Businesses are shifting to a digital workspace. With the influx of remote employees and 1.7 million people working from home in the UK alone, it’s important to have the right online collaboration tools in place to guarantee productivity, quality, and efficiency within your team.
Online collaboration tools save time, brings convenience, and encourages growth to any business. You may not be convinced of their importance or why you need them just yet, but we’re here to tell you otherwise.
Let’s get started.
To keep information easily accessible and in one place
Gone are the days of having to sift through multiple files and reams of paper to try to get your hands on the information you were looking for. Nope, with online collaboration tools, all your information is centralised in one location. And the best part? It can be accessed from all corners of the world.
There are more benefits to this too. Some of them include:
- It ensures that everyone is up to date with any changes, announcements, or critical information.
- Nothing important is ever overlooked.
- File sharing is made easier.
- Documents are easily accessible for everyone to work from in real-time.
To stay on track
Online collaboration tools provide a great level of transparency and help keep you on track with the progress of your projects. It’s easier to monitor work and there is a clear understanding of who handles what.
Online collaboration tools assist in setting clear goals and it’s easy to coordinate deadlines, meetings, and calendars.
To narrow geographical limitations
Ready to take advantage of the last bit of summer to go on that remote work vacation? Online collaboration tools allow you to do just that! You can connect with employees from around the world at a click of a button.
Not being limited by your location doesn’t just mean being able to work from a sun lounger. It has other benefits too.
- You have access to a global talent pool allowing for a greater skilled workforce.
- It’s beneficial to be able to put together the best team for a particular project, no matter their location.
- If employees are travelling, they simply need an internet connection to still have access to the project.
- More flexibility for employees gives great job satisfaction and in turn, increased productivity.
To stay up to date
Online collaboration tools help you stay up to date with the performance of your business. Automated reporting tools supply valuable insight to see which areas need to be improved and which are working well.
Staying up to date with automating reports gives you a bird’s eye view of how your business is doing as a whole and if there is a need to rethink some of your strategies.
From these reports, you can also acknowledge and recognise the members of your team who are excelling in their roles. This motivates them to be more results-driven and in turn, increases productivity.
To minimise delays
There is nothing more frustrating than reaching the end of one of your projects only to have a couple of unexpected curve balls thrown your way, setting you back by a day or two. Having the correct tools in place avoids any kind of disruptions and minimises delays.
It allows changes, inputs, and edits to be made quickly and effortlessly and any mishaps can be flagged before they have a significant impact on your deadline.
Automatic notifications also help to keep an organised, steady workflow and everyone is informed of the progress of the project.
To have clear communication and connection
Having strong, clear lines of communication allows for your team to build a trusting relationship, helps avoid any misunderstandings, encourages collaboration, and improves efficiency within your team.
Here are ways to communicate and connect with your virtual team.
Virtual meetings
Spending hours wasted in traffic is a thing of the past. Virtual meetings can be attended by anyone with a stable internet connection.
Online meetings with video connections help encourage collaboration through discussing new ideas, brainstorming strategies and assists the team in making decisions together.
They make your remote employees feel like part of the bigger picture and avoid the feeling of isolation.
Live chat
Think of live chats as a replacement for popping over to a colleague’s desk to ask a question.
Instant chat on platforms like Microsoft Teams encourages real-time communication between your team and queries and questions can be attended to quickly to minimise delays.
Although live chat platforms are not a new concept, they have grown tremendously within the past couple of years, offering more features.
Team building
Team building is just as, if not more, important to encourage communication and connection within your virtual team.
Here of some of the benefits of team building within your virtual team:
- Builds trust and strengthens relationships.
- Inspires creative thinking and innovative ideas through human connection.
- Helps in keeping employees motivated and productive.
- Creates a clear line of effective communication.
Look at this blog to get inspired on how to team build for remote employees.
Some of our favourite online collaboration tools are:
We’ve taken you through the importance of online collaboration tools and why you need them, now let’s have a look at some of our favourites:
- Task management tools
- Project management tools
- ClickUp
- OpenProject
- Basecamp
- Workzone
- Calling, chat & video tools
- Microsoft Teams
- Skype
- Slack
- Zoom
- Document sharing
- Google Drive
- DropBox
- WeTransfer
- OneDrive
- Password management
- LastPass
- RoboForm
- Dashlane
A remote, distributed organisation must be supported by the right online collaboration tools to ensure smooth sailing towards your business goals. And with access to so many online collaboration tools out there, there is no need to settle for just one. Find out what works best for your business to effectively equip your team to create high-quality work.
With the correct online collaboration tools in place, you will be able to maintain an elevated level of efficiency, productivity, communication and business growth.
