When Less is More: Slack and Microsoft Teams Combat Collaboration Burnout
How do you measure the value of workplace collaboration? In a recent webinar from Nemertes, analyst Irwin Lazar shared how, in years past, many companies would use performance metrics to evaluate success. Now, with new Team Collaboration platforms entering the market, enterprises are turning to utilization (how companies get employees to use the tools) as the primary metric. Qualitative analysis is growing more important, and company leaders want to know what the associated business value is of their tools: internal productivity, more effective business communication with outside partners or customers, and other key measures.
However, a potential barrier for many companies in achieving a high business value is information overload. Contributors for The New York Times have recently criticized Slack for being counterproductive to an efficient workflow. In addition to email, employees now also have to weed through hundreds of collaboration messages. But these collaboration vendors are realizing that while they want users to communicate, they want that communication to be meaningful.
In a recent article from IT Pro Today, writer Paul Heltzel explores the ways some of the top team collaboration companies are evolving their platforms to combat collaboration burnout.
Slack Streamlines with Bot Solutions
Slack can install bots that tap into workflows without leaving the interface and reduce some time-consuming menial tasks. Timebot handles vacation requests and notifies team members when co-workers are out of the office so messages are streamlined. Additionally, Workast can be used to convert chat discussions into to-do items, prioritizing conversation items.
Slack also hosts an entire category of productivity software add-ins, including a “Do Not Disturb” mode that controls the flow of messages for certain times of the day and Reminders in Slack, which helps employees assign tasks to specific team members, avoiding the back-and-forth across channels of who owns which projects.
Microsoft Teams Turns to Third-Party Integrations
For Microsoft Teams, the platform has a number of third-party integrations that can be added to free up time. For example, Zoom.ai provides a natural language assistant in Teams that can manage a calendar or help find files more easily so employees aren’t sorting through multiple message threads. Microsoft Teams also enables features like hidden channels that help control what chats are sent and when, for instance only delivering messages from a channel when they’re marked important.
An Evolving Digital Landscape
For Team Collaboration platforms to truly succeed, a balance must exist between quantity and quality. As businesses evaluate the value of such tools and how to efficiently manage them, new integrations and updates will naturally develop to meet these demands. And, as Slack and Microsoft Teams gain even more prominence, the last thing they want is to be fueling a market of stressed-out employees who hate the platforms they rely on so much.
Originally published at https://nextplane.net on September 10, 2019.
