As the pandemic forced organizations to choose between remote work and closure, organizations rushed to acquire communication and online collaboration tools. While the pandemic is now over, businesses are looking at new ways of working, from the rise of distributed teams to the increasing use of online collaboration software.
For starters, we have seen the Internet’s increasing accessibility and the rise of social media. Furthermore, with Millennials at the fore and Gen Zs entering the workforce, we have seen a significant shift in work habits and expectations. Modern employees are no longer satisfied with just a good salary and benefits package. They want to work in offices where they can learn and grow in their careers.
With this information, we can confidently state that it will take far more than daily hurdles, and the implementation of messaging platforms to get your teams to start collaborating more effectively. Let us explore in detail the future of business communication.
1. Collaboration that is asynchronous
Prior to remote work, and especially prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, business leaders would pitch a new idea and leave their teams to work out the details. This necessitated brainstorming sessions and meetings that could easily consume the better part of the day. Because of the pandemic most of this work moved offsite with team members working from home. This required long video conference calls, back-and-forth email and chat messages, screen sharing sessions and other collaboration processes.
A meeting would be scheduled at the end of the new idea’s journey, considering the time zones of each team member involved. The decision would then be finalized at the meeting based on the exchange of ideas on the whiteboard or video material.
As organizations prepare to move forward after the pandemic, asynchronous collaboration offers a viable path for those who prefer to remain in a remote work setup or a hybrid of on-premises and remote work. Asynchronous collaboration involves using offline chat and voice messages, exchanging cloud documents to share ideas which then are marked up and returned by the remote colleague during their work hours. Clariti helped many organizations to use all these features in a single app.
2. Huddle Rooms
Huddle rooms were popular prior to the pandemic. The onset of the pandemic, which sent workers home, slowed this development, but only temporarily. Huddle rooms may play an important role in a hybrid format in which companies divide their workforce between on-premises and remote workers.
Many organizations use huddle rooms to bring offsite and onsite team members together. These are essentially small conference rooms with audio-visual equipment where teams can meet impromptu or on a regular basis. This also includes voice calls, which is one of the features available in Clariti software. Another advantage of these huddle rooms is that they take up little space. They are made with low-cost, low-effort installation in mind. However, both large and small businesses can benefit from this online collaboration trend. This allows you to make your employees feel more included while also ensuring higher quality discussions without interruptions.
3. Distributed Workforce
Employees benefit from distributed teams. These options give workers the freedom to work wherever they want and at their own pace. As a result, employers’ benefit from higher-quality output from happy employees.
The disadvantage of distributed teams is that they make it more difficult for companies to promote employee collaboration. After all, remote workers rarely interact in person. In some cases, remote workers do not even need to communicate with their bosses or coworkers daily.
Many organizations are implementing various strategies to bridge the gap between in-house and remote employees. Some companies, for example, use multimedia conferencing to allow employees to see each other face to face without physically meeting. Furthermore, some companies organize “in-office” days and retreats so that remote workers can get to know their coworkers on a more personal level.
4. Corporate Social Networking
Many businesses now use social collaboration tools to make team efforts more engaging. Employees can use these platforms to share documents and photos, post status updates, and even set up group chats, just like they would on their personal social media accounts. The only difference is that they concentrate on work-related information.
Collaboration becomes less of a chore and more of a social activity with their peers as a result. Furthermore, as employees are already accustomed to the interface of these sites, implementing it for internal communication should be straightforward.
5. Cloud-Based Communication app
Legacy infrastructures are rapidly approaching the end of their useful life. With the increasing demand for workplace flexibility and operational agility, businesses are shifting away from on-premises collaboration tools and towards cloud-based communications software solutions. Organizations can try Clariti, a cloud-hosted communication app to streamline workflows through one single platform.
Cloud-based communication with Clariti makes it easier for your employees to communicate with one another. For starters, Clariti can function as a data repository, allowing employees to quickly upload and retrieve files. Second, it enables employees to send real-time task updates. Finally, you can use this to centralize communication between internal and remote employees.
6. Smart Meeting Rooms
Smart meeting rooms have improved the future of collaboration. There is a plethora of new technologies that you can equip your meeting rooms with right now, ranging from virtual assistants and interactive whiteboards to intelligent scheduling and 360-degree video cameras.
With these tools at your disposal, you can avoid manually transcribing meetings or retrieving data from previous projects. If you use digital whiteboards, you can even begin annotating charts as you present them by using a smart stylus. This ensures that information is synchronized as quickly as possible.
7. VR and AR Adoption
While we may not have the technology to do everything, the good news is that modern breakthroughs are gradually making more things possible. The virtual reality and augmented reality techs that we have on the market now are advanced enough to supplement collaboration efforts.
These are the game changers in the current market trends for collaboration. These assist you in avoiding getting lost in translation while collaborating online. Simply put, you no longer must be concerned about signals being crossed or ideas becoming muddled.
With these tools at your disposal, you can host more immersive online meetings with your team. Furthermore, it will enable you to create virtual spaces in which you and your teammates can more clearly visualize ideas. Interior designers, for example, can create a 3D mock-up of the space they want to design while simultaneously modifying their designs. Engineers can also use 3D imaging to get a better sense of robotics projects.
8. AI and Machine Learning for Collaboration
The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning is the finally on our list of collaboration industry trends. Voice assistants with specialized roles, predictive filtering systems for notifications, and Bots that can interact with humans to optimize processes are examples of these technologies. You can use these to automate mundane tasks associated with collaborative efforts.
These can help you make the most of your productive hours by analyzing online collaboration opportunities and simplifying appointment scheduling. Furthermore, these can help you and your team focus on brainstorming rather than back-office chores.
Conclusion
Organizations must create a collaborative environment that fits for the next-generation workforce. However, most of the time, it means utilizing new communication platforms and technologies to bring disparate teams together.
The only point here is that you must be well-versed in current collaboration tools. This will make it easier to determine which collaboration strategies will work best for you and your team. Use Clariti for the best experience!
Clariti is an online collaboration software that helps increase business collaboration. This online collaboration tool is completely free to use with “Content-rich subject chat” feature which is going to be one of the trends in future communication. Using this feature, you can make your business communication easily understandable to your employees. To enjoy the features of this modern online collaboration tool, sign-up today!