‘The Future of Work’ author, Jacob Morgan, has identified the 12 ways to use technology effectively in order to create collaborative organisations.

There are:

1. Lead by example: ensure leaders use and role model support collaborative tools and strategies
2. Individual benefit vs corporate benefit: identify what will improve how staff work. E.g. Take the time to work side by side to implement useful technology
3. Strategy before technology: understand why something is needed before building a new platform
4. Learn to get out of the way: avoid policing the expression of collaboration
5. Listen to the voice of the employee: get staff feedback on projects regularly to increase engagement
6. Integrate into the flow of work: make it easier to use technology, rather than requiring staff to log into multiple dashboards
7. Create a supportive environment: make training and education resources easily available
8. Measure what matters: avoid collecting data that do not directly improve team experiences
9. Persistence: measure what technologies make day-to-day work easier
10. Adapt and evolve: host internal ‘social business’ conferences to improve communication within your organisation
11. Employee collaboration also benefits the customer: create ways to crowd source issues and requests across the organisation
12. Collaboration can make the world a better place: reduce stress by enabling positive collaboration

Morgan writes:

“It’s important to remember that collaboration is perpetual. It’s a never ending evolution as new tools and strategies for the workplace continue to emerge. This means that it’s important for your organisation to be able to adapt and evolve as things change.”