Productivity enhancement: creating a framework for an efficient virtual collaboration

Corporate modus operandi has been undergoing an irreversible transformation, mostly related to flexible hours and hybrid work. Are organizations able to match the pace in development and adjust their frameworks so that productivity does not slip through the cracks of the new system?

Multinationals and outsourcing affirmed global teams, across geographies and time zones, decades ago with instant communication platforms as principal tools to manage, engage and collaborate. COVID19 made that practice grow bigger, spread wider, and become the new standard. Zoom, for instance, started 2020 with a $328M turnover in Q1 only to double that within the next quarter and finish the year with over $2,5B of revenue. That represented 300%+ growth in 2020, which continued with 53% in 2021.

What does this trend mean for business? In short, more meetings: 54%of office employees say that they are attending more meetings now than they were before the pandemic when collaboration also meant chatting by the water cooler. Unfortunately, more meetings do not necessarily translate to better teamwork: according to recent research 55% of the time employees are checking emails during online meetings, and more than half of the time they are multitasking and/or texting. It appears that both productivity and employee engagement might be slipping through the cracks in a post-COVID world.

This is the second article out of two on this phenomenon. The first one (Are conference calls lowering our productivity?) sheds light on what an individual can do to increase their productivity in the new world of virtual office space. This one, however, reviews the topic from the organizational perspective: what kind of framework should organizations develop in order to drive the efficiency and effectiveness of online collaboration. In other words, how should businesses structurally approach this new virtual reality?

The basis of an effective online collaboration framework

Having a foundation that prescribes best practices relative to online collaboration will decrease time waste, reduce distraction and improve overall office productivity. This is why every organization that plans on embracing this shift in the workspace from tangible to virtual needs to have a framework: a process or a set of policies to drive desired behavior.

One such framework needs to be defined so that it makes sense in a bespoke context, and the goal is to make online collaboration efficient and effective–not to control, restrain or micromanage it. There are a few elements of general etiquette that should be always considered when designing the playing field:

• Insist on scheduling meetings 10–15 minutes apart

• Prescribe “weekly collaboration timeframe” loosely–i.e. one day without meetings or daily 9–11h distraction-free zones to focus

• Make a distinction between “to” and “cc” fields in an email or “mandatory” and “optional” in a meeting invite (you can read more on how to do that here)

• Encourage direct, 1:1 communication over a phone vs setting up meetings or email chains

• Where possible, rely more on call for action in emails, using @ to tag coworkers and bullet points to brief recipients on their “to dos”

• Insist on using videos for conference calls, both internally and externally –body language is circa 70% of communication

• Arriving to meetings on time and sticking to the topic is basic and a must.

The online collaboration framework: effective meeting management

In order to be productive, a meeting needs to have a goal, agenda, duration, list of participants, and expected deliverables. Every employee should be trained on how to effectively manage their own meetings and invites (suggest reading the previous article) but the organization can reinforce that by setting standards.

The first step in an effective meeting management process happens before the meeting — by sending out an agenda with a list of topics and estimated time for each to all participants. This helps set the expectations and enables everyone to come prepared. The organizer should ensure that all needed information is available ahead of time — a meeting to review pricing offers for a customer should not be scheduled unless the quote file is ready for review.

Next, the meeting should start with an introduction, a few sentences explaining the context, the purpose, and the expected key deliverable: unfortunately not all attendees will always come prepared or have the same understanding of the topic. However, staying in line with the agenda is the actual key challenge in the effective meeting management process and is the first responsibility of the organizer/moderator.

Best practices show that when there is a vivid discussion on one of the agenda items threatening to jeopardize the timeline, the key would be to ask if it is truly relevant to the main goal of the meeting. If it is, then before going any further there has to be an agreement to extend the meeting or a new date to complete it. If however the discussion gets reduced to a detail or a non-core topic, which is most likely to be the case, the moderator/organizer needs to place it on a virtual parking lot and ask for a volunteer to pick it up and resolve.

However, sometimes, things will get out of control and meetings will run over. From a mental health perspective, this is not a good thing as it can fill in those 15’ gaps in between meetings, meant for people to decompress, finish minutes and quickly check emails so that they could be productive at the next meeting.

The last step of the process is wrapping up the meeting with a clear plan: actions, owners, deadlines, and an agreed follow-up method. Sending out minutes and scheduling the agreed follow-up immediately after the meeting, while it is fresh, to all participants ensures alignment and rounds up the topic so that psychologically, the organizer/moderator can move on to the next topic.

However, before doing so-take a break: researches show that breaks between meetings allow the brain to “reset,” reducing a cumulative buildup of stress across meetings.

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The way we do business has transformed permanently and irreversibly. Yet, it seems that most organizations have some catching up to do. Office etiquette is there-i.e. conference room bookings, dress code, etc., but the action is now happening in a virtual office and we need a framework to manage those.

However, as with any new framework, the key to success lies in the implementation: putting words into practice is critical and can be achieved through training and repetition and then monitored for amendments and feedback. Middle management needs to play their role and lead the change but the good news is that they are incentivized to do so as an average executive spends over 50% of their time attending meetings.

How is your organization doing relative to the new business reality of virtual workspace? Is it driving productivity with training and best practices on effective online collaboration management or is it leaving it up to employees to work their way through google….?