Enabling Innovation & Productivity in Your Hybrid Workforce

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Innovation and productivity are key factors in the growth and success of any company. When workers were suddenly forced home in March 2020, many thought innovation and productivity would plummet during the pandemic lockdown. Against expectations, by November of 2021, productivity had increased.

A study by Microsoft showed that 82% of company leaders felt their companies were at least equally if not more productive than before the lockdown. Now, after two years, some experts predict productivity across the economy will rise by 5% as a direct result of remote or hybrid work.

What Factors Contribute to Productivity?

Productivity now hinges on employees’ adaptability and ability to function independently in non-traditional work environments. Here are three important elements that play into productivity…

  • Tech Savviness: Getting all employees up to speed using video calls, text messaging and file sharing may take time in the beginning but pays off in the end by ensuring that everyone is seamlessly connected to the workflow and that communications occur naturally.
  • Time to Focus: Some workers feel less distracted when working from home, while others desire the structure of the office. The challenge for managers is to find the balance between giving employees the independence to work on their own and making sure they remain integrated with the rest of the team, no matter where they’re located.
  • Employee Engagement: Employees who are deeply connected to their companies are 55% more productive than those who don’t have the same feelings. Listening to employees’ needs is important, as well as ensuring that those who choose to stay remote feel integrated into the community.

What About Innovation?

Innovation happens best when teams come together and create solutions. Companies that encourage creativity stay ahead of the curve, while those that don’t make the same investment will quickly fall behind. Structures that support innovation include…

  • Effortless Communications: Teams that have free and open conversations with each other innovate on a higher level. The creative energy that arises from the ability to iterate ideas is what drives companies to develop new products and stay at the top of the field. Apps with shared documents and instant communication features allow coworkers to collaborate easily without getting bogged down by slow connections or switching between applications.
  • Time for Teamwork: Whether employees are in-person or remote, prioritizing structured time for everyone to come together is important for fostering new ideas. Creating an intentional schedule specifically for brainstorming sessions ensures coworkers have the time to build trust and feel comfortable sharing ideas. Using screen sharing and video chatting apps can facilitate innovation by enabling everyone to feel like they’re in the same room.
  • Community of Trust: Fostering an environment where it’s safe for ideas to fail as well as succeed is important for innovation. Finding ways to establish connections is always a challenge – even more so without the nuances of personal interaction. Being able to seamlessly switch from text messaging to video chatting removes some of the barriers to communication between coworkers and helps everyone feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts.

It’s clear that investing in communications technology and ensuring that everyone is up to speed will be key factors in supporting productivity and innovation in 2022. For example, communication solutions with integrated collaboration and team meeting apps help bridge the gap between remote and in-person work, providing ways for everyone to feel confident and connected.

Your local TCI team is ready to support your innovation and productivity initiatives with customized technology solutions. Contact us today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

The 2022 HR Challenge – Building a Supportive Company Culture in the Digital Era

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As companies continue with hybrid and remote work arrangements, human resource departments have had to reorganize their priorities. When asked what they saw as their primary role in their organizations in 2021, 65% of HR professionals pointed to “keeping employees engaged and building a supportive company culture,” according to a recent survey.

Replacing the Physical Workplace with a Collaborative Space

The first thing that usually comes to mind when attempting to define “corporate culture” is the physical office. Historically, the workplace environment has had an outsized influence on corporate identity, employee productivity, job satisfaction, and morale.

The needs and values of today’s employees have evolved. Rather than speculating on ways to revive the old culture and re-create it, companies should be using employee input to visualize and create a new culture that transcends the confines of physical space.

How to Create an Authentic Company Culture using UC

Of the organizations that indicated significant transformation since the beginning of 2020, three out of four reported they expect to be more reliant on remote work, according to a recent survey. Not surprisingly, 69% also said they expect to be more reliant on technology for internal collaboration.

Here are some ways organizations can use UC tools like those from Mitel to create and support company culture:

  • Leverage video conferencing tools so both in-office and remote employees can stay informed and engaged on important topics. Equal facetime is important for employees to feel involved and valued.
  • Create shared workspaces where employees can exchange files and documents and store them in one place. This can stem virtual meeting fatigue by reducing the number of status calls and facilitating collaboration across time zones and geographical locations.
  • Record calls when you need to use flex hours and catch up on what you missed by listening to the recordings at a later time. This feature allows employees to achieve better work-life balance while staying involved.
  • Use UC monitoring tools to track project completion and delivery milestones, rather than just time spent on a given project. Employees are more empowered when they’re able to determine their personal workflows.

No two employees work the same way, and UC tools can be used to accommodate different approaches to achieving goals. By providing employees with the flexibility and tools they need, managers can make everyone feel like they’re part of a community, rather than just cogs in a machine.

Your local TCI team is ready to implement UC technologies that support your company culture and employee work styles. Contact us today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

Expansion or Move on the Horizon? Your Technology Plan Needs to be Priority 1

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Whether you’re faced with relocating the company headquarters or adding a new office, ensuring a successful Day One requires that you plan ahead – especially when it comes to office technology.

Engage your local TCI relocation experts well ahead of your move date – keeping in mind that some services can take as long as six months to deliver.

Some of the technologies you need to consider and plan for may include:

  • Voice, Data, and Video services and platforms
  • Wired and Wireless infrastructure
  • Audio/Video and Conferencing Systems
  • Room Scheduling, Overhead Paging, and Sound Masking
  • Access and Security systems
  • Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans

Technology done right takes planning, time, and coordination with ALL the relevant trades involved in your move or new space, including HVAC to protect your IT equipment and UPS to keep your systems running when commercial power fails.

Let TCI experts manage the details. We have decades of experience supporting business and public sector clients in every type of facility…

  • Commercial offices
  • Industrial | Manufacturing
  • Warehouse | Distribution
  • Secure Facilities
  • Retail & Branch Locations

TCI’s certified network engineers are ready to coordinate everything… We’ll work with your real estate professional, general contractor, project manager, designer, and architect to ensure that all technology requirements are included in their plans so you don’t get stuck with expensive and time-consuming change requests.

We’re ready to design, build, manage, and support your technology. Contact us today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

4 Team Collaboration Challenges and How to Overcome Them

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Businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to encourage team collaboration. When successful team skills are absent, your business can end up as a collection of competing silos and individuals.

Collaboration Challenges

  • Poor Engagement – Developing a collaborative group starts with the team itself. This includes buy-in concerning process, direction and expected outcomes. If teams aren’t engaged, they won’t be able to identify problems or find solutions.
  • Competition – Turf wars discourage collaboration. In fact, one of collaboration’s main benefits is that people, even those with vastly different skill sets, can mentor and teach each other.
  • Lack of Transparency – When you have team members whose work depends on others, they need to share their progress, concerns, and obstacles. Without transparency, teams can’t establish trust.
  • No Team Governance – People tend to resent collaboration when they aren’t given clear objectives and key performance indicators or don’t understand what their teammates bring to the table.

The Solutions

  • Start with the mission – To create collaboration, team members need to have a convincing reason to buy into the mission. When they’re given a clear cause to engage in, team members naturally become as passionate about team goals as their leaders. When collaboration permeates the entire organization, everyone wins – engaged employees mean increased retention, faster time to market, and improved profitability.
  • Promote positive change – To strengthen a company, create a values-based culture. When you treat employees as people instead of cogs in a wheel, and ensure their managers focus on positive interactions, you remove the stress that can lead to a toxic workplace. When employees are happy and collaboration improves, so does an organization’s ability to handle sudden disruptions.
  • Foster a culture of innovation – For teams to grow, they need to feel they have the ability to be creative, brainstorm, and question the status quo. It’s also important to ask team members for their ideas and reasoning on a regular basis. The more connected and understood they feel, the more motivated they’ll be to perform, think outside the box, and exceed expectations.
  • Leverage technology – Use technology to strengthen internal and external communication via channels such as messaging and video conference calls. Collaboration tools help keep departments and decision-makers on the same page at all times. This is even more crucial as companies become increasingly distributed.

Team collaboration is the main ingredient your organization needs in order for every other element – talent, innovation, productivity, and profitability – to fall into place.

Let’s talk about overcoming your challenges by leveraging technologies that enable collaboration. Contact TCI today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.