Many businesses talk big about how they’ve taught employees to work together online. But are they working together effectively? Here’s how to do it.
Having employees work from thousands of miles away instead of at the office has been a challenge for businesses in the past years. Enthusiasts have praised the new model, while the more conservative guys have missed spontaneous interactions and have had trouble replacing non-verbal communication with emoticons.
Little by little, we’ve learned that sometimes it’s better to send an email than to talk to people in person. Now, we’re beginning to replace that email with more adequate tools.
Collaboration is not a one-size-fits-all
Online and face-to-face are two different things, and truth being said, one cannot replace the other. However, each of the two has benefits and disadvantages.
For starters, online collaboration can give you an upper hand when time, distance and communication issues are involved. “By solving time problems it creates the benefit of 24/7 production cycles; by solving distance problems it enables newly diverse teams; and by solving communication problems it lets us work together in ways that tap into a broader set of skills and capacities,” Alexandra Samuel wrote on Harvard Business Review’s website.
Understanding the ups and downs of both type of collaboration care truly change the way you relate to your business. And then you can start customize, as collaboration is not a one-size-fits-all kind of tool.
Online collaboration is broad-minded
Remote work is quickly becoming the norm, with more and more small and midsized companies, as well as giants adjusting to it.
When at the office, it’s easier not to like people for how they dress or where they leave the staples. The online environment is usually a more tolerant place to work in, giving a chance to both introvert and extroverts, accommodating several working styles and communication types.
It’s just a matter of using the right tools. Effective collaboration is not done by filling in your colleagues’ Inboxes. It requires dedicated solutions that fit your company’s profile and are easily adopted by the co-workers.
The way Quandora supports your business in collaborating effectively even when you work with distributed teams is by providing you with a platform for knowledge sharing, using a Q&A format. It’s a straightforward and productive way of capturing, centralizing and communicating knowledge inside your organization, making the digital environment feel friendly and compatible with your employees’ real interests, since they’re the ones building it.
Start your online collaboration journey and…
…Happy Knowledge Sharing!
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