Building an ideal digital workplace today: What you need to know!

The modern-day workplace is evolving rapidly with remote working culture, distributed teams, innovative business models, and more. This has led to the rise of many digital workplace software solutions that empower organizations to make the most of their digital transformation. Yet the availability of multiple features in online collaboration tools also makes it a bit difficult to choose the right one for your needs. That is why it is important to understand how online collaboration software can help to unlock your business potential for the better.

The need for robust digital workplace software solutions has never been more important to tackle the new challenges. Traditional content management systems and remote work tools do not make the cut anymore. You need to equip your business with the right solutions to ensure high-end productivity and improve the efficiency of your digital workplace. Here is a checklist that will help you in that regard.

1. Define the Strategy and Roadmap

You need a dependable digital workplace strategy and roadmap before you start investing in any kind of online collaboration tools. It is imperative to determine your goals and technology priorities and understand how the remote work platform can provide more value to your business, your employees, and your consumers. This way, you can find the best solutions for meeting your specific requirements and ensure that your business processes support your objectives.

Read more: 5 Points To Consider While Choosing Your Enterprise Collaboration Software

2. Focus on Project Management

Once you have identified the need for online collaboration software for boosting your digital workplace culture, you need to see how they can help with project management. Your ultimate goal should be to make sure that your team members stay aligned with the company objectives and perform their roles on time to meet the targets. Similarly, your remote work software should also allow you to analyze the market trends so that you can figure out the right approaches to stay ahead of the competition.

Read more: 5 Ways A Project Management Tool Can Help Your Business Grow 

3. Ensure Seamless Communication

The most practical benefit of remote work software is that they allow easy communication. Yet this should not be limited to instant messaging alone; you should also make sure that your team can seamlessly share relevant files and information to make it more effective. Therefore, you need to invest in all-in-one digital workplace software that allows you to make the most of both top-down and bottom-up communication channels through different features like polls, feedback forms, news bulletins, etc.

Read more: 5 Best Practices To Enable Seamless Communication For Your Remote Workforce 

4. Include Video Conferencing Features

While you are looking for seamless communication, also see if your remote work platform comes with video conferencing capabilities. This is one of the most popular modes of communication these days and helps to ensure that your remote team can have face-to-face interactions with each other. Likewise, it should also have simple collaboration tools to let your employees convey their ideas across easily. This way, you can maintain good relationships within the company and ensure superior productivity and business efficiency.

Read more: Why is InfinCE the safest choice for your company’s video conferencing requirements? 

5. Leverage the Power of Chatbots

Chatbots powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) can perform many of the day-to-day rule-based business tasks to ease the stress on your employees. That makes automation and chatbots an integral part of any digital workplace, allowing your team to focus on other important aspects of the business. Besides, chatbots can also help to streamline employee access to essential data and information across the business network. Chatbots also enhance customer experience by facilitating quick responses to their queries.

Read more: Automation In Small Business: 4 Areas To Get Started

6. Look for Personalization

Your online collaboration software should also come with personalization features and allow you to customize the digital workplace solution as per your needs. Many of the modern all-in-one workplace collaboration platforms come with AI-driven personalization capabilities, which give you superior results in terms of delivering relevant information as per the user roles, location, preferences, interests, and other activities. This can help to boost employee engagement and ensure improved productivity and experience.

Read more: Personalize your digital workplace with InfinCE’s enterprise collaboration features 

7. Opt for Flexible Integrations

Your business may already be using many different digital systems such as ERP solutions, CRM systems, content management infrastructure, etc. Therefore, you should make sure that your digital workplace platform allows flexible integrations with these systems as well. That way, you can continue using the existing digital platforms for your intended purposes and make them even more efficient by integration with the remote work software. Remember that your goal should be to unify these systems with technology and not create disruptions in the business processes.

8. Keep an Eye on Data Security

Data security forms the backbone of any company in today’s digitally-advanced era. As your employees will be accessing critical business data from different locations using the remote work tools, you need to make certain that the online collaboration tools you use are equipped with high-end data security features. This should go beyond standard user authentication and limited access; instead, you should bring additional safety features like firewall protection and data encryption to the mix.

Read more: 5 Features of InfinCE that will Transform The Way You Work 

The modern-day workplace can be complex, but it is not too difficult to navigate. You just need the right digital workplace software solution to strengthen your systems and ensure improved efficiency, productivity, and revenue.

The impact of using workplace technology is growing strong in every industry. Powerful workplace apps like InfinCE empowers businesses to make the most of digital transformation. Remote work software will not just ensure higher employee productivity and satisfaction, but also lead to better customer experience and help in superior revenue generation. Get in touch with us to understand how InfinCE can be the game-changing workplace application for your enterprise. 

How Technology Is Changing Workplace Culture for the Better

The workplace as we know of is continually evolving and there is no denying the fact that technology is playing a key role in that. Over the past decade, businesses across industries have seen numerous iterations of what their ideal workplace could look like and have taken strategic steps to achieve that. With the recent impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies are now more focused on transforming their workplace and make it safer and efficient for their employees.

Read more: 5 Best Practices To Enable Seamless Communication For Your Remote Workforce 

The development of workplace apps and integrated solutions has allowed businesses to focus on company culture and find ways to enhance productivity. It is widely accepted that happy employees work better, perform consistently, and even motivate others to give their best. With access to robust workplace technology solutions, employees will be more engaged, efficient, and loyal to the company.

How Workplace Technology and Culture is Evolving

Studies say that companies with a highly-engaged workforce see around 41% less absenteeism, 17% more productivity, and 20% more sales. These numbers perfectly justify the need of adopting top-notch workplace apps and streamline company culture and business operations. For the employers, using such rapidly-changing technologies opens up numerous ways to hire from a global pool of candidates for different job roles. 

Below are some ways in which workplace technology can help you to transform your company culture for the better.

1. AI and Automation will increasingly streamline business processes

Workplace technology is becoming increasingly intelligent with the incorporation of AI tools and automation. This can help reduce the load of many routine business processes and everyday tasks from your employees. Virtual assistants and automation solutions are already being employed by organizations to streamline their day-to-day repeated tasks such as sorting emails, handling data entry, sharing files, etc. As your employees do not have to spend their productive time on such routine and tedious tasks, they can focus on other important business processes.

Read more: Automation In Small Business: 4 Areas To Get Started

You can also employ automation software to monitor and manage various business systems so that your employees can seamlessly conduct audits and quickly generate reports. AI tools allow you to create different scenarios and estimate the practicality of your marketing and sales campaigns. Smart workplace apps can also help to apply different tweaks and see which one would be the most beneficial to realize your goals.

2. Workplace technology will improve usability and experience

According to an IDC report, more than 50% of user interface interactions will be performed using AI-powered technologies by 2024. Businesses are even adopting technologies like AR and VR to deliver a more intuitive work experience for everyone. When coupled with an all-in-one collaboration platform, your employees can access business apps and data from any preferred device that is connected to their workspace, even using VR/AR headsets. 

This can provide greater usability for employees, helping them to analyze critical data quickly, attend business meetings virtually, and collaborate with team members efficiently. It is seen that employees spend almost 20% of their weekly work time searching for information to do their job effectively. With reliable all-in-one workplace apps like InfinCE, teams can share documents and files quickly and even edit or annotate the documents with other team members in real-time. 

Read more: Top 10 Apps That Facilitate Secure File Sharing For Businesses In 2020

3. Remote work will be made more flexible with smart solutions

As the unemployment rate in the US is hovering around 3.6% alongside the high demand for skilled staff, you need to find out every possible way to engage and retain your employees. Remote work has been at the center stage for some time now due to the COVID-19 crisis and workplace apps hope to make it better. Aside from allowing employees to work on flexible hours, smart office and collaboration tools allow you to bring your workforce together from different locations.

This also helps you plan the right remote work model for your company. You can adopt workplace solutions that provide your employees with a secure and unified channel to access the required business data and collaborate with others to deliver the results you are looking for. It also allows your employees to choose the best work environments and tools for their work, while you can manage access and information security centrally.

4. Remote workplace technologies will reduce overhead expenses

Another prime advantage of remote work is reduced overhead costs for your company. All it requires is an all-in-one collaboration platform with all the latest features that you need for improving your employee productivity and efficiency. As your employees can work from home using their devices, it helps to significantly decrease the operating costs. Modern workplace culture with BYOD policies further helps you save on the space, materials, and utility costs.

The impact of using workplace technology is growing strong in every industry. Powerful workplace apps like InfinCE empowers businesses to make the most of digital transformation. Remote work software will not just ensure higher employee productivity and satisfaction, but also lead to better customer experience and help in superior revenue generation. Get in touch with us to understand how InfinCE can be the game-changing workplace application for your enterprise. 

How can businesses manage their remote workforce through efficient communication?

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage global health and economy, most businesses are beginning to accept the fact that they need to change their work culture to help sustain operations during such difficult times. One of the most successful ways that businesses small and large have followed to remain operational during the pandemic was by implementing remote workforce management at a larger scale.

Almost all staff of several organizations except those in critical roles that demanded physical presence at the office were asked to work from their homes. Several companies expect this form of work from home culture to last throughout the rest of 2020 or even extend beyond into the next year. With remote work culture becoming a mainstream norm, employers need to understand the importance of communication when a majority of their workforce is working independently out of their homes.

Here are 5 best practices that you need to incorporate to effectively communicate with your remote workforce:

Read More: Best Practices to Remotely Manage Your Business During COVID-19

1. Set Guidelines for Communication

When almost everyone works remotely to deliver business services, it is important for employers to set standard communication policies and protocols to prevent any disconnects or inconvenience from occurring due to lack of physical proximity. 

Your staff needs to be made aware of the different communication channels that are available, which to use for different scenarios, and how to approach others by respecting their privacy while working from homes. 

There needs to be a proper understanding of business hours and the need to complete any official communication cycles within stipulated working hours to ensure that employees get to spend quality time with their families as well.

Read More: Effective Work From Home Tips – Infographic

2. Ensure a Seamless Communication Platform

The first step to empower your remote workforce to stay connected with their peer groups or the larger organization as a whole is to ensure the availability of world-class communication platforms. 

Having an email tool alone will not be enough to facilitate seamless communication. 

From instant messaging to social media-inspired intranet feeds, your business must set up a comprehensive platform that allows employees to stay connected, informed, and engaged throughout their work schedules. A digital platform can unify communication efforts, help co-ordinate multiple tasks simultaneously, and help employees to easily gain access to support from their peers or management.

3. Proactive Work Communication

It is important to ensure that employees are not left out of communications related to work updates or new service requirements. You cannot expect employees to put in their best effort if you reach out to them at the last moment with requirements which may even include direct customer interactions. Managers need to plan work schedules in advance and communicate the same to employees for them to plan and manage workloads efficiently.

4. Encourage Video Calls

When employees stay away from the office for months together and work remotely, it is natural that they feel a sense of incompleteness in their work schedules. The frequent tea break chats, lunch and dinner outings, workplace fun activities will all be missed terribly and this can add up stress levels. As the situation doesn’t permit employees to catch up with their peers directly, the best solution could be to encourage meetings and discussions to happen over video conferencing. 

It will be much easier for employees to work together or maintain their relationships when they frequently see each other and interact with video conferencing. Video calls bring in a sense of togetherness virtually for teams who are distributed at different locations.

Read More: 5 Workplace Innovations You Can Welcome with Video Conferencing

5. Transparent Leadership Communication

As you work on strategies to remain sustainable in your business operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is equally important to keep your employees updated on the progress of the same. You need to assure them on aspects such as their job security, business performance updates, and other important strategic initiatives that you plan to take to combat the scenario. It is important to keep your employee communications transparent and ensure that they can freely reach out to the highest management level should a need arise for support. 

Read More: InfinCE Helps You Quickly Transit to Remote Working

Your employees are your biggest asset and it is important to establish a clear communication channel for them to alleviate their fears. This communication could be established through newsletters, video broadcasting of leaderships, Q&A surveys, feedback collection, etc. which could all happen on a weekly or monthly basis.

The new workforce management culture induced by COVID-19 is sure to pave the way for a future of open work policies wherein employees can work from anywhere they want and only ensure that quality work is delivered on time. As businesses, you need to have in place the proper communication and collaboration channel for your workforce to operate seamlessly during remote operations. This is where InfinCE can be a game-changer in your business. Get in touch with us to explore how InfinCE can create the best remote working digital infrastructure for your business to tide over a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic.