Over the last decade, a lot of cases have shown how teamwork and businesses work in a collaborative way. Nowadays, more than 80% of businesses are shifting towards remote hiring, deligating their work and allowing flexible working hours. In this article, we try to explain several trends that show how much teamwork affects businesses today.
Collaboration is essential for Businesses
Knowing the dramatic changes in teamwork, it is imperative for businesses to implement collaborations on higher levels of hierarchy. They need to communicate responsively and in real-time. Meanwhile, other managements need to give themselves a headstart. They should collaborate and engage different departments of businesses.
This year, technology trends point to changes in teamwork and increased virtuality in the work environment. The dawn of collaboration and interacting tools is upon us.
Increase in remote offices
This isn’t a novel trend and will grow with the passage of time. Today, companies are expanding across multiple cities and countries. Most companies out there no longer have a centralized office and those who have don’t completely rely on it.
Rather, a considerable shift was seen towards cross-functional collaborations. In order to reduce employee cost or have access to skilled employees not present in the local area, organizations are opting to reduce their workforce.
It costs less and makes it convenient to outsource tasks to freelancers or service providers. Outsourcing allows companies to fill their ranks with contractors, suppliers, and customers from around the globe. With this, decision-making is also distributed among satellite teams working near potential markets.
A shift in team-culture
The increase in collaboration has proved that working together virtually will increase productivity in a dramatic way. With this, people can operate in a collaborative way across various time zones, bringing innovative ideas and solving problems without meeting each other in person.
On the other hand, open-plan offices have resisted the trend of team collaboration.
But there are some ways a business manager can overcome these obstacles.
- Keeping up with employee engagement activities through apps and tools.
- Defining expectations and job descriptions clearly so that every employee will know what is expected of them.
You can also try to stress the importance of communication and look for an opportunity to engage with an employee. All these tips can be achieved by using the right tools.
An increase in collaborative technology
A change in business structure means will bring change to management style. Work-place ethics, collaboration, and communication technology will also evolve in order to keep up. An increase in cross-functional system and remote offices have increased the use of collaboration technologies for workers.
Workforce collaboration comes in various forms as well as tools:
- Project management tools allow teams to manage a project and collaborate on various documents effectively.
- Apps like Trello board allow teams to collaborate on various projects and maintain the workflow.
- Conference calls and open source chat services like Mattermost allow teams to work together in real-time.
- Time tracking tools such as Staff TimerApp track the time of each individual working on a project. Moreover, some tools also help teams to connect through invoicing and quotes.
However, the need for tools will entirely depend on your use case. You will also need to see whether your chosen tool will efficiently work or not. Why? Because unfortunately, these collaborative tools have their own drawbacks. If someone is not careful with them, they’ll end up in a web of interconnected tools which will create complex zaps.
In the end, you will have to check and update multiple platforms to find the required information.
Methodology of the Agile team
Commonly, this agile method was the conning tower for tech development agencies. Workforces trained under such methods implement them to increase productivity and improve quality.
Anyway, several other businesses are also looking for a way to implement agile principles. Companies are expanding this methodology to implement it in product development, human resources, and portfolio management.
So what exactly is the agile model?
Basically, it is a process that helps workers respond to feedback on a certain project. It also helps point in the direction of the project and make assessments throughout the development process. Today, agile methodology is much bigger than just a process, it now involves the workplace environment and even furniture layout.
It also lets companies develop the right product, thoroughly improving the process while its in the development phase. Making an ideal end-product that suits its purpose, market, and value.
An increase in productivity brings numerous benefits to the agile work model.
- Bringing a sense of independence to the workforce.
- Increasing job satisfaction and morale.
- Introducing cost-effectiveness and increasing efficiency.
Wrap up
Many people will agree that the combination of digital and analog methods has made a huge impact on team collaboration in the workplace. Nowadays, businesses have become a complex mess of workers, tools, SaaS products, and devices that work in a hybrid way throughout multi-dimensional communication.
Today, the technology that assists collaboration and connection has changed the way employees and businesses work. This technology increases productivity and allows managers to hire more talent, no matter which part of the world they are in.
Nonetheless, it is the rise of technology and change in management styles that are helping both employees and employers work in a collaborative way to attain certain goals, increase productivity and maintain transparency.
