flexibly to requests or problems.
- Integration. Collaboration software typically has numerous integration capabilities to incorporate common office and productivity applications into workflows. This allows employees to move seamlessly through process steps and not have to constantly jump from application to application. This saves time and ensures an optimal user experience, which in turn contributes to employee satisfaction.
- Observe and learn
The opportunities to create added value through collaboration software are therefore numerous. However, companies must overcome the previous hurdles and ensure that employees integrate the available tools into their working methods and use them effectively.
They must accompany this change in a planned and active manner, repeatedly approach employees and shape this important step of digitization together with them - not for them. For this to succeed, organizations should follow the following three steps:
- Understand what the workflows currently look like
- Digitally map the requirements that have been identified
- Regularly put the digital ecosystem to the test
- How does your team work today?
In the first step, those responsible must record exactly what the current processes, workflows and individual workflows look like. First, that means listening. Let your employees have their say and find out what challenges they face in managing their tasks, what they have difficulties with, what works well and what they would like to see.
Once the actual situation has been recorded, inefficiencies, synergy and optimization potentials become visible and tangible for everyone involved. At this point, it is advisable to share the findings from the preceding analysis with the entire organization. The feeling of having been involved in the change process from the very beginning will significantly increase acceptance of the new collaboration tools.
- How can workflows be transferred to the digital world?
Once all work steps, dependencies and responsibilities have been transparently outlined and the requirements are clear, suitable collaboration tools can be evaluated and the extent to which they can contribute to increasing efficiency and productivity can be assessed once they are an integral part of the digital ecosystem and the organizational process chain.
In addition to these factors, usability also plays a role, because ultimately user acceptance also depends on whether employees like working with a technology or not. Of course, the user interface of most modern collaboration tools is optimized to be as simple and intuitive as possible - but it still doesn't hurt to get feedback from future users during the selection process.
How to get your employees and colleagues on board
Once the appropriate technologies have been selected, they must be seamlessly integrated into the existing IT landscape and users trained according to their individual roles and workflows. Clean documentation of the new processes must be made available centrally and updated on an ongoing basis. An open and common description of how collaboration is to look prevents uncertainties, dissatisfaction and a renewed proliferation of individual workflows and solutions to circumvent the new process landscape.
It is important that this new digital organization is also dynamic and is adapted from a central point with each new project, employee or even team. A balance must be maintained between necessary expansions or improvements to existing rules and a certain constancy that is needed so that changes are accepted and lived. It would be counterproductive to have an overly volatile set of rules that could be perceived as arbitrary.
When dealing with digital communication, the same rules should be laid down as in an office complex of any kind. Employees should be available according to their role in the company. Anyone who has to concentrate for several hours in order to perform their job should also be able to indicate their unavailability digitally. Conversely, colleagues must also respect this and refrain from making inquiries or calls in such cases. Such rules of conduct should ideally be included in the documentation and actively enforced in the company - otherwise a chaos of notifications can quickly arise that nips any increase in productivity in the bud and becomes more of a burden for everyone involved.
Outlook | Find a path that fits your team
The guide has shown that there can be no universal strategy for the use of collaboration tools. Every organization is different and every team has its own way of working and communicating with each other. Companies should recognize this from the outset and not try to impose a uniform digital way of working on all teams and employees.
The best way to use applications as effectively as possible is to involve the users themselves in designing new processes. Only in this way do employees get the feeling that they are really regarded and respected as the people responsible for their area and are more willing to discover optimization potential themselves and define appropriate measures. Otherwise, Microsoft Teams will remain exclusively a video conferencing tool and SharePoint, regrettably, the only access to the menu plan of the canteen.
