How Technology Can Improve Interpersonal Communication
As technology advances, we hear more and more about how disengaged people are becoming as they spend less time talking to each other and more time staring at device screens. But let’s think for a moment about taking advantage of all that staring and turning it into something positive!
How about using those screens to enhance employee collaboration and interpersonal communication? Perhaps instead of asking employees to stay off of social media, turn off their cell phones and disengage from the outside world, instead organizations should shift their focus to finding ways to take advantage of the use of these tools. Because maybe doing so will allow workers to incorporate the technology they love into the business operations, which can increase employee productivity and interpersonal communication.
But how can businesses today make this (sometimes drastic) transition effectively? Here are a few technology transition tips:
Tip #1: Encourage BYOD
Businesses can’t fight the mobile shift any longer, and they’re implementing policies and procedures that promote a ‘work from anywhere’ atmosphere. Allowing an employee to answer emails or conference into a meeting provides the flexibility they need to perhaps catch their daughter’s track meet that afternoon, while still remaining engaged and aware of what’s happening with the business. It’s a convenience that’s seen as a fair trade.
Creating a BYOD (bring your own device) environment keeps employees more deeply connected to the business, encouraging them to respond to emails faster, return phone calls and take care of business at any time, day or night. When all employees engage in this behavior, the communication response times are enhanced both within the organization as well as with the customers.
Tip #2: Develop a Virtual Team Environment
The list of collaboration tools available in today’s tech-savvy world is seemingly endless. Simply listening in on a conference call just won’t cut it when it comes to truly engaging and communicating. Utilizing video chatting, project management tools and document sharing applications allow all employees to actively engage, participate and communicate as if they were there.
Tip #3: Allow Social Media Use
Remember the days when almost every business was blocking Facebook from their company network? Those days are dissolving as companies realize that social media can be a powerful way to grow conversation and humanize a workforce. Social sites like Facebook give a personal connection between coworkers and clients. When utilized effectively, social media can serve as a powerful way to build relationships, encourage conversation and improve worker satisfaction.
Tip #4: Implement Unified Communications
Social media, conferencing, chat, project management software, document sharing tools, and the list of technologies needed to transform your workforce communication processes goes on and on. That’s a lot of technology elements to keep track of and maintain! To solve this issue, organizations are finding unified communications (UC) tools that can pull everything together into one powerful platform. So instead of trying to track down a bunch of different elements, a UC solution provides the tools and resources needed in a single location, which saves time, frustration and effort.
When workplace communication, technology, and productivity are enhanced, the environment turns from feeling frustrated and disconnected to engaged and joyful. Although a drastic turn from how businesses used to function, focusing on collaborative technology use is transforming workforce communication and (almost) everyone likes it.
