Overcoming collaboration roadblocks in the digital workplace

According to Time magazine, the recent coronavirus outbreak triggered the world’s largest work-from-home experiment. One where companies got to discover, for real, just how resilient their business-as-usual contingency plans were.

As firms in the UK and the rest of the world begin preparing to implement their post-COVID recovery strategies, organisations will need to take specific actions to ensure they are prepared to weather future crisis conditions with confidence. That includes initiating a newly invigorated remote-working environment to ensure everyone can continue to collaborate and work towards a common goal, no matter where they are in the world.

Overcoming collaboration roadblocks

During lockdown, many organisations experienced a steep learning curve where remote working practices were concerned. As firms now prepare to put their remote working models onto a more permanent footing, many will need to address the common collaboration roadblocks that prevented people from performing as effectively as they would in the office-based operations of old. 

The need for effective remote collaboration is especially pressing in contact centres, where maintaining productivity depends on keeping employees connected and motivated at all times, as well as having the ability to evolve and scale operational models at speed. 

The reinvention of remote working practices will require a careful review of technologies, processes, and people to maximize how employees contribute to fast-changing organisational priorities.

Rethink the working culture

Many firms discovered that the recent rapid shift to virtual and remote working required unprecedented levels of flexibility, teamwork and adaptability. As a result, functional silos and old ways of working had to be demolished to ensure everyone across the organisation could be aligned behind common goals. Unsurprisingly, collaboration and mass communication rapidly became the order of the day – every day.

Organisations that thrived best during lockdown acted quickly to ensure leaders in every function of the business could speak daily, share learnings and collaborate closely. Going forward, building on these new strategic cross-functional teams will be essential as the focus moves from managing the initial crisis to shaping future recovery and growth.

Similarly, eliminating information silos to ensure that every employee was kept informed, via a variety of digital channels on a daily basis, on what was happening within the organisation, their department and their team proved critical for building trust and engagement. In the process, firms redefined the employee social contract and made decision-making much more streamlined and responsive.

For remote working to be successful in the long term, organisations will need to review their organisational structures, workforce training and performance management frameworks and consider how they plan to make teams more effective in the future. Leaders must decide how best to leverage new technologies, automation and AI to support the dispersed workforce. 

Ultimately, long term resilience will require the fostering of an organisational culture in which the contributions and wellbeing of workers are recognised, and team performance is prioritised.

Make bold technology decisions

Organisations that had already invested in cloud-powered digital platforms found themselves ahead of the game when it came to pivoting their operations in response to the recent public health crisis.

Providing the fast-paced flexibility and adaptability needed to institute remote working at scale, they were able to quickly connect remote workers with the tools and technologies they needed to continue working from home – without missing a beat.

For many firms, the exigencies of the crisis served to accelerate nascent digital transformation plans aimed at enabling new and efficient ways of working. Within days of lockdown, tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom were adopted to communicate and collaborate. Going forward, organisations will need to increase automation to drive further efficiencies and productivity. The goal is to ensure all platforms are fully integrated so that users can move seamlessly between customer records and product information sources, or easily communicate with customers and one another in the right channel for that exact moment in time – IM, SMS, video call, social media or voice.

Many contact centres have discovered that siloed technology gets in the way of delivering a great customer experience and makes it time consuming and frustrating for agents to perform their day-to-day tasks.

Build a trusted enterprise

Implementing platforms that make it easy for users to work compliantly and in a highly supported way is good for employees – and essential for building customer trust. Today’s contact centre technologies feature in-built quality management systems that can collate data and provide call transcripts. This enables supervisors and agents to review where additional learning is required – or escalate difficult calls so supervisors can step in. The most advanced solutions even feature AI technologies that actively support agents with suggested next actions, and automatically display the customer details they’ll need to resolve issues fast.

Finally, with remote work becoming the new normal, maintaining compliance with regulations like PCI DSS and GDPR will be critical. Policies and processes that maintain governance standards are just the start. Utilising platforms and technology solutions that keep data secure while ensuring work still gets done must become a top priority, if it is not already.