No matter what industry you’re in, your workforce needs clear communication to be successful. Without clear communication, your business will experience delays in work, misunderstandings between departments, and a general sense of chaos.
Most companies try to bring order to chaotic communication by constantly updating spreadsheets or checking emails. But anyone who’s tried this method knows it’s a never-ending, uphill battle.
Clearing your email is tedious and takes up a lot of time. Some emails need to be forwarded to someone else, others get ignored, and simple questions or attachments are missed.
Spreadsheets are equally time-consuming and prone to errors since humans are manually typing in the information. There has to be a better way.
The answer is an enterprise collaboration platform. With an enterprise collaboration platform, your business can bring order to chaotic communication in the workplace.
What is an enterprise collaboration platform?
An enterprise collaboration platform is a digital medium for communication, allowing users to share documents and message one another in real-time. It acts as a company’s internal social media, but serves as a virtual place to store data and discuss work. Enterprise collaboration software brings all of your scattered documents and workplace conversations into one place.
Why companies use an enterprise collaboration platform
Here are some of the main reasons why businesses are switching over to enterprise collaboration platforms:
Paperless documentation
Paper-heavy processes are slow, tedious, and prone to errors. With an enterprise collaboration platform, you can digitize key documents. Users can access and use these documents at any time. This ensures quick and immediate delivery of files to anyone who needs them, along with a permanent digital audit trail.
Organized communication
When enterprises use multiple tools for communication, there will inevitably be miscommunication. Each worker has to check every tool to make sure they didn’t miss any messages. An enterprise collaboration platform is one central hub for all of your communication needs. Workers only have to check one place to see notifications, receive messages, and send messages.
Interdepartmental collaboration
Due to their size, enterprises struggle with collaboration. Departments are often physically separated, even if they work in the same building. This makes communication rare and difficult, especially for remote workers. However, an enterprise collaboration platform brings your diverse and scattered workforce into one place for important conversations. With easy and fast access to all workers, departments can break down communication barriers and collaborate on work more easily.
Important features in an enterprise collaboration platform
Different businesses need different tools, so you will have to research your options and choose the one that meets your needs. However, some features are common to everyone. When considering different platforms, make sure you look for the following features:
File sharing
File sharing allows your workers to upload and view documents inside the platform. Instead of emailing attachments and cc’ing several employees, you can upload the document to the platform and workers can access the file at any time.
Power search
Power search gives users the ability to search through past comments and documents to quickly find the information they’re looking for. A good power search feature can make or break an enterprise collaboration platform. If a search tool is of poor quality, you will struggle to find what you need in an ocean of information. Research to see if the software’s search tool searches all areas of information and the entire history of the information.
Autocomplete
The best power search features have autocomplete, which predicts what you’re searching for and offers suggestions. This makes searching significantly faster and easier. Without autocomplete, you will have to manually type in multiple searches until power search gives you the correct results.
Channels
An enterprise collaboration platform can make communication faster and more accessible, but communication still needs to be organized and compartmentalized. That’s where channels come in. Channels are rooms that have the option to restrict users, giving workers a space to have more private and relevant conversations with their teams.
Announcements
Announcements are posts that every worker receives. They usually show up in a newsfeed that every user can see. This feature is excellent for giving company updates, introducing new leaders, sharing media news, and encouraging your entire workforce.
Best practices for an enterprise collaboration platform
As your company adjusts to using new software, you will discover some practices are better than others. Here are a few of the best practices that will help your workforce get the most out of your enterprise collaboration software:
Give each department a channel
Organize conversations by giving each department their own channel. This allows teams to talk about subjects related specifically to their departments. For example, it would be too chaotic for human resources to share a channel with marketing. Give each team their own channel to discuss their department-specific issues. If these departments need to interact with each other, they can still contact one another.
Give leaders admin roles
Within each channel, you can give individuals admin powers and responsibilities. If a manager leads a team outside of the software, it makes sense for the manager to lead the team within the software as well. This gives each leader the freedom to forge a mini culture within each channel and the power to add or remove individuals from the channel.
Spell out functions and roles
Whether it’s the real workplace or the digital workplace, you have to delegate roles and clearly explain everyone’s job. This way everyone knows what part to play and who to go to when they have a specific problem.
Try Kissflow as your enterprise collaboration platform
Kissflow has the features to meet your company’s collaboration needs and can support unlimited users. And Kissflow is more than collaboration software—it’s also an all-in-one digital workplace, where you can manage projects, cases, and processes.
Take advantage of Kissflow’s free trial and make workplace communication simple, clear, and enjoyable.
