Cloud technology has been an instrumental driving force in many industries. Companies around the world are expected to spend over $947 billion on cloud technology by 2026.
There are many ways that the cloud is changing our daily lives and the business models of entire industries. One of the biggest changes has to do with employee communication. A new generation of cloud-based workplace communication apps are leading to some drastic changes in many industries.
Cloud-Based Workplace Apps Are Changing the Company Culture in Many Ways.
Businesses are starting to appreciate the benefits that cloud technology is bringing to their workplaces. Most managers believe that communicating with employees through conventional channels such as email is sufficient in the current workplace. However, employees are increasingly frustrated for not accessing work-related information from their devices, especially in the current era of remote work. Cloud technology is necessary to bring these changes.
Onehub author Sam O’Brien talked about these changes in an article last year. He stated that the number of companies that have their entire IT infrastructure on the cloud will nearly double from 9% to 16%.
O’Brien talked at length about some of the cloud collaboration tools available. There were some great platforms listed in his blog post. However, they primarily were geared towards larger enterprises. Smaller companies can benefit from using free cloud-based apps like WhatsApp.
This is where designing a cloud-based workplace mobile app becomes essential. Below are some of the reasons why workplace mobile apps are necessary for every business.
What is a Workplace App and Why Should its Data Be Kept on the Cloud?
Like any other application, workplace apps facilitate communication and interactions within an organization. It allows employees and departmental team members to communicate and collaborate effectively. Workplace apps also allow managers to connect with their employees better, even in a distributed workforce.
There are a number of reasons that these apps should be operated on the cloud:
- It is easier to preserve data on the cloud. Companies don’t have to worry about it getting lost if a local communication model has an outage.
- These apps are a lot cheaper, because they can leverage the scalability of larger, third-party cloud providers.
- The right cloud networks can be a lot more secure.
A growing number of companies will shift towards using cloud-based communication apps to realize these benefits.
Benefits of Workplace Apps that Operate Over the Cloud
Some of the benefits of introducing cloud-based workplace apps include the following:
1. They create a positive work culture
Workplace culture defines employees and managers’ interactions, relations, and coexistence. Positive workplace culture boosts loyalty and productivity, while negative culture has several predicaments. Building a positive workplace culture encourages employees to be concerned for one another, improving employee retention and attracting talent.
Open communication fostered by workplace mobile apps goes a long way in helping companies build and sustain a positive culture. Workplace apps eliminate the hierarchy at the workplace and create natural opportunities for employees and managers to interact freely while providing immediate feedback. They also promote consistent multidirectional feedback, which supports a positive workplace culture.
One of the reasons that cloud apps help improve the company culture is transparency. Everyone can see communications and address any harsh, discriminatory or inaccurate information presented in communications.
2. Better than email communication
While emails are important and influential for internal communication, they create clutter in your employees’ inboxes. They are also not engaging and lack immediacy.
To match the changing communication needs in a workplace, you should switch to workplace apps as they enhance the general employee experience. For instance, employees can easily access training resources with several features, such as file sharing and video uploading abilities. They rely on data stored on large, trustedd cloud networks, which has high uptime guarantees and excellent bandwidth. This shortens the time it takes to onboard new team members. A dedicated newsfeed feature also enables departmental heads to instantly share information with the right people.
3. They meet the unique demands of the modern workforce.
The new generation is very tech-savvy, so they are more appreciative of cloud apps and cloud platforms. Companies will need to introduce cloud tools to meet their expectations.
Gen Z and millennials make up the highest percentage of the modern workforce. Unlike previous generations, the modern workforce prefers mobile communication for easy feedback, transparency, and experience in new, flexible, and more productive environments. Workplace apps installed on employees’ smartphones can meet these unique needs.
Surprisingly, only half of the employees currently think that their employers score better to ensure efficient communication and collaboration across departments. This percentage is low, probably because these newer generations prefer transparent conversations with immediate feedback. Fortunately, cloud-based communication apps can help address these issues.
4. They streamline workplace communication
Due to the increased adoption of remote work, organizations currently communicate using multiple channels. Employees receive messages from various collaborating tools, including Slack, email, LinkedIn, iMessage, Facebook, and WhatsApp. Following up on all messages can distract employees, costing them a lot of time and focus.
While a workplace mobile app is another channel, it is the only channel that employees use for work-related information. With this, employees will no longer expect communication from multiple channels or information sources. Instead, everything will be receiving information from only one source.
Cloud technology helps create a central communication hub and improves the efficiency of internal communications. This will address many of the aforementioned conerns.
Cloud Communication Apps Are the Future of the Workplace
Advancing technology has made it necessary for organizations to integrate workplace apps into business operations. The suitable workplace mobile app improves employees’ efficiency and productivity.
There is no disputing the reality that cloud technology is the future of the workplace. More companies are going to use it to improve the communication dynamics in their companies.
