Is Lame Technology Killing Your Company’s Collaboration Efforts?

Collaboration. It’s a buzzword that managers talk about all the time, yet few organizations will claim that they’ve mastered it. It’s often a company’s misuse of technology that attributes to their collaboration shortcomings--which is ironic because utilizing the right technology is the surest way to improve collaboration.

The Need to Engage Your Employees
One way that the wrong technology hinders productivity is that it makes employees not want to use it. Especially if they’ve been turned on to personal apps that are easier to use than what they’re being provided at work. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 13 percent of employees are actually engaged at their job. Jeffrey Mann, a vice president of research at Gartner states, “What you’ll find is that disengaged employees will potentially be killing your business.”

Effective collaboration is dependent on workers actually wanting to participate in meetings and using the collaboration tools provided them. There are many factors that can contribute to an employee being less engaged at work and thus collaborating less. One of the biggest factors is that they may have a difficult time operating a company’s legacy applications to access and share content. Jeffrey Mann tells CIO that, “If company data is not available at the right time in the right context, it will slow down the machinery of an entire business.”

If a worker finds the software they’re issued cumbersome and frustrating, then they will be less apt to use it. This oversight can sink your plans to improve collaboration, if using the technology you have in place is the centerpiece of your collaboration strategy. This is a situation where the super-easy-to-use and customizable apps that are dominating the consumer market may actually be a hindrance to the professional work environment.

A Disengaged Worker May Turn to BYOD
Let’s say that an employee is issued software on their workstation for the purpose of communicating with team members. The enterprise software is a little more complex than what they’re used to, so instead, they decide to whip out their smartphone and set up a quick meeting with their team over social media--this is what BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) looks like.

In any other circumstance, you would reward an employee doing something like this because they’re showing initiative by finding a better way to get their job done. However, technology doesn’t work this way. When it comes to business technology, companies have to be concerned about the security of how their data is shared. Enterprises will want to utilize a unified communication solution across their entire company for the purpose of tracking and archiving communications. If an employee used their personal device to plan a project with team members, and their device was lost or stolen, then the project’s data would be gone, along with records of who said what during the project’s development. A loss like this would basically set the entire project back to square one, costing you loads of money.

A Surefire Way to Improve Team Collaboration
A situation like this where data loss is caused by an employee choosing to use their personal device over the software provided to them, could have been easily avoided if the company tools appealed to them more than the software on their device. Therefore, if improving collaboration is truly a major goal for your business, then you will want to arm your team with a solution that meets your company’s needs as well as engages them to use it frequently.

Don’t default to using a legacy software that nobody likes for your communication needs. Instead, give your team the customized collaboration tools they deserve. SMART Services can help your business pick out and implement the best technology for the job, which is the surest way to improve collaboration. Give us call today at 586 258-0650 to learn more.