Home /Featured Articles/ Three Ways to Digitalize Your Office with Google
Digitalization is important to companies and what technologies are implemented directly impacts a company’s success. Take a moment to evaluate your organization’s level of digital maturity by asking yourself: “Is the digital technology your business decided on enabling the potential of your workforce, or smothering it?”
Digitalized workspaces have fundamentally changed the way people work and the ability to work remotely can often be a deciding factor in an individual’s choice to join an organization. That is why migration to cloud-based software solutions is an important step to take in order to effectively support and collaborate with off-site employees, retaining the value they offer.
By embracing digitalization and choosing the right software and hardware solutions, you catalyze the potential energy of your business. In this article, we have organized the best practices for using Google-based technology to reap all the benefits of Google’s ecosystem and liberate your workforce
While working remotely is not yet standard practice, it is an inevitable change that companies will have to face sooner rather than later. If your company is not equipped technologically to support this change, you risk missing out on alienating the next generation of professionals.
The cloud infrastructure provided by G Suite empowers the “connected generation” of professionals to do their jobs remotely and allows companies to maximize resources. This is accomplished via co-authoring apps, such as Google Docs, and conferencing apps, like Hangouts Meet, which enable remote teams to collaborate in real time as if they’re in the same room.
Salesforce - whose employees conduct over 15,000 Hangout Meets per day - notes that apps like Docs and Hangouts Meet break down communication barriers, making employees and partners feel like members of the same team.1
Unlike other productivity software solutions on the market, G Suite can be accessed via the internet by staff for use on their personal devices, skirting the need for frustrating VPNs and allowing employees to achieve an easier work-life balance.
The real power of G Suite lies in integration among teams, departments, and sites along with easy incorporation into the staff’s personal technology. This seamless ability to connect people and technology optimizes employee teamwork and project execution for visible results
A recent Korn Ferry report showed that recruiting and retaining talent is one of the top tasks keeping technology officers awake at night.2 One of key reasons for this is that top talent has increasingly high technological expectations for upper management when entering a new company.
Meeting rooms are one of the spaces employees use to gauge the competence of a company. The meeting room technology they see will have a significant impact on their first impression of your company. Ask your IT manager the following question: “Does your conferencing system technology enable employees to do their best work?” If not, it could adversely affect employee recruitment and retention.
Conferencing tools such as Hangout Meets hardware - which integrates Hangouts Meet with a touchscreen, speaker mic, camera, and Chromebox – provide a high-quality video conferencing solution. Giving employees high-end tools to do their jobs makes them feel that their work is truly valued.
Besides integrating directly with apps such as Calendar to organize upcoming calls, Hangouts Meet hardware can record and save entire meetings to your company’s Google Drive. Calendar integration saves vital time when arranging meetings and the built-in recording feature removes the needs for 3rd party recording software. Encouraging performance with forward-thinking technology shifts employee focus from menial tasks to collaboration, creating a more engaging environment.
Fortune 500 technology company Sanmina is working to equip at least one room in each of its 75 manufacturing facilities around the world with Hangouts Meet hardware, praising the savings in time and travel costs as well as the bigger benefit of bringing employees together3
Acquiring new technologies and adopting new systems requires a lot of time and effort on for both staff and IT departments. Hangouts Meet makes it easy and will save your business time and money right out the box. Unlike a new desk from Ikea, Hangouts Meet hardware arrives ready to go with minimal assembly required. Also, Hangouts Meet hardware extends the walls of your business to any location in the world while simultaneously boosting employee satisfaction.
In his book, Creativity, Inc., Pixar Animation Studio co-founder Ed Catmull says: “I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them... they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them.”
By tethering employees with family responsibilities or long commutes to the office, you risk dampening their enthusiasm and therefore their ability. However, making sure all members of a remotely distributed team are aligned is a challenge.
With tools like the Google Jamboard – an interactive whiteboard solution that combines the best collaboration features of G Suite - distributed teams can literally stay on the same page regardless of where they are. While on-site teams work on projects such as software development or architectural designs on the Jamboard, remote participants can stay fully engaged using their desktop or mobile devices. WithvJamboard, software developers tending to a sick child at home can directly engage with and contribute to the team as if everyone were in the same room. They can share files, edit documents, and communicate with other team members in real time with nothing but an internet connection.
Jamboard is the only digital whiteboard that fully integrates with G Suite, allowing users to grab and edit content directly from their Google Drive and instantly share it with other employees. This enables staff to keep projects constantly moving, regardless of where they are located, eliminating duplications and maximizing efficiency.
A global leader in semiconductor and infrastructure software, Broadcom praised Jamboard for how it helps staff develop and share projects as well as enables managers to better control access to drawings.4
Meanwhile, digital marketing company, Instrument says Jamboard helps their staff focus more on the ideas and less on translating or assigning creative direction to different teams. This cutting edge technology is not just a meeting tool, but a way to significantly enhance office communication. By removing barriers to effective remote collaboration via technology such as this, you keep off-site employees engaged and give teams the space they need to take business-changing ideas to their full potential
In conclusion, clearing the path for employee achievement starts with investing in truly collaborative tools such as G Suite, Hangout Meets Hardware, and Jamboard. Combined, these tools offer a truly unique and forward-thinking office experience that not only effects remote collaboration, but also retention rates, employee creativity, and your company’s bottom line.
Improve your business and create a more efficient workforce by staying ahead of the curve and attracting top talent by setting burgeoning trends such as remote workforce as your business strategy right now. Upgrade your meeting tools to make seamless global collaboration a reality and make sure your technology frees up your team’s creative potential.
