The idea of doing an opinion type blog took a while for me to wrap my head around. We all know the saying, “Opinions are like BLEEP, everyone has one”. So instead of just popping on here and telling you my opinion, I thought it was important to understand the reasoning behind why not all industries, not all businesses, not all employees, and not all employers need or want to continue on the team collaboration feature advancement train.
For us it’s important to be an industry expert. It’s important to understand what’s happening in the telecommunication industry. Knowing and understanding that makes it important for me to provide you with facts about the current business solutions and their features that may or may not be for you.
Take Hosted VoIP and team collaboration features. Most 9-5 business professional before March 2020 and COVID-19, found themselves M-F sitting in traffic to get to and from their office where they interacted with their co-workers in person. Because of the pandemic, all of this changed the day-to-day life of business professionals. Working from home. No travel. No live events. No in-person meetings. Video conferencing became the SOP. And what that meant for the last three years, the telecom industry has been using their creativity to come up with the shiniest and most advanced features for team collaboration.
Real text exchange with a friend March 2023:
ME: “Good Morning ES! What does your day look like?”
ES: “Hey! Good Morning! From 9 to 10 conference calls. From 10 to 12 actual work. 12 to 1 lunch. From 1 to 4 back-to-back calls. 4 to 6, actual work.”
Notice the phrase “actual work”. That is something I said at a former job all the time. Because the number of daily and weekly team collaboration video calls I was a part of quadrupled, I began to feel like I was never able to get my “actual work” done. I was drowning and felt like all I was able to do was play catch-up. And forget about work-life balance. It was all work, all the time. And then after all the calls I didn’t have time to think about new ideas and other projects that would advance my contributions to the organization.
Where Team Collaboration Features Do and Do Not Work
Do you work in a Think Tank? Perfect example of where advancements in team collaboration features are absolutely important to your success! Bouncing ideas off your team members is crucial to making the big decisions and advancements for your company and the industry your Think Tank represents. On the other hand, if you’re in sales, production, assembly, or customer service for example, advancements in team collaboration features are not going to make you successful. More team collaboration for these roles ends up taking away from “actual work” time that is crucial to the success of your job. If I have a sales quota, or I’m responsible for churning out so many widgets an hour, being required to spend part of my day on team collaboration calls, just made reaching said goals that much more difficult. If not downright impossible.
In knowing that team collaboration feature enhancements aren’t for everyone, what will your next step be? I would challenge everyone to take a few minutes and write out a typical day in the life of your current position for your organization. Does the breakdown of your day include way more team collaboration vs. “actual work”? Do you feel accomplished at the end of the day or are you always finding yourself in the weeds? Let the answers to these questions help you talk to your boss about ways for improvement. And if you’re the boss, let these answers help you change policies and lead your team to success.
