How to Improve Collaboration in the Workplace

One factor that contributes greatly towards the success of any company is if or not its employees are able to work together as a team. With the competition constantly on the rise, it is absolutely essential to encourage collaboration in the workplace if you want to enjoy more productivity and want your employees to share a healthy relationship. Working in teams helps ensure the employees to offer you better and quicker results than what they would if they work on projects alone. So, collaboration does play a very important role towards the success of a company.

What Is Collaboration in the Workplace?

Collaboration in the workplace is when two or more employees work together by sharing their thoughts or ideas to reach some common goal. It is basically teamwork but on a higher level. Teamwork usually requires two or more people to be physically present in the same place to complete a certain task, but with advancement in technology, with high-speed internet and amazing tools like ezTalks being made available, collaboration is a more productive and certainly better way of doing things. If, however, you have tried to use collaboration but it has not worked, then let us get to learn how you can improve collaboration to enjoy better results.

How to Improve Collaboration in the Workplace?

1. Give importance to social interaction

One of the reasons why collaboration is not successful in many workplaces is because the members of the team comprises of people who do not get to work with each other too often. It is important for companies to find out ways following which the employees regularly get to interact with each other. A sports event, a picnic, or a movie night planned by the company can prove to be good ways for people from different departments of a company to get to know each other. When such people will need to work as teams in the future, unified communication and collaboration are sure going to be a lot easier. Regular informal meets can be arranged for employees from other parts of the world to get to know each other.

2. Make use of video conferencing

Video conferencing is a great solution for businesses as it is inexpensive and effective. Even employees in the same building can use video conferencing without having to worry about any huge expenses. In fact, one big hurdle to collaboration is the inability of the employees to meet with other team members when needed to discuss important matters. However, video conferencing will make things easy as you can meet your other team members without even having to move out of your desks. It saves time and helps you collaborate whenever necessary. Just make sure you use the best free video conferencing tools like ezTalks.

3. Collaboration should not be limited

Many people are of the opinion that there are a particular place and time for collaboration which must be followed. If, however, you limit collaboration to a particular meeting place or meeting time then you are just limiting chances, as good ideas and the need to discuss the same may come up anytime. Companies can plan open meeting areas outside the office which can be used whenever people need to discuss an idea. Screen sharing tools should also be offered by a company to spread the information throughout the group whenever any impromptu collaboration session happens.

4. Having focused goals is important

If any group does not have set goals in mind this only proves to be a hurdle to good collaboration. Whenever groups meet to collaborate they should have a clear focus and goal and everyone must be aware of it. Until and unless the goal is reached the collaboration cannot be said to be complete. Groups certainly can collaborate on many issues, but it is important to tackle only one issue at a time to enjoy proper productivity.

5. The collaborative information must be available easily

If the information required in not available easily it can become difficult to collaborate effectively. So, technology should be used to make sure collaborative information is always available to the employees whenever they need it. An interactive whiteboard can be used to capture the ideas and the details can then be saved as a file that group members can refer to when needed. A cloud computing service can be used to save documents and files in one place. ezTalks is one such tool that offers all these facilities, innovative whiteboard, recording and playback, and a lot more.

Collaboration indeed is very important and helpful, more so because companies are expanding more and more and have branches all over the world. It is not possible for employees from different parts of the world to be physically present all the time for meetings in a particular place, but online collaboration has certainly made things easier and more productive for every company – big and small. Just make sure you use the best collaborative tool and then every collaboration session is sure to be successful.