3 Big Collaboration Trends Currently Impacting the Workforce

It’s estimated that nearly 43 percent of the U.S. workforce will telecommute by 2016. As a distributed workforce becomes a more common business structure, companies need to implement tools that give team members the ability to effectively collaborate on projects, regardless of location, while also ensuring that internal processes remain intact. Considering that there are so many different collaboration tools out there to choose from, I’ve outlined below some of the leading collaboration trends currently impacting the workplace, along with tools that can help team members increase engagement and build stronger relationships with one another.

 

 

While team communication is always an essential aspect of business, it’s even more important with a distributed workforce to ensure that goals stay aligned and projects get completed on time. While video conferencing solutions like Skype and Google Hangouts have become increasingly popular for remote collaboration, more advanced solutions continue to be developed in order to increase engagement and collaboration among participants.

 

For example, my company, Personify, has been working to make video collaboration more immersive through the use of 3D cameras. With Personify, users can remove their physical background, like a real-time green screen, enabling them to share content on their screens more seamlessly while maintaining a strong video element, keeping all participants engaged. Because of the face-to-face interaction and screen sharing capabilities, participants find they are more invested in the conversations and collaborative as a team.

 

Another noteworthy innovation in advanced collaboration is Skype Translator. This tool makes it possible for participants who don’t speak the same language to communicate with each other, through video, in real-time. It does this by automatically translating each participants’ language to the person on the other end of the video call. Now, employees all over the world can connect, communicate and collaborate without the fear of language or geography getting in the way.

 

 

Now that BYOD has made its way into virtually every industry, text messaging is a more prominent form of communication. Rather than sending emails about general, day-to-day work activities or with questions that need answers in real-time, employees are turning to mobile messaging apps like Slack or WhatsApp to communicate with coworkers. This is not only because texting has been proven to increase productivity, but because it’s easy to use and a natural extension of how they communicate in their personal lives. Additionally, companies in highly regulated industries like healthcare and finance are finding that mobile messaging apps with added layers of security are improving both internal and external communications.

 

Another upside to using mobile messaging apps for collaboration revolves around integration capabilities with tools like Box and Dropbox. With team members spread out across the city, country or world, employees need the ability to share, manage and access information anytime, anywhere. These documents, which can be used across devices and platforms, automatically sync to the cloud, giving employees the most up-to-date information at home or on the road. Having these tools automatically integrated within mobile messaging apps ensures that team members can share and collaborate on documents no matter where they’re located.

 

 

McKinsey estimates that office workers spend an average of 28 hours per week writing emails, searching for information and collaborating internally. It also found that social technologies can help businesses raise productivity levels by as much as by 25 percent because they eliminate the need for duplicated work and provide a better way to collaborate together online. With enterprise social networks, like Yammer and Chatter, employees are provided with a private network that helps them stay connected to the right people, share information and organize projects. Additionally, these social tools provide more transparency across the organization and help employees stay informed of policy changes. Not only can these policies be updated and shared via the social feed, but they can be accessed from various devices at any time which helps keep employees up-to-date on internal processes.

 

One primary reason these social tools are so successful for business is because they mirror popular social media networks that already play a significant role in employees’ lives. In fact, people spend more time on Facebook than they do taking care of their pets or maintaining their household and personal email. When technologies like Facebook are so engrained in our day-to-day lives, it’s inevitable that they will eventually make their way into the business world. With this in mind, the unveiling of Facebook at Work earlier this year seemed like a logical step in the right direction for enterprise social tools. Because employees are already on Facebook, Facebook at Work is an intuitive tool businesses can use to create their own social networks, collaborate online and share information.

 

Thanks to tools like advanced video conferencing, mobile messaging apps and enterprise social networks, team members have the ability to work from any location while still experiencing the same levels of productivity and collaboration as if they were in the office. Even if the majority of your team works from the same location, you’re bound to run into situations where these advanced collaboration tools will come in handy. As the CEO of a business that’s based in Chicago, I can’t tell you how many times Personify’s employees have had to work from home because of snow storms. However, thanks to the collaboration tools we’ve implemented over years, we’re prepared for whatever Mother Nature throws our way. As a distributed workforce continues to become the standard for businesses, the early adopters of these collaboration tools will experience a competitive advantage.