How to Improve Collaboration in the Workplace

CollaBoard is IBV's productivity app designed to improve collaboration in your workplace.

Imagine how productive your team would be if you could dramatically improve collaboration in your workplace. No more delays, unalignment, or duplicate work to stall your business, hinder your progress and make you lose precious time. Great collaboration brings increases in profit and is for some the secret to success; it is a subject that has been attracting a renewed attention in the past few years.

We are all different: we talked about it in a previous post. But the same differences in personal attitudes that can obstacle our relations in the workplace are our greatest asset: discussing and sharing information with each other is the only way to ensure making mature and informed decisions.

So how can we improve collaboration in the workplace? A change in mindset, more specifically in company culture, is needed.

In big companies, the key problem is the time needed to align employees with company goals. To do so in a manageable timeframe, knowledge should be shared with as many teams as possible, as opposed to a few individuals. The same goes for the number of employees involved in decision-making, at least in some of its stages. In today’s global market, internal communication is key: that’s why flat hierarchies are gaining momentum, and have been embraced by dynamic companies such as Amazon and Facebook.

In small companies, alignment is not a key issue, reactiveness is. Things can change very quickly in these environments; therefore processes need to allow for maximum agility and flexibility. This also means putting in place contingency plans to protect both the employees and the company’s interests. The smaller the company, the more flexible it should be.

One might wonder if a shift in company culture is a realistic expectation. The issue with this reasoning is that it assumes these changes to be top-down driven, which is not necessarily true. More often than we are inclined to admit, cultural changes of any kind are caused by innovations in technology. Think about how BYOD and remote work have impacted the way we do business nowadays, or on a simpler level, how the smartphone has changed our lives.

That’s where CollaBoard comes in. We designed it to change the way that companies work. Providing teams with a neutral, virtual workspace where they can collaborate in real time across devices (while talking on Skype for Business) makes meetings extremely involving, perfect for sharing key information in big company meetings all while keeping a high level of engagement. Also, decision-making becomes a collaborative effort in a real-time environment with an easy-to-use interface.

Flexibility is one of the key concepts behind CollaBoard, which is why, in addition to operating in real time, our workspace runs on any Windows 10 device, including Surface Hub and Surface Studio. Working with CollaBoard means sharing, and responsibilities can be shared too, a perfect setup for small companies. Moreover, if a team member is sick, everybody can access the status of a project and critical information without delay. If a server is down, there will be no impact on the Azure-hosted CollaBoard projects.

Improving collaboration in the workplace is easier than you think: you just need the right technology to change the way people interact. Try a test version of CollaBoard now and jump into the future of collaboration (businesses and professionals can also contact us to request an evaluation key).