Five Ways Team Collaboration Tools Can Help Attract And Retain Talent

How do these shape the future of employee recruiting and retention efforts?

You may think that technologies supporting employee recruiting involve automated job postings, resume filtering, and applicant screenings. Yet have you ever considered how modern team collaboration tools can help companies attract and retain the talent they are looking for?
 

First, let’s take a quick look at what these tools are. In the past few years, a new category of collaboration software has emerged, called “team collaboration” solutions. Most of these solutions have several features in common, including the following:         
 

One attraction surrounding this new breed of solution is how easy it is to get started. If you are familiar with using a web browser or tapping on your mobile phone, you are basically ready to go. So, there is no need to install complicated server software in the enterprise or configure and learn complicated client applications – the solutions just work, naturally and intuitively.

How does this impact employee recruiting and retention efforts? Specifically, here are five ways that team collaboration tools can make these processes more efficient and effective for companies:
 

1. You can use the tools to conduct rich interviews from anywhere - Sometimes it may not be practical or desirable to have in-person meetings at every stage in the hiring process. Imagine if you could have a high-definition audio/video/content sharing experiences from anywhere, on any device or network. This can be a convenience for the candidate (as they avoid having to travel) and allows you to meet more candidates in a specific amount of time.
 

2. You can position the tools as example of your modern, tech-enabled culture - Your organization will be perceived as more progressive and desirable if you can engage with the most current and innovative technologies to get things done smarter, faster (and more enjoyably). This can only improve your brand’s image as a potential employer that is social-collaboration savvy.
 

3. You can leverage team collaboration solutions to enable flexible work lifestyles - Research has shown that flexible employment terms, or “anywhere working,” are highly valued by employees (even more that a raise). For example, Millennials demand the work-life harmony that comes with the flexibility to work anywhere, anytime – according to the needs of the job, of course. Work becomes a thing that is done, not a location and specified timeslot.
 

4. You can find, hire, and work with the best talent for the job– regardless of their geographical location in the world-  Increasingly, virtual teams are assembled across countries and time zones, combining the unique skills and experience of the best person for the job. You no longer are constrained to your city, region, country, or even continent to access the talent pool you need. Collaboration tools can make your teams’ geographic location independent.
 

5. You can encourage a supportive culture of sharing and collaboration by embedding the tools into the fabric of how your organization does their work together. Files and Information are available and sharable more widely across extended teams and communities of interest.  Not only that, but the on-boarding process is greatly enhanced by providing a supportive community that can answer questions, offer direction (or easily look up answers that had been provided previously). Your new employees may no longer feel stranded or isolated as they ramp up.

 
These are only a handful of examples, but the common thread points to the ability to flexibly connect people, content and ideas using new, easy to deploy technologies. Our own research shows that employees using modern and intuitive team collaboration tools are ultimately more satisfied, more productive – and most importantly for employee retention – more engaged.

Ross Sedgewick is Digital Workplace and Team Collaboration Expert at Unify.He currently handles content creation, messaging and insight development relating to the digital workplace. Ross is passionate about humanizing the intersection of people and technology, and understanding how users engage and interact. Prior to joining Unify, Ross has held marketing, product, channel and sales leadership positions at IBM Corporation, Delano Technologies, and Siemens Enterprise Communications. Visit www.unify.com Connect Ross Sedgewick Follow @UnifyCo