The new world of work has conclusively changed the way we communicate and collaborate. With employees working from multiple locations, the challenge for companies is to provide the technology to support three modes of work: office-based, remote and hybrid. In this article, we discuss how to establish a way of working and the tools that enable seamless communication and collaboration in a work-from-anywhere environment.

Many people experience remote or hybrid working as liberating, at the same time new challenges arise. How can we communicate effectively in this situation? What is a good office environment in the cloud era? How can you enable your employees to work from wherever and whenever they want?

It starts with culture and then the right tools

The answers all come down to culture. You can't just send employees a laptop and expect them to communicate effectively with their colleagues. There needs to be a culture shift within the company, supported by platforms that promote collaboration and communication.

As Steve Jobs once said, "Great things in business are never done by one person; they're done by a team of people." So how can forward-looking companies foster better communication and collaboration within a work-from-anywhere organisation to actually achieve these great things?

Take on the Anywhere-Anytime Challenge

Today, employees choose when they work and where they work. This promotes asynchronous collaboration and allows for a greater part of the day to be used.

Knowledge workers need to be able to collaborate from virtually any device and at any time - but this shift brings challenges.

Thus, not only are knowledge workers themselves dispersed, but also their documents and data. According to findings from Wakefield Research and Elastic, one in five knowledge workers report that searching for relevant information is their biggest problem while working remotely.

Employees often lack access to important documents due to a lack of collaborative, user-friendly tools and therefore often use outdated information. Usually because they emailing documents around so that no one knows what the correct version is.

Unlocking information and enabling employees to share it easily and securely is essential for businesses to get more done in an always-open world. But you can't do that if important information is locked away in data silos, a colleague's mailbox or on a hard drive somewhere in an office.

The first step is to connect all critical data into a single source of truth, known as the single-point-of-truth. This can be done with a Document management system, so that all employees have access to the information they need at the time they need it.

The second step is to facilitate different types of content collaboration, such as reviewing, co-authoring and approvals. All these examples can be realised time- and location-independent to improve communication within an organisation, as well as with customers and partners.

Promote information sharing

Information sharing has changed in the work-from-anywhere world. Employees can no longer tap each other on the shoulder to ask a question or walk into someone's office for help. Companies therefore need to find a way to make the information that is in the heads of their employees available to the entire organisation.

Raising awareness of information sharing requires coaching. Coaching at individual and team level can systematically work towards a culture of information sharing.

In addition to culture, an organisation should support this with document management software. At the most basic level, this could mean storing all content from the above activities in a central repository. In a more proactive approach, passing a (mandatory) training course, for example, could be a condition for accessing information from this central repository.

The other aspect of successful sharing is the ability to discover (new) content quickly. This starts with transparent and easily accessible content. Not only from a technical point of view, but also from the point of view of permissions, for example, so that every employee in the company has the right access to the available information.

With a good Document management system (DMS) classify and label your information so that it is easily found. This allows employees to search documents by what they are and what they relate to, rather than by where they are stored.

Support brainstorming, problem solving and development

This new work-from-anywhere world also opens up more opportunities for brainstorming and problem solving. Traditionally, brainstorming sessions were held in a conference room, with some employees unable to participate due to their location or lack of time. Now, they can be held via video calls or in the form of a shared document. In which team members can leave their questions, suggestions or ideas and everyone can collaborate at their convenience.

This can foster creative collaboration and make employees more open to feedback. It relieves pressure because you don't experience direct physical feedback, so you are generally more open-minded and thus come up with more creative ideas.

Another way to make your organisation more collaborative, efficient and dynamic is to provide easy access to development opportunities. In addition to comprehensive onboarding processes and information libraries, organisations can offer employees internal learning and self-development courses, but where and when they want. This not only enables employees to do what they were hired to do, but also takes them to the next level.

Work-from-anywhere can create hurdles for organisations at first, but with the right strategy, organisational processes and tools, it actually creates a foundation where communication and collaboration becomes more effective and efficient than ever.

Curious how this could work for your organisation? Schedule an online meeting With a Dutch expert!