Let’s face it; effective workplace communication holds the key to the success and productivity of every business. A research conducted by Harvard Business Review revealed that employees in today’s business climate are required to cooperate and collaborate with colleagues and team members on over 80% of their tasks. Just as it is impossible for a car to move without gas, so also, an organization can’t drive positive results or achieve its goals and objectives without effective team communication tools.

Many years ago, most offices were confined into a single work environment or building, with employees working face-to-face or communicating through emails during working hours. However, in today’s modern and diversified digital business environment, employees work from different locations.

Therefore, they require communication tools that can allow them to communicate with relative speed and get feedback from colleagues almost immediately.

How reliable and efficient is your current internal communication software or platform in facilitating effective communication and collaboration among your in-house employees?

If you are still wondering why your organization needs comprehensive team communication tools or software to communicate, collaborate, and manage projects, here are seven benefits your business can derive from good team communication tools.

Advantages Of Good Team Communication Tools.

• Reduces miscommunication, thereby minimizing costly mistakes among team members.
• Your employees can easily keep track of discussions and stay informed by scrolling through the history of previous discussions.
• It gives your employees and team members equal visibility on conversations for current projects.
• Enables your team members to access to work progress updates in real-time.
• Enhances accountability by facilitating compliance with agreements and deadlines, thanks to communication history.
• Gives team members better engagement on projects with the ability to send reminders and notifications.
• It organizes conversations.

Are you driving effective business communication for your workplace?

To help you make the decision, we have compiled a list of the five(5) top-of-the-line, modern team communication tools /software that can help unite the essential components of your business workplace environment.

In no particular order, they include:

1.  Zangi

If you want peace of mind when making business calls, messaging or sending across corporate files, Zangi private communication system lets you host yourself. This means your data and conversations are put directly safely in your hands, on your servers or cloud, separate from 3-rd party risks.

Zangi also features modern team features, HD video calling, and low data usage features. This makes it the perfect choice for teams who are used to working in remote conditions and are always on the move. Make sure to check Zangi out regardless of your business’ scale or industry – you will find it more than useful for a variety of situations.

Features:

Zangi seamlessly integrates well with office phones, CRMS, and other systems that you already use.

2. Slack

If you are tired of sending endless email messages and you find it exhausting searching through email discussion threads for lost conversations, Slack might be the tool you need.

Slack will help you to maximize everyday communication and collaboration demands for your team. It has a very intuitive and user-friendly interface that allows team members to collaborate, communicate, and share files. Different teams can also create discussion channels for their team members to communicate.

Features:

• API and app integrations
• Direct messages inbox
• File-sharing
• Video/audio calls
• Notification and activity tracker
• In-line messaging
• Screen sharing

Slack integrates well with other applications and platforms such as; OneDrive, Zapier, Asana, Salesforce, Outlook, GoToMeeting, Adobe Cloud, Skype, Twitter, Zoom, JIRA, Google Drive, Trello, Zendesk and many more!

3.  Zoom

Are you looking for a perfect conferencing system to hold a video/audio meeting? Do you have employees that work in multiple locations, and you need to have virtual meetings with them at the same time?

Zoom will meet all the needs mentioned above and many more. It allows you to connect with team members even if you’re not in the office. Zoom works well on any device with web, iOS, and Android applications.

Features:

• Live/video conferencing
• Meeting management
• Screen sharing
• Email invitations
• Reporting & statistics
• Company branding & customization
• Live video call recording
• Drag & drop file sharing
• Synced content library.

Zoom integrates well with other applications and platforms such as; HubSpot Marketing, LeadMaster, Microsoft, Outlook, Salesforce Sales Cloud, LinkedIn, Slack, Zapier, Dropbox, JIRA, HubSpot CRM, Google Drive, and Zendesk

4.  JIRA Cloud

If you are looking for an ideal tool you can use for effective project management, then JIRA Cloud ticks all the right boxes. With the JIRA cloud, you can monitor issues easily and track the progress of your team members towards actualizing team tasks.

Team members can give updates on tickets, give comprehensive reports on projects, make comments, and share files. JIRA Cloud works well on any device with web, iOS, and Android applications.

Features:

• Roadmaps
• Ticketing and project management
• Developer tool integrations
• Scrum boards
• Kanban board
• Agile reporting
• Mobile apps
• File sharing/storage.

JIRA Cloud integrates well with other applications and platforms such as; Bamboo, Salesforce, Outlook, Microsoft Teams, BitBucket, Confluence, and many more.

5.  Workplace by Facebook

Workplace by Facebook is a social networking and instant messaging platform which offers a lot of customizable features for team members and employees.

Teams can collaborate more effectively through direct messaging, sharing of photos, and making audio/video calls. Team members can also get updates as well as scheduled announcements on current happenings in the organization through the newsfeed. Separate groups can also be created for smaller teams in order to communicate more sensitive information confidentially.

Workplace by Facebook aims at building a positive work environment and culture among team members. Part of building positive culture is taking into consideration the diverse nature of your workforce, you can communicate in the various languages of your team members with the help of online translation and localization services like The Word Point. Workplace by Facebook works well on any device with web, iOS, and Android applications.

Features:

• Workplace chat
• Instant messaging
• Audio/video calls
• Group channels
• Org chart
• Facebook features of likes/comments
• File-sharing
• Event planning
• Company alerts
• Live video broadcasts

Workplace by Facebook integrates well with other applications and platforms such as; SharePoint, Trello, JIRA, Salesforce, HubSpot, Amplify, and many more.

6.  Office 365

Office 365 offers teams invaluable tools to foster effective collaboration on everyday tasks in the workplace. Team members can get the latest news and updates through the announcement section. Office 365 is essentially a Microsoft application that offers office presentation tools like PowerPoint, Excel, Skype, Microsoft word, etc.

Features:

• Cloud collaboration
• File sharing, both internally and externally
• Online meetings
• Social networking
• Instant messaging
• Voice and video calls
• PC-to-PC calling
• Shared calendars.

Office 365 integrates well with other applications and platforms such as; LeadMaster, Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint, VisitorTrack, Bitium, Box, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Zapier.

[Related: 8 Best Practices for Remote Team Management]

[Related: Does Team Communication Software Ruin Productivity? 5 Ways to Use it Right]

Wrapping Things Up!

If you are the leader of a team or part of a team, you’ll agree with the fact that having functional team communication tools is critical to the success of team endeavors. First off, there is the need for team members to be able to have meetings and discussions, provide feedback, clarify issues, and provide directions on projects within the shortest possible time.

With digital transformation being the buzzword of the business climate of today, the need for effective and efficient team-based communication and collaboration in the digital workplace cannot be over-emphasized. Unfortunately, most workplace environments today are characterized by team communication tools or systems that are disjointed and not able to meet the demands of the modern workplace environment.

Without effective communication and collaboration among team members, employees, and other stakeholders, efficiency, and productivity in the workplace may never be achieved. Interestingly, digital communication tools and platforms hold the solution to maximizing these interconnections.

Author: Dominic Beaulieu is a gaming enthusiast turned tech writer who covers an impressive variety of topics like design, development process, game marketing, and helps developers with spreading the word about their creations. He is a fluent French speaker, who also has mastered Dutch, Norwegian, and Swedish. He has experience in software translation, tech counseling, project management and digital marketing tailored for startups.