How collaboration will change post-pandemic

Until rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly, the word “team­work” for most peo­ple would have con­jured up an image of a group of peo­ple phys­i­cal­ly assem­bled work­ing togeth­er towards a com­mon goal. Like it or not, the world has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly over the past 12 months, forc­ing shifts in how we live, exer­cise, socialise and work. 

When it comes to the lat­ter, the mul­ti­tude of logis­ti­cal chal­lenges thrown up by the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic for many busi­ness­es has giv­en way to rapid inno­va­tion. Teams that had pre­vi­ous­ly relied on phys­i­cal spaces to bring togeth­er the skills and knowl­edge of their mem­bers sud­den­ly found them­selves thrust into a new nor­mal, where Zoom calls and instant mes­sen­ger ser­vices have become con­duits for almost every type of work inter­ac­tion. 

For bet­ter or worse, we’ve had to adapt and a return to the past in terms of office-based work seems incon­ceiv­able at this point, as more and more busi­ness­es weigh up the cost-sav­ings that can be made if they depri­ori­tise the need for phys­i­cal office space. 

As lock­down restric­tions begin to ease in the UK, it is there­fore a pre­scient time to con­sid­er what aspects of dig­i­tal col­lab­o­ra­tion that have been devel­oped over the past year are worth hold­ing on to and which we’re hap­py to leave behind. Which new skills have been high­light­ed as nec­es­sary to sur­viv­ing in such an envi­ron­ment? What new tech­nolo­gies are prov­ing most use­ful? And what will this all mean for the future of work more gen­er­al­ly?

“COVID-19 has undoubt­ed­ly accel­er­at­ed process­es of how teams now col­lab­o­rate and many busi­ness­es have been review­ing and upgrad­ing their com­mu­ni­ca­tions sys­tems and process­es,” says Nicole Alvi­no, co-founder and chief strat­e­gy offi­cer at Social­Cho­rus, a col­lab­o­ra­tion plat­form. 

“The suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion of this often depends on har­mo­ny between the tech exper­tise  of chief infor­ma­tion offi­cers and their IT teams, and the human input of human resources and inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions depart­ments.” 

This expe­ri­ence cer­tain­ly rings true for the soft­ware com­pa­ny Drop­box. “At the start of the pan­dem­ic, we moved quick­ly to manda­to­ry work from home,” says Andy Wil­son, direc­tor of new prod­uct ini­tia­tives. “We need­ed to ensure we had the right tools to enable our employ­ees to col­lab­o­rate as effec­tive­ly as nor­mal.” 

What tools are needed for the future of work?

Hav­ing the right tools of course makes a huge dif­fer­ence. Whether that’s project man­age­ment tools, such as Asana or Base­camp, instant mes­sag­ing via Slack or a com­pa­ny Zoom account, access to a diverse set of soft­ware makes a huge dif­fer­ence. And new tools are being devel­oped all the time, as more prob­lems crop up that kick­start inno­v­a­tive solu­tions-focused mis­sions. 

Accord­ing to Alvi­no, hav­ing an open mind to new tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ments, as well as an open ear to what staff say works best, is crit­i­cal. 

Recent research by Social­Cho­rus sup­ports this notion, with more than four in ten respon­dents wor­ry­ing that “cen­tral­is­ing employ­ee engage­ment through a sin­gle plat­form, rather than using a blend of tech­nolo­gies their work­ers pre­fer, will need­less­ly com­pli­cate mat­ters”.

For Drop­box, beyond the adop­tion of new tools, har­mon­i­sa­tion of wide­spread remote-work­ing prac­tices neces­si­tat­ed some out-of-the-box think­ing. “We believe that this lev­el of col­lab­o­ra­tion goes beyond just the use of video calls,” says Wil­son. 

In Dropbox’s case, they were able to use their own prod­ucts to give them a head start on col­lab­o­rat­ing effec­tive­ly from home. The shift has not been with­out its chal­lenges, but Wil­son cred­its a strong cul­ture of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with enabling the busi­ness to con­tin­ue to thrive in such an uncer­tain oper­at­ing envi­ron­ment. “Giv­ing employ­ees the right space and time to com­mu­ni­cate and be cre­ative with their col­leagues is essen­tial,” he says.

Aside from the more logis­ti­cal side of adjust­ing to col­lab­o­rat­ing remote­ly, and the tools required to do this effec­tive­ly, the shift to work­ing from home has had an impact on the behav­iour­al habits of busi­ness­es. For many peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly par­ents, work­ing in sol­id blocks from 9am to 5pm every day has been incom­pat­i­ble with oth­er respon­si­bil­i­ties. 

Enhancing team collaboration

Accord­ing to Jess Bak­er, busi­ness psy­chol­o­gist and women’s lead­er­ship coach, it is the “cli­mate” of an organ­i­sa­tion that tends to deter­mine how suc­cess­ful­ly they have adjust­ed. “Busi­ness­es with employ­ees who feel trust­ed and respect­ed are more like­ly to cope bet­ter than organ­i­sa­tions whose employ­ees feel under­val­ued and micro-man­aged,” she says. 

“The ones who are doing best at the moment are those with ele­ments of the teal organ­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture – think con­cen­tric cir­cles instead of a lay­ered pyra­mid that you’d find in a tra­di­tion­al struc­ture – which allows for self-man­age­ment, a flu­id approach to work­load and faster, lean­er deci­sion-mak­ing.” 

There are a num­ber of ways to enhance the abil­i­ty of a team to col­lab­o­rate. At Drop­box, they intro­duced “core col­lab­o­ra­tion hours”, when employ­ees from across the world are all online at the same time, to ensure teams can com­mu­ni­cate reg­u­lar­ly. Wil­son says the suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion of this has gone hand in hand with an accep­tance of what he calls “non-lin­ear work­ing days”, when work is mea­sured by tasks com­plet­ed rather than hours sit­ting at the desk.

For Bak­er, these changes have had an impact on the types of skills a man­ag­er will need to exhib­it to make the most of the oppor­tu­ni­ties pre­sent­ed by an increase in remote work­ing. “The com­pas­sion­ate leader who builds trust, respect and takes a per­son­al authen­tic inter­est in an employee’s well­be­ing is going to have a more pro­duc­tive and engaged work­force than the task-focused man­ag­er whose sole inter­est is in the out­put,” she explains. 

Self-aware­ness will also become a crit­i­cal skill, Bak­er believes. “Man­agers have to look after them­selves and seek sup­port when they need it,” she says. The good news is Bak­er believes these skills are learnt rather than innate.

“Every indi­vid­ual has the capac­i­ty to devel­op the four com­po­nents of the com­pas­sion­ate leader,” she says. “They are self-aware­ness, self-man­age­ment, social aware­ness and rela­tion­ship man­age­ment. As a leader they help you to bet­ter influ­ence oth­ers, man­age con­flict, improve your team-work­ing skills and enable you to be a more engag­ing and moti­va­tion­al leader.”

When it comes to more prac­ti­cal advice, Bak­er sug­gests using com­mu­ni­ca­tion plat­forms that enable real-time chat and project-focused chan­nels so col­leagues can check in and update each oth­er as often as they need to. She also rec­om­mends “ditch­ing lengthy ‘infor­ma­tion-dump’ meet­ings”. When you do meet, she says, “only include the peo­ple who need to know or are respon­si­ble for tak­ing action”. 

Along­side this focus on devel­op­ing new skills, many com­pa­nies are focus­ing on inno­v­a­tive ways to approach a return to in-per­son work. At Drop­box, this means intro­duc­ing stu­dios specif­i­cal­ly designed for in-per­son col­lab­o­ra­tion, such as team meet­ings or large events, which aren’t intend­ed for every­day use or solo work.

“There will be no indi­vid­ual desks in our stu­dios,” says Wil­son. “We believe that bal­anc­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty and free­dom, while main­tain­ing one-to-one work­ing, offers the best of both worlds.”

Oth­er firms are look­ing at ways to make remote work­ing feel more per­son­al. Nigel Can­nings, chief tech­nol­o­gy offi­cer at Intel­li­gent Voice, an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence com­pa­ny, hopes to do this via the devel­op­ment of aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AR), and even­tu­al­ly vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR), meet­ing soft­ware. 

“You just don’t build the same rap­port over Zoom as you do in per­son. The way we work post-lock­down will change fun­da­men­tal­ly,” he says, “and most peo­ple won’t have a choice in what their new work set-up looks like, with many com­pa­nies decid­ing against return­ing to an office-based struc­ture.” 

This is where tech­nol­o­gy can help, Can­nings believes, although he is quick to clar­i­fy that much of this soft­ware devel­op­ment hinges on AR and VR hard­ware being more afford­able and read­i­ly avail­able in the near future.

The con­cept of plan­ning ahead may seem futile after a year in which the only con­stant has been change. What is clear, though, is those com­pa­nies that estab­lish cul­tures fos­ter­ing clear and open com­mu­ni­ca­tions, while lis­ten­ing to the needs of employ­ees, will be best placed to seize oppor­tu­ni­ties in a post-pan­dem­ic busi­ness envi­ron­ment.