5 Benefits of Better Collaboration for Businesses

Who doesn’t want better collaboration? It’s the corporate version of Mom and Apple Pie. Yet, for all of its attractiveness, collaboration has turned out to be harder to achieve than people expect. There are many reasons for this, including cultural obstacles that prevent people from wanting to work together, e.g. in a hyper competitive work environment, people tend to help themselves, not others. Learn more in 5 Risks of Poor Collaboration in the Workplace.

Assuming the will to collaborate is present, the technology has to be available to make it happen. This, too, has proven difficult, though today the corporate world can choose from a rich array of sophisticated collaboration tools. Microsoft Teams, for instance, is powerful because it accommodates different personal work styles while integrating with the universal “productivity infrastructure” of the Microsoft Office system.

If you’re contemplating a program to stimulate better productivity, here are five benefit you’ll realize in the process:

1) Higher profits

Companies that don’t foster strong collaboration experience a host of hidden costs as a result. These may arise from invisible but expensive problems like people sending multiple emails and making phone calls to get a single task accomplished. Every person/minute in your business costs you something. The more time people waste in non-collaborative processes, the higher your costs will be. Collaboration drives productivity, which drives profits.

2) Stronger growth potential

Collaborative organizations move faster than those without. This enables them to take on more work and facilitate revenue growth. A good collaboration culture, backed by the right technologies, can also adapt to new modes of business—enabling agility and strategic advantage.

3) Improved morale and organizational cohesion

People who don’t like their jobs make their feelings known in ways that can be hard to see, but are nonetheless toxic to an effective organization, e.g. passive aggressive slowdowns, counter-productive perfectionism and so forth. This phenomenon can range from simple frustrations about getting work done to outright battles between people who can’t find ways to work together. Collaboration technology will not solve all of these problems, of course, but it can create a digital workspace where people can find ways to cooperate without cramping their individual styles. The results include better moral and organizational cohesion.

4) Better recruitment results

Prospective employees, particularly those from the newer generation entering the workforce, want to work in positive, collaborative environments. This is a digital native generation that is accustomed to mobile chat apps, social networks and the like. The office should be an extension of that experience.

5) Better talent retention

Once hired, people tend to stay in places where they like the work experience. This may seem obvious, but so many companies fail to connect the dots—proclaiming the value of collaboration but failing to deliver it, in tech terms. For some employees, this may be the factor that drives them out the door. A costly, productivity-sapping recruitment process arises as a result.

Learn more in Improving Collaboration With Microsoft Teams.