The days of literal water-cooler conversations are probably over, especially if your digital workplace spans several countries and/or different time zones. But those casual conversations play an important role in collaboration, even if they now take place in a virtual forum.
In the digital workplace, streamlined communication and collaboration is the key to employee productivity and engagement. Office 365 takes these tools a step further, weaving in layers of communication and collaboration technology throughout the platform to support sound business information management.
These communication layers can include the social enterprise tool Yammer (which promotes threaded discussions, similar to email) and the unified communications tool Lync (which provides presence awareness). If the person is available, Lync allows you to send an instant message or start a voice or web conference call with the click of a button.
Yammer, Lync, email, instant messaging — these communication and collaboration tools run through Office 365, connecting the documents you’re creating to the conversations you need to get the job done.
In SharePoint Online, for example, these communications tools are now brought into a powerful document management platform. The platform’s version control makes it easy for teams to collaborate on documents, working together efficiently to meet deadlines and produce content. With integrated communication tools, users are able to find coworkers and quickly get their feedback on content.
In addition, using a cloud-based productivity suite makes it possible for employees to collaborate while using a variety of mobile devices, from full-featured laptops to smartphones and tablets. Most of these cloud platforms now provide mobile apps to meet growing demand for accessing business information while away from the office, and having your content in the cloud (instead of behind a firewall in your network) facilitates this mobile access. Microsoft has released new iPad apps for Office and Office 365 that are gaining a lot of traction, making it easy for Apple users to stay within the digital workplace.
These integrated communication and collaboration tools could be pointed in other directions as well and used to improve interactions with your clients and customers. In customer service, for instance, unified communications is a great way to improve productivity and customer satisfaction. Many companies now use unified communications systems to reach out to customers who need support.
For a digital workplace geared toward professional services, on the other hand, customer service could include secure SharePoint extranets for collaborating with clients, exchanging information and submitting and receiving deliverables. With a centralized access point, information isn’t likely to get lost in your email, buried by other messages or tangled up in multiple document versions.
One caution when implementing new communication tools: Introducing a new platform on top of an existing version tends to cause problems in your information governance strategy. If you already have an online instant messaging platform, don’t enable Lync until you’re ready to phase the older tool out, or you risk creating data silos and communication problems. And that’s where collaboration in the digital workplace starts to fall apart.
In the end, integrated communication and collaboration tools make it easy to exchange information internally and deliver streamlined, responsive customer service. In the digital workplace, your work takes place alongside the best communication method for the task at hand.
