As we transition into a post-COVID world with an economic downturn quickly looming, business leaders are taking a hard look at how to maximize resources at every level. This analysis goes beyond their physical real-estate and human resources - and extends to the digital applications their workforce is using to get work done. 

Let’s walk through the 3 KPIs you can use to best measure your workplace collaboration ecosystem and strengthen your internal collaboration. The hot debate of bringing employees back to the office full-time, implementing a hybrid or fully remote workplace is in full swing.  

However, it doesn’t matter if you’re working at the office or working from home….because…employees use collaboration tools regardless of where they’re sitting. Your business collaboration ecosystem encompassess everything from email to workflow management solutions like Tableau, Instant Messaging platforms such as Slack and Microsoft Teams to video conferencing software like Zoom and Webex. 

Now, some managers may argue for employees to work from the office in order to supervise their productivity. Just because they’re in a chair doesn’t mean they aren’t being distracted/distracting others from getting work done, communicating effectively, or being bogged down with irrelevant meetings and email threads. 

Digital tool sprawl and/or ineffective deployment of these applications decreases productivity, increases distraction, and seriously harms the bottom line. Meanwhile, leveraging collaboration data is revolutionizing teamwork and business results. 

3 Ways to Measure Internal Collaboration & Employee Experience 

As companies undergo a digital transformation and manage an in-office or distributed workforce in a hybrid setting, HR and operation leaders need to gain a comprehensive understanding of internal collaboration. Let’s take a look at the 3 most important KPIs to measure internal digital collaboration so you can drive down costs, build highly productive teams, and improve the employee experience. 

1. How do your departments collaborate & on what platforms? 

Our Collaboration Dynamics Report provides a quick snapshot of which teams collaborate the most, how frequently departments meet, and the emails and instant messages sent between them. 

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To improve the employee experience and employee engagement in a hybrid setting, you first need to understand your workforce in context. That macro-level view is important before drilling down further so you can benchmark your performance and set accurate goals company-wide. Once you have complete insight into your workplace dynamics, you’ll be able to set an action plan to determine how to improve collaboration within a team or across teams.

2. Internal network size matters - how engaged are your employees? 

In the Collaboration Networks section, you can see how engaged and connected your employees are. A hybrid working environment poses a challenge to foster connections, and the average internal network size is important for measuring employee engagement and onboarding effectiveness. It also reflects whether an employee has access to the right resources - which is crucial to fulfilling their tasks and objectives. 

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Drill down further to understand how teams build their networks on which platforms (meetings, emails, chat, calls, and shared files), and across time. Insights driven around network size and where silos occur, can help your leadership team find the optimal range for each team to be effective at their jobs. 

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Does your company have communication silos? 

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The ‘silo effect’ makes company collaboration more difficult. Siloed teams don't share crucial information, which leads to duplication of work, time wasted, tensions rising and an atmosphere of mistrust in the company. As a result, it negatively impacts the efficiency of operations, employee morale and in the end also the bottom line.

3. Do your employees use collaboration tools effectively? 

Our Collaboration Efficiency Report gives an overview of collaboration behavior so that you can gauge the frequency of collaboration activity per day - and how employees are interacting across digital tools. This can help you decipher whether team collaboration is enhancing or harming the employee experience. 

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These collaboration metrics can empower you to identify the real economic cost of inefficient interactions. For instance, the Overall Statistics section quickly shows how much your employees are engaging with each other - and how that is impacting your bottom line. 

These metrics provide the monetary costs associated with various collaboration activities across collaboration tools such as meetings, email correspondence, and instant messaging platforms.

Drive The Future Of Teamwork With Time Is Ltd. 

We have more advanced analytics to measure what matters most to your specific role. Take a look at the use cases: HR leader, General/Operations Manager, or CIO. We empower organizations to take control of a quickly evolving workplace using insights from their collaboration data. 

Get in touch at solutions@timeisltd.com to learn how to drive down costs, build highly productive teams, and improve the employee experience.