Ask First, Don’t Assume You Know How Your Staff Prefer to Work

People, generations, workplaces and industries all use technology differently. Businesses need to uncover their workforce’s preferences and apply this knowledge to existing and future collaboration and communications technologies.

The importance of having a clear collaboration roadmap and alignment between IT, executives and employees came up during our roundtable on workplace success.

After all, one individual might prefer an agile working environment. They move around their office using different communication applications – a small meeting room for an audio conference, a huddle space for a private video call. When heading to a meeting, their train is delayed – they use their business’s collaboration platform to update the status of a project.

Their colleague may be more static. They’re at their desktop most of the day and rely on unified communications to collaborate with team members located in another country. Real-time presence shows when colleagues are available for a phone call. While they wait, they review new training materials from the company’s content library.

These two scenarios are different, but they’re both examples of productive working environments and show what’s possible when a business carefully plans out its collaboration strategy.

Bear in mind, the above only delivers success when applications are tailored to end-users, integrated with other solutions across the business, and proactively supported long-term to ensure reliability and availability.

Managers must acknowledge that their own working preferences may differ considerably from the majority of their team. This is why we focus on the entire business when assessing what solutions are right for our customers. Technology is only as good as its users and we make sure employees understand how a new solution can help them in the long-term.

Once people are shown the benefits, they are more inclined to take the time to integrate an application into their own workflows, especially if the solution has been designed specifically with the user in mind.