Collaboration is one way to boost productivity in the office. However, successful implementation consists of more than just putting a group of people together in the same room.
Fostering teamwork
There are several things an organisation can do to foster a collaborative environment. If you are moving offices, you have an opportunity to plan and design your new location around collaboration.
Consider organising the new office around focused work, conference calls, and telepresence. This means setting aside quiet, social, and collaborative areas where speakerphone can be used without disturbing other people.
Place meeting rooms and project areas within close proximity of teams. Remember that any room or space that’s located too far from the workspace will typically go unused.
Evolving to digital
Provide for and support the transition of analogue work into digital documentation. Enable workers to share information from personal devices, such as notebook PCs and tablets, to a larger format, such as TVs and projectors, to encourage group participation.
Instead of assigning staff to a fixed desk, encourage them to switch where they sit, to connect them to other people, projects, and ideas. Provide a range of furniture and technology that will support employees in their preferred work mode, whether it is focused, social, learning, or collaborative.
Decide where to place network cabling and phone points throughout the office, and what type of phone system and/or unified communications solution to install. This means checking if the office space is already cabled, or if it will need to be done before you move in.
It is worthwhile to find out what is and isn’t available at your new premises well before the move date. That way you will be able to plan ahead and not get stuck with poor performing infrastructure that will hamper your staff from collaborating.
Mobile, Mobile, Mobile.
Work is increasingly taking people out of the office – either on the road, at remote locations, working from home or at clients’ offices. Importantly your workforce should be as connected and collaborative from wherever they are, as if they were in the office. Which means having their mobile technologies integrate with organisation comms and enterprise systems; as well as providing secure access to organisation data, stable screen sharing and clear conferencing to mobile devices.
Ready to work together
To help prepare an office for collaboration, imei Intelligence provides a high-level management summary of the current status of the organisation’s communication environment. The on-site and remote discovery, analysis and measurement activities, and are followed by a detailed report and stakeholder presentation.
imei’s acquisition of BTAS enables us to provide whole-of-business collaboration technologies converging mobile benefits and unified collaboration. To find out more and how we can help your business collaborate using robust, secure high performance unified communications technologies, email or call us now on 1300 65 77 99.
