It can be detrimental to have a team in place without the right tools. Collaboration tools such as a whiteboard wall create an opportunity for workers to share notes and drawings every day. A whiteboard gives a manager a chance to share ideas with workers. For the in-office team, a board and dry erase board paint can help managers make presentations for everyone in the office to see.

Other Effective Tools to Help Improve Team Communication and Collaboration

Research claims that over 50 billion devices would be connected to the internet by 2020, which is seven times the population on the Earth. The internet is a fascinating concept that continues to show its potential to improve efficiency in almost everything in our professional and personal lives. Connection sounds simple when workers are working in the same location, and camaraderie, communication, and collaboration come naturally as well. However, many companies and their workers are becoming disconnected as the workforce mobility continues to rise. High travel costs, desperate telephone systems, distributed teams, BYOD mobile devices, and telecommuting can mean that some workers may never work in the same location. As such, the modern workplace demands technology and more flexible collaboration and communication tools to connect workers and allow them to perform at their best. These are a few effective collaboration and communication tools to increase efficiency and make the team more connected.

Hot Spots

Workers on the go would need to get connected to the internet with devices such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones. However, the cost of cellular data for each gadget can be prohibitive, which may force workers to turn to public Wi-Fi to get their assignments done. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work for remote workers such as field service staff, real estate agents, or construction project managers with ready access to the internet. With cellular-based wireless hot spots, workers can connect different devices over one cellular plan to increase their internet access.

Telephone Systems

A standard challenge of merging mobility into an office or workstation is that every worker will have a different phone number, which could include a fax, mobile, or landline number. Research has found that 85 percent of workers in the small-scale business sector use different contacts for fax, mobile phones, and landlines, which makes it difficult for customers, clients, and colleagues alike to get in touch with them. For example, the sales team and other field officers are forced to give out their mobile contacts in BYOD environments, making it difficult to keep relationships, time, and personal and business data separate. However, companies can solve this challenge with cloud-based telephony services that offer comprehensive communication solutions on a unified platform. With cloud-based telephony platforms, workers can use the same number for video conferencing, accept calls on their cellphone and in the office, and still maintain the confidentiality of their mobile numbers. Unlike traditional phone systems, cloud phone systems don’t require expensive and sophisticated hardware, and this is what makes it simpler to set it up.

Digitalized Social Activities

One way to foster team camaraderie and interpersonal relationships is to host or encourage online social activities. These come in many forms. It could be in the form of recipe-sharing groups, hobby, fitness groups, and book clubs, all of which workers can facilitate on public social networks or social forums on an internal system through closed groups.

Cloud-Synced Task and To-Do Apps

Equipping workers with tools that can offer help and the ability to see who should work on what task can bolster productivity. It can also eliminate status meetings and lengthy assignments. Workers can now use desktop and mobile-optimized solutions to schedule cloud-based reminders and tasks. With these apps, everyone in a team can stay connected and updated on who should work on an assignment and when it is due.

Cloud-based Management Solutions

Cloud-based workplace management software programs are a step up from traditional project management solutions, but they combine tracking and task management to improve workplace efficiency. With these work management platforms, budget tracking, proofing, shared document storage, and social-style collaboration can be done on a centralized web-based hub that all workers can access from anywhere. Work management platforms consolidate documents and work-related communication onto a centralized system to put everyone on the same page and streamline operations. Your documents will no longer be scattered across voicemail, phone conversations, emails, and the dreaded sticky notes with a cloud-based work management platform.

Real-Time Video Chats

Being in the office together creates a personal connection that often proves vital to the success of a team. Opportunities for workers to share stories about their families and hobbies often go to waste with distributed teams. However, companies can now restore the ability for workers to share their personal stories with technologies that create real-time video chat portals. With these portals, workers can start an impromptu conversation and interact with co-workers as easily as getting to someone’s office or desk. In short, real-time video chat portals enable workers to keep their webcams on even as they work, and a team member can click on a video of a co-worker and tap their shoulder to strike up a conversation. These video chat portals add the much-need non-verbal communication element and eliminate the need for a worker to haggle over a meeting time to talk with a colleague.

It has never been more critical to keep a team connected and stay current with the mobility and rapid pace in the modern business environment than now. Whether you are a large enterprise, SMB, or startup, everyone has to keep their workers connected. The cloud has revolutionized almost every business aspect, and the same technology can provide scalability, affordability, and flexibility to empower workers in modern work environments. Team communication and collaboration software programs are on the rise, ranging from project management to communication technologies that offer an abundance of options. The existing collaboration and communication tools are improving their functionality and features, while new ones are springing up every year.