Collaboration is critical to being successful in the workplace. The reasons for this are clear. In one study, those who were primed to act collaboratively stuck at their task 64% longer than their solitary peers, whilst also reporting higher engagement levels, lower fatigue levels, and a higher success rate. However, with more individuals working remotely, there are still huge barriers to collaboration for teams that are spread across different geographies and time zones. That’s where online collaboration comes in. As part of your growing digital workplace, it can help to bring staff, partners and clients together in one secure location to work together and achieve common goals using a variety of collaboration tools.
But before we go into why you should use online collaboration tools, we’re first going to look at what one is.
What is a collaboration tool?
A collaboration tool is a form of application software that allows you to work together and share knowledge online with other users.
There are many types of collaboration technology, all with different features to help you achieve this. Here are few examples:
Some will purely focus on document sharing, with limited functionality, while the best collaboration tools others will have all the features mentioned above. Which one you choose, will depend on your reasons for collaborating.
If you’re still unsure why you might need one, read on. We’re going to identify the main benefits of online collaboration tools and reveal how you might use them within your organisation.
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Increased security
If you handle sensitive data as part of your job, you’ll know the severe consequences of a data breach.
Emails can accidentally be sent to the wrong person, leaving your organisation vulnerable.
An online collaboration tool gives you total control over who sees your data. You can set permissions, only allowing certain individuals or teams to view a document or a series of documents.
Leading vendors also put strict security measures in place to ensure that the software can’t be hacked.
Travel cost savings
When you’ve got to travel for a meeting the costs can rise quickly.
Transport, accommodation and food can be expensive – especially if you’re going abroad or away for an extended period of time.
So how do collaboration tools help? For, a start you can login anytime, anywhere so there’s no need to be in the same place as the person you’re meeting.
Once logged in, tools such as calendars, conference call facilities, and task management allow you to carry out your meeting and immediately record any follow up actions.
Reminders can then be sent out to ensure that these have been completed. Much better than scribbling notes on a bit of paper!
Reduce the number of tools you use
You’ll no doubt have a long list of tools that you use on a daily basis.
You might use Excel to record holiday requests; a survey tool such as Survey Monkey to interview key stakeholders, a productivity app like Todoist to manage your tasks – the list goes on.
Wouldn’t it be better to have everything in one place? With a collaboration tool, you can then use just one login and access a wide range of tools and data at your fingertips. No need to remember a million different passwords either!
Collaborate on documents in real-time
The typical way to collaborate on documents is email. You open the document, make a change then send it onto the next person. Job done.
This can get messy though. As more emails are sent, it gets harder to track who has made changes and which version is the latest.
Document collaboration is at the heart of any tool. Simply upload your document and assign colleagues or teams to different chapters. They can then work together in real-time to get the content exactly how you want it.
For total transparency, you can then use the audit trail to see what changes have been made and by whom.
Increase productivity
You would hope so right? There is no point implementing a collaboration tool if it’s not going to increase productivity.
Luckily, they do. Research has found that these tools can improve team efficiency by 20%, which in turn leads to more effective collaboration in the workplace.
One key reason for this is that your stakeholders can access all of the information they need easily, in one place.
This can help cut down the time that they spend searching for documents.
Statistics suggest that employees spend 1.8 hours every day—9.3 hours per week, on average—searching and gathering information.
With this reduced, your colleagues can spend more time being productive and less time on boring, admin related tasks.
Stop using email (or at least reduce its use)
OK, so it may not be realistic to stop using email completely.
With 124.5 billion of them being sent and received each day by businesses, you can see just how popular this particular communication method is.
But is emailing all it’s cracked up to be? In our opinion, it’s not for these reasons.
Document version control
With people sending multiple versions of a document, it’s almost impossible to know which one is definitive.
Online collaboration software gives you back this control, by clearly showing the latest version of a document. The added benefit is that all the comments related to the document are located in one place for easy access and analysis.
Security
With news that email has been named as a top risk for 2018, it’s now imperative that you look for more secure ways to share sensitive data.
As mentioned earlier in this post, leading vendors regularly test and put robust security measures in place to protect your data.
Can you be sure that email providers do the same? Would your clients and partners be happy to take this risk?
Capture ideas
How often have you discovered a great idea to improve your organisation, sent it to your boss and never got a response?
The main for this is that it got lost in the sea of emails they receive every day.
An online tool, allows you to capture all of your ideas in one location. Also, because these tools are easily searchable, you and your colleagues can easily track down an idea if required.
Time to start researching
To be most effective, your collaboration tool needs to meet a set of strict criteria. Our guide contains 10 most important questions you need to ask potential suppliers so you make the right decision – first time. Download now.
