How visual collaboration helps hybrid teams

The entire world shifted to WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic and here are a few things that we learned from it:

• We don’t need to go to the office every day
• Productivity can be as high
• Visual collaboration is absolutely necessary

Thanks to the internet and a plethora of innovative collaborative applications, teams can work as efficiently as they were in the office from home. Several studies have shown increased productivity when teams work from home and employees are 47% more productive than usual. Suffice to say, remote work is not going anywhere and that is going to transform the way we will work in the future.

In this zipBoard article, we will talk about hybrid work mode, collaboration applications that improve it, and visual collaboration’s impact on remote teams.

Let’s get straight into it.

What is the hybrid work model?

Working is collaborating with people with different skill sets to achieve a common goal.

According to research, nearly one-third of employees are willing to quit their job if their employer wants them to join the office full-time. Furthermore, nearly two-thirds prefer working flexibly or with the hybrid work model.

Then the world was forced to work from home. Now that remote work has proved itself in the time of adversity, it is back on the table and it is there to stay. Online collaboration has really improved because of better applications, newer workflows, and visual collaboration.

A hybrid work model is a combination of working from office and home depending on the needs of the task at hand. A lot of big companies have already adopted this model in which employees work certain days of the week from home and certain days from the office.

In conclusion, the hybrid work model is here to stay.

How has collaboration evolved?

The number of conversations you had with your co-workers has drastically decreased after the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Now, we only talk when work needs to get done. Fair enough but have you thought of the following challenges:

• Communicating with texts is tough because it is hard to explain things in detail, you cannot point and show, you have to send them images, then write some text, then maybe drop a relevant link, and so on.
• If email communication has one fault, it is the fact that things get lost. You will find yourself often stressed while scrolling through the chain. It is even more difficult if everyone is not cc’d.
• Video calls are great but you need to make sure the timing is proper. Scheduling is a pain, especially if you work from different time zones.
• We are visual creatures, tons of evidence from evolutionary biology concludes that. We have evolved to see and act. Our expectations for workplace collaborations are no different.

With remote work, visual collaboration has become the “new normal”. Here are the following points that come to mind:

• Lots of new “virtual whiteboard” applications
• Improved collaboration features in existing apps – Zoom, MS Teams, etc., have increased their functionalities
• Video messaging – Slack Clips and Loom
• Tons of new app integrations to make your workflow fast
• Productivity apps, time management apps

All of the above points helped me understand one very important thing: we all want to communicate visually. Visual communication has been in the backseat for a long time because we used to be able to pop into our co-worker’s desks to ask quick questions.

How does visual collaboration help?

According to research, 51% of the employees believe that the tools they use determine their productivity. That is half of your workforce!

More and more teams are investing their resources to make their workflow more visual to help them adopt the hybrid workflow. Here are a few obvious ways visual collaboration can assist you during remote collaboration:

• “Showing” instead of “writing”: Creators’ biggest challenge is getting feedback from their team or testing their work. Imagine designing an image or creating a video and you have to take feedback via text! One of the biggest benefits of visual collaboration is you will easily understand what your colleagues want to say.
• Asynchronous communication becomes smooth: Another challenge with screen-sharing video calls is availability. People generally would prefer to work in their own time. Sharing visual feedback and commenting on it is simpler for many reasons.
• Time-saving: Loom and Slack Clips are the best examples in this case. Creating a quick video and sending a message instead of an email or a long text message is easier. Furthermore, you can share more information in a short time.

How does zipBoard help with visual collaboration?

We at zipBoard aim to help enterprises and teams all over the world to work visually and asynchronously. We consistently keep adding features based on market requirements and our customers’ needs. Below are the following ways in which we help collaborate:

• Point and show: Annotate, comment, and discuss.
• Multiple types of content: Images, Videos, PDFs, eLearning courses, HTML/SCORM content.

  

• Track bugs visually: Make sure that nothing slips through the cracks.
• Manage tasks and collaborate: Collaborate with unlimited team members, clients, guest reviewers, and stakeholders while managing tasks.  

Wrapping up

The hybrid work model is here and it is to stay. Most employees will prefer to work from home even after the COVID-19 pandemic is over and companies will have to at least meet them halfway. With that, a lot of things need to change and evolve and visual collaboration is one of them.

About the author

Tarasekhar is a SaaS marketer for zipBoard who also loves to learn. He enjoys following old and new trends in the digital domain. Whenever he is not busy with his work, he loves to read history, philosophy and catch up on Formula 1.