Over the last two years, the pandemic has affected everyone from industries to workers alike. With many at their breaking point, spurring the “great resignation”, some have lost their jobs, continue to be overworked, and others chose to leave their roles to prioritise personal commitments.

During this time, technology has been a key driving force for businesses and employee productivity. It has allowed companies to stay afloat and enabled workers to continue to operate remotely. And as we emerge from the pandemic, I believe that businesses could set themselves up for even greater success if they address this salient issue: workplace equity.

A way forward is through technology. These tools can provide leaders with the opportunity to rebuild the workforce and reintegrate workers, regardless of gender, background, and/or socioeconomic status, so they feel empowered to contribute and drive growth fully.

The right tech tools can help employees thrive

A Lark study found that the top three most used collaboration features among Singapore’s PMEs are chat or messaging, video meetings, and emails. Furthermore, employees are continuously on the lookout for more and more ways in which teams can collaborate and communicate more seamlessly to achieve optimal levels of efficiency across workflows.

Being on the cusp of the shift to a more permanent hybrid working arrangement, leaders need to consider the type of technology adopted to ensure it enables workers to collaborate without overloading efficiency-enhancing digital tools that hinder workers’ productivity.

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Deploying a genuinely integrated digital collaboration platform, such as Lark, supports employees across these three major tasks and other work needs. This includes file sharing, cloud storage, task management, goals and performance review, contract lifecycle management, expense control, etc.

Adopting an all-in-one digital collaboration platform has many benefits and sets the stage for employees to thrive at work.

It would not only reduce the distractions of switching back and forth between multiple platforms but also eliminate the frustration of being unable to search for information amongst the trove of massive and fragmented data and empower workers across the organisation to collaborate and contribute more effectively.

Digital collaboration allows for greater inclusion

The pandemic has also underscored the need to create a more diverse and inclusive culture at work. At Lark, we sought to remove the communicative language barriers amongst distributed teams by allowing them to chat in their native languages and get their message across via machine learning-powered translation.

McKinsey’s research cites the struggles women alone have faced during the crisis. They have experienced a disproportionate share of job losses due to the industries they work in being hit severely, such as retail. Still, They are also afflicted by a compound mix of societal barriers.

However, these struggles are also present in other segments of the workforce, especially with employees who double hat as caregivers, single parents, etc. Having to juggle work with personal life demands throughout the day can take a toll on anyone.

Leaders need to take the helm in shaping a working environment that recognises every employee as an equal and valuable contributor to the business.

By equipping them with the right tools, hybrid arrangements can help alleviate the pressures imposed by the double burden upon working women, single parents, or even caregivers and empower them with the flexibility and opportunities to pursue a career and tend to their personal commitments the same time.

Employees that have these digital collaboration tools at their disposal should also consider taking advantage of them to maintain a solid work-life balance.

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For example, businesses or employees who use Lark’s Collaborative Suite can set their working hours each day. If someone tries to book a meeting outside of those hours, they will immediately be notified that the employee cannot attend the meeting. This helps employees set, recognise and respect team boundaries in and outside of the workplace.

The way forward

How we work will never be how it used to be pre-pandemic. Work will continue to evolve, and as we move through the phases, businesses and their leaders must consider redefining work policies and strengthening the worker-employer relationship through digital collaboration tools.

The digital collaboration will continue to create opportunities for businesses and their respective employees. From driving more inclusivity within the workplace to allowing for borderless cooperation across regions and developing the ability for teams to communicate regardless of language with the use of machine learning technology, we can motivate teams to do better and contribute more every day.

As a leader myself, I believe bringing success to today’s work environment starts by imbuing a collaborative and open culture at work.

Going the distance to ensure teams are supported with the right setup allows us to chart a pathway towards achieving more significant equity in the workplace and fostering a more positive and enjoyable work environment.

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