October 28, 2024 | By Shirmattie Seenarine
TL;DR: Remote work collaboration requires the right blend of tools to maintain productivity and team cohesion, especially when employees are dispersed across various locations. While traditional work collaboration tools may suffice for office settings, remote work collaboration demands features like asynchronous communication, time zone management, and real-time flexibility through tools such as video conferencing, project management, and document sharing. Recording capabilities blur the lines between synchronous and asynchronous communication, helping remote teams stay connected. Companies should invest in tools that support both work collaboration styles, ensuring smooth workflows and maintaining team unity.
If your organization is shopping for remote collaboration tools, invest in the right ones, and don’t replace high-quality tools prematurely. Discover the features and functionalities to look for plus, learn how your traditional tools can accommodate remote work collaboration with minimal effort.
For this blog, remote work includes dispersed work. Both remote work and dispersed work encompasses work that is not completed at a single centralized office. In either case, workers can be in various locations even across multiple geographic locales (home office, coworking space, different branch offices). Digital communication and collaboration — tools that include video conferencing, cloud platforms, project management software, and workplace cohesion software — are the common thread connecting remote and dispersed workers while facilitating synchronous and asynchronous work, especially for employees of diverse time zones.
Successful work collaboration includes a combination of tools. Unless all employees are remote and in different geographical locations, it is good practice for organizations to have both asynchronous and synchronous communication and collaboration tools.
Synchronous communication refers to real-time interaction like in-person meetings, instant messaging, chat, and video conferencing. Asynchronous communication is the opposite. There is typically a considerable time gap between when information is sent and when it is seen and acted upon.
Work collaboration at many companies takes place using traditional tools. Although similar, remote work collaboration tools are not the same. While both facilitate teamwork and communication, remote work collaboration tools answer the unique challenges and requirements of remote work.
Remote work focuses on asynchronous communication and time zone differences. On the other hand, traditional work collaboration tools only focus a little on time zone management and asynchronous communication because they cater to teamwork in the office, with everyone in one place. Even if workers are hybrid or never come into the office at these companies, they are in the same time zone.
Real-time communication becomes difficult when team members are in different time zones and their work hours have little or no overlap. Remote work collaboration tools, in contrast, acknowledge that not all team members are available simultaneously.
Consider three popular platforms: Deltapath UC, Microsoft 365, and Google Workspace. They all offer collaboration tools like video conferencing and instant messaging. Deltapath Enterprise IM, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet are used regularly by in-office teams and hybrid teams. However, their recording capability captures video, audio, and shared presentations, allowing remote workers, especially those in different time zones, to catch up on meetings when their workday begins. Recordings can be moved to a shared drive, creating an organized library of recordings that remote teams can easily access
Video conferencing tools like Deltapath Meeting, Zoom, MS Teams, and Google Meet are excellent for synchronous work collaboration. These tools are ideal for brainstorming sessions, project kickoff meetings, training, and problem-solving. Other interactive capabilities such as Q&A (enabling audience members to ask questions during a meeting without interrupting the host) and screen sharing (helping team members stay on track) also help strengthen teamwork. While this may be the case, video meetings also present scheduling issues for remote teams, especially when dealing with team members from other time zones. It can pressure team members to be available simultaneously or force them to meet outside work hours, which may be unsuccessful overall or unproductive. If you have a remote team and engage in video meetings regularly. Minimize these issues by recording and storing meetings on a shared drive when attendance in real-time is nonurgent.
Webinar platforms like Zoom Webinar, WebEx, and Livestrom are used for live presentations and events. As such, they are designed for synchronous communication, as observed by features that allow attendees to interact through live chat, polls, and Q&A sessions. However, Webinars become asynchronous resources when they are recorded. Typically, recorded session links are shared with all registered participants. Similarly, company-recorded webinars —whether to introduce a new product or to provide training —can be sent and accessed by remote employees while on the clock.
Although not their primary focus, many of the most used synchronous tools for work collaboration like chat and instant messaging have asynchronous features that can be used by remote teams or can be added.
Instant messaging (IM) and chat are created to provide synchronous communication; meaning anytime a user sends a message, they are expecting an instant response. Even features like typing indicators, read receipts, and notifications all contribute to a culture around exchanges happening in real-time. Take, for example, a Slack chat where team members are actively discussing a project and responding in real-time or an instant messaging conversation on WhatsApp where two users are having a back-and-forth chat. These are all real-time conversations because each party is communicating simultaneously.
Companies that communicate extensively on chat or IM regularly and naturally make work collaboration more asynchronous for remote teams. Because conversation history is preserved, users can always read and respond to messages later. Organizations also use IM and chat for nonurgent communication. Employees send questions, updates, and even files with the understanding that the recipients will respond when their workday begins.
For companies that think email is obsolete due to the proliferation of other work collaboration tools, think again. Email remains essential, particularly for remote employees. Email is versatile, unsynchronized, structured communication that complements real-time and other unsynchronized collaboration tools.
While recordings assist companies in transforming their existing real-time tools into asynchronous tools for remote teams and while other tools like IM can naturally transform into tools for remote teams, it takes more to support work collaboration; more tech, tools, and features are necessary to create a workflow that will help companies and their remote workers.
When considering remote work collaboration tools, several core features, besides recordings and synchronous and asynchronous communication, should be considered to ensure teams work together seamlessly. These core features may be an extension of your collaboration tool or an entirely separate tool.
There are countless project management tools with task lists, deadlines, the ability to monitor progress, and implement accountability. A project management tool gives remote workers access to the bigger picture of a project during their workday so they can be updated and in tune with their team members in various places, what they need to be doing, and reduce time wasted awaiting information on the project from others.
Popular project management tools such as Trello and Asana breakdown projects into items and stages. Teams can use Trello’s Kanban boards to set up management and communication of tasks quickly. Asana is a frequent choice for businesses that prefer the traditional project management workflow. In addition, it provides high-end features for the most complicated projects. The easier it is for remote workers to understand tasks and other project requirements when they don’t have access to the project leader because of time zone differences, the higher the probability of a seamless and successful project.
Work collaboration often means teams working on the same documents. Consider tools that provide cloud storage, secure sharing, version control, and real-time editing capabilities. Two popular solutions that companies use for document sharing are Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. However, many other options are out there—Notion, Confluence, and Zoho Docs —to suit organizations with varying requirements and budgets.
Integration with other apps, such as email and file storage, makes it easier to have critical applications in one native interface, allowing the user seamless interactions. For instance, if you can’t run reports or your work collaboration tool has room for improvement in analytics and reporting, integration with a third-party reporting tool is ideal.
Integration with a CRM tool is popular. Take, for example, Deltapath Talk, a Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) for Salesforce and Zendesk. When an agent receives a call, the CTI system automatically retrieves the caller’s details from the CRM solution and displays the information on the agent’s screen. The agent can then collaborate with other team members in real-time by sharing notes or transferring the call after speaking with the call transfer recipient.
Push-to-Talk (PTT) technology, often called a “walkie-talkie” tool, allows users to communicate instantly with a press of a button to send a voice message to a group or an individual. PTT is beneficial for coordinating teams dispersed across various locations but with overlapping time zones, such as field workers. Team members in different time zones who typically miss conversations should look for PTT software or apps that record, and store conversations so remote team members can access discussions.
Additionally, even if time zones do not overlap, PTT is still important for urgent communication because it simultaneously delivers information to every team member to quickly address and mitigate critical issues. For example, suppose the central monitoring department in California detects a server issue in another location like Japan. In this case, someone from the monitoring department uses push-to-talk to instantly alert employees in Japan.
Security is paramount when managing sensitive information and remote teams. Look for tools offering as many of the following security features as possible:
Just as project management apps are important for task-oriented remote teams, relationship-building tools are crucial for maintaining team cohesion. Team cohesion in an office environment is often built through face-to-face social interactions—meetings, work lunches, team-building events, or casual conversations. Because it is a natural occurrence, in-office settings may focus less on social engagement.
Since remote teams often lack in-person interaction with coworkers in different cities or countries, companies can invest in a work tool that makes workers feel connected even when working apart. The following tools are ideal for nurturing relationships and fostering unity in companies:
Deploying the proper tools for work collaboration is just the first step to staying effective and productive. Whether you need to scale with a globally distributed team, or weave synchronous and asynchronous communication together for your remote team, the perfect blend of work collaboration tools is paramount for remaining productive, unifying employees, and experiencing success.
At Deltapath, we are here to help businesses make this transition much more seamless with our complete UC platform. Contact us—we’re ready to offer you the strategies needed to optimize your company for work collaboration.
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