A blog post by Melodie Fleury, Business Consultant at MondayCoffee
Strictly speaking, we are very lucky: the market is neither lacking in technologies, systems nor solutions for modern working. New tools are continuously being developed, existing ones improved or entire tool landscapes consolidated to simplify collaboration - or so the theory goes. Practice shows that many companies still lack the right infrastructure, a uniform basis for everyday work. The result: complex processes, information chaos, loss of time and money. Especially in corporate groups, this is a brake on success, but one that can easily be solved.
TYPICAL CHALLENGES IN CORPORATE GROUPS
As a rule, the larger the company, the more information and communication there is to process - and the more difficult it is to maintain an overview. In addition, work and communication often takes place in silos. Without the right collaboration solution, it becomes almost impossible to exchange knowledge or information between different companies in a group. This is also the case with one of our customers, a Swiss group of companies. The challenges, which often grow over the years, are mostly of a technical, cultural and structural nature.
Technical challenges: The system landscape of companies has often existed for years, if not decades. Once set up, it has hardly been touched or changed in any major way. As a result, there is a lack of infrastructure that meets current work requirements. This starts with digital places of collaboration and extends to the processes and access rights for smooth working. In many cases, data is still sent as attachments by mail. This quickly results in umpteen different versions - and confusion about which file is the most current.
Cultural challenges: Especially in conservative industries, the corporate culture is still strongly hierarchical. Communication is more top-down than bottom-up. In addition, there is a lack of role models who exemplify the "modern workplace" and demonstrate potential. Employees are not sufficiently empowered to obtain relevant information, share knowledge or take responsibility.
Structural challenges: One of the most common symptoms of the siloed landscape is an uneven flow of information. Without uniform processes and specifications across the company, chaos quickly follows. This starts with distribution lists: If distribution lists are not maintained centrally and synchronized automatically, someone is quickly forgotten and lost in communication. Knowledge is shared informally in small groups: Those who were not present at the right time during the smoking break or at the coffee machine are not informed or are informed late. Within an organization there are departmental silos, within a group of companies there are corporate silos. Another problem is that employees do not have the opportunity to contribute themselves and their skills in the right places. The skills and knowledge of those involved remain hidden in the silo jungle.
Getting an all new meeting culture
The solution is simple: "Keep it simple" - digitally. This is exactly where MondayCoffee's Modern Workplace solution (CoffeeNet 365) comes in. Based on best practices, the collaboration platform enables centralized, simplified and efficient work - in real time and from any location.
“One of the most common productivity killers in companies is still having too many meetings.”
The rethinking already starts with the meeting culture. One of the most common productivity obstacles in companies is still too many meetings that are unstructured and without an agenda. This was also the case for our customer. MondayCoffee provided the Swiss group with a meeting app that makes recurring meetings easy, efficient and structured.
The app enables each individual to plan meetings, prepare for topics or introduce meeting points with just a few clicks. Meetings are now much more efficient and transparent than before, which was met with great enthusiasm by our customer's employees.
AWAY FROM INFORMATION SILOS, TOWARDS COMMUNITY
Modern collaboration solutions are designed to create transparency. Projects, but also individual topics, are visible at a glance with the help of such a platform - for everyone with the necessary authorizations. Relevant documents and personal tasks are easier to find and keep track of. And especially helpful in corporate groups: You can finally see what is happening in other departments and companies.
Work becomes more transparent and efficient
At the same time, everyday work becomes more efficient: The introduction of a new Workplace solution is an opportunity to clean up the old chaos in structures, processes or documents and to redesign the basis. Uniform communication channels, media and tools such as the meeting app streamline processes and free up resources for actual tasks. Documents are stored and edited in a central location on the platform - so that everyone has the latest version available at all times and from anywhere. Outdated email attachments in dozens of versions are a thing of the past. The tedious manual creation of distribution lists is also a thing of the past - the Workspaces feature takes care of that.
Projects, topics and processes are more transparent on the Modern Workplace platform and can be viewed by all - in dedicated virtual collaboration rooms that are set up simply and uniformly. Instead of the old e-mail flood, Microsoft Teams is used for short-term exchange.
Potential becomes visible - at employee and group level
The new way of working on the collaboration platform automatically strengthens the sense of unity within the group. News posts can be used to send targeted messages across the various departments and companies. All areas have the opportunity to present themselves there and show what they are working on and what competencies they offer. The contribution of new ideas meets with public appreciation and is actively promoted.
Often, this is also accompanied by a subtle change in culture: employees can show themselves, learn from each other, participate more easily and act as role models. High potentials, i.e., particularly committed employees, emerge more easily and can be promoted in a targeted manner. On the one hand, this has a positive effect on employee motivation; on the other hand, it also simplifies personnel planning and succession planning. In the long term, hierarchies become flatter and people work together as equals.
Working together more efficiently in virtual collaboration rooms
Onboarding new employees can be made more efficient, speeding up the onboarding process. But collaboration also becomes easier as information silos are broken down. Roles and responsibilities can be defined uniformly and clearly - whether within a company's own team, across departments or with external parties.
All in all, the potential of the whole group can be better utilized and interdisciplinary collaboration can be promoted throughout the group. This also opens up the opportunity to present a modern company or group to employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders - with an attractive, contemporary and modern working environment.
HOW DOES THE COLLABORATION WITH MONDAYCOFFEE WORK?
The procedure in such projects is always similar: In the so-called discovery workshops, we analyze the previous collaboration. This includes, for example, communication and collaboration, target/actual comparisons, opportunities, and potential risks and dangers. In the next step, we talk about the effects of these changes in relation to the current way of working and derive new collaboration scenarios together with our customer.
The third workshop aims to obtain a big picture of the new form of collaboration and to plan the procedure, structure and responsibilities. In the later workshops, we get down to the nitty-gritty, such as mapping the structure, working out the various concepts, such as for authorizations, news and also automating processes.
“Our work is done when employees can work well and, above all, happily with the new solution.”
Throughout the process, we provide our customers with advice and support and work together in a close and friendly exchange. Our work is done when everyone is satisfied with the new solution at the end. And to ensure that employees can later work well - and above all happily - with the new solution, we train everyone in the use of the new platform.
