By Jack Roberts
Working remotely in today’s business world can come packed with a wide range of challenges that could impede business efficiency. Among these challenges is collaboration within teams and companies, which is often strained when your employees are all working from home.
However, Microsoft, creator of the Office 365 suite (now part of Microsoft 365) has solved this issue with Microsoft Teams Calling, a VoIP phone system that allows voice communication across broadband connections. In this article, we’ll be taking a look at the main challenges of remote collaboration and why it is important, before explaining how Teams Calling can significantly improve this for your business.
The challenges of remote collaboration
When a business structure includes multiple employees all working remotely, it brings a set of challenges to collaboration that could halt optimal company operation. These main challenges are:
A sense of disconnection – When working remotely, you are away from the rest of your team and the business environment as a whole. This can lead to a sense of disconnection from what’s happening in the business, since you aren’t experiencing face-to-face communication, which may result in a lower work ethic.
Delayed communication – Whenever fast decisions need to be made in the business, or immediate deadlines are approaching, being away from the office environment can be an issue. Instead of visiting your boss’s office, for example, working remotely means you must contact your team using other methods, which could prove very stressful during busy periods.
Unreliable connectivity – Collaboration in remote environments can be immediately disrupted if you or your teammates’ access networks are down. For instance, bad internet connectivity could stop you from receiving/sending important documents or emails, or a bad cell signal could mean your calls are not of sufficient quality.
Why is it important for remote workforces to effectively collaborate?
Effective collaboration is vital, especially for remote workforces, since the communication of the team is what makes the business run smoothly and efficiently. The benefits of effective collaboration include:
Staying on track – It is important to be able to effectively communicate with your workforce because it allows everyone to remain on target. You can check in on other teammates at any time to ensure they are doing the work properly and you can correct each other’s mistakes.
Reputation – Effective collaboration means your team will remain unified, which is reflected in positive outcomes and your business’ reputation. Companies where employees can quickly refer clients to a teammate, or receive information from them, demonstrate a much stronger team business structure.
Well-informed workforce – Great collaboration ensures that everyone knows all the vital information in the business when conducting work. This means that some employees might edit their work depending on what their teammates are doing to improve efficiency.
How can Teams Calling improve remote collaboration?
Teams Calling can significantly improve remote collaboration in various ways, including:
Great quality calls – Teams Calling offers the highest quality phone and video calls for your workforce. This ensures that all communication is clear and accessible, and even allows for video calls to create a feeling of greater connectedness through face-to-face calling.
Reliable collaboration anywhere – With Teams Calling, employees can communicate anywhere they are, and on any connected device.
A vast range of features – Teams Calling comes with a wide range of incredible features that can benefit your team collaboration. For instance, you can easily manage and organise your contacts to ensure all information is up to date. There is also a way to have group meetings where you can all collaborate at once. You can even have a voicemail or delegation system set up to make sure no call is unnoticed and you can always be contacted by your team.
What else can Teams Calling do for remote workforces?
Teams Calling also provides many other things to benefit remote workforces. For instance, all call information can be stored and accessed at any point. With a record of all meetings and information, you can be up to date with everything happening in the business, and know all the clients/employee meetings.
Teams Calling also provides enhanced security features, including multiple firewalls, to prevent cyber breaches. With optimal security, all your company call information has an added layer of protection for its corporate assets and resources.
