2020 has been a year of overcoming challenges, learning and growth altering the way we work forever. Organizations all over the world have had to adapt and change the way they operate. As remote work has become the necessity of the hour due to the effects of the COVID 19 pandemic, Convo’s new upgraded customers have taken the situation in stride and managed their teams and run their operations in a new and effective way – some with highly successful results that have benefited their ability to adjust to fluid changes in the economy. We’ve considered the learning process our customers have gone through, in particular how team collaboration tools have played a fundamental part in their adjustment to working remotely.
We don’t see an end to this new trend that has emerged in the coming year. In fact, there are still 70%+ organizations and people still willing or making up their mind to adapt to this change.
Intra – company communication
As more and more workers are working remotely, the need for all employees and teams to collaborate effectively is increasing. In the past, intranet was an essential part of all organizations. It provided a secure connection exclusive to the organization and helped with sharing information, offered collaboration tools, and other computing services. Now that employees are working remotely, it’s not possible for them to connect to an organization’s intranet. Organizations need a platform to stay connected and updated with what each part of their organization is doing. Convo provides a platform for work conversation that helps people collaborate and communicate to have quick, seamless and focused conversations. It can be thought of as the new intranet, providing employees and organizations all over the world a secure connection and a platform to share files, send messages, have video and voice calls, and everything else needed to stay connected.
Workspaces – Workplaces are now a thing of the “past”
A workplace is a designated location your employees have to show up 5 days a week to work. Whereas, a workspace can be anywhere. Whether it’s a desk, cubicle, your local coffee shop or your home office. Remote work has now increased the need for a “workspace” instead of a “workplace”.
Your workspace doesn’t just include your computer or laptop but all of the specialized softwares, communication tools and other digital devices you need to use every day. Organizations have now recognized the need for workspaces and realized that a regular video call and haphazard texts here and there just don’t cut it. A specialized platform is needed for all conversations to happen and for effective team collaboration. Team collaboration is important for organizations to succeed and compete in this new era of virtual work. Convo helps organizations to receive timely updates on all employees helping teams have better collaboration and communication to thrive in workspaces wherever they are.
As remote work can make employees and employers feel detached from and among each other, it’s important to bring about a sense of connectedness and keep relations high. Teams that have bonded with each other work better, more effectively and are more productive in the long run. The way to do this is to encourage teams to develop personal connections and collaborate seamlessly for effortless connectivity. This will keep team spirits high, motivation levels skyrocketing and productivity soaring. One way to ensure team wellness is to promote employee participation and real-time connectivity. Convo provides a platform to do just that. Employees need to only log on to the app and they’re immediately connected with the entire organization and employers can easily monitor their employees’ contribution on the app.
It’s not just organizations who’re going remote but individuals too. Recently, there has been a rise in freelance workers who work remotely for any number of organizations. Companies now are accepting this changing landscape of remote work and are open to hire more and more freelance employees. This has increased the need for solutions towards keeping workers whether freelance or otherwise connected with each other to ensure consistent and smooth collaboration of teams. Having access to a platform specially designed to keep workspaces linked up makes managing remote teams trouble-free.
More and more companies around the globe have asked their employees to work from home instead of coming to the office, making remote working a new reality that people are getting used to. However, being at home and following an office like schedule can be challenging for many. But thanks to technology, the right and smart use of it has made working from home simpler.
Make your work from home transition less dramatic and the shift to virtual workplaces relatively seamless with Convo.
Better Team Collaboration
Earlier brainstorming required face to face meetings. However, with Convo, you can encourage open communication through video and audio calls. It is believed that calls are a good way to have a detailed discussion, share a quick update with your team, have more eyes on a problem, or brainstorm ideas. Being able to see each other when talking can often help in collaboration.
Not to forget that it also helps in keeping the team intact that might otherwise go neglected when working from home. So now with an always-available video and audio calling feature, no team member is more than a Convo call away.
Group Chats for Easy Group Discussions
Emails can be effective for official decisions, but it can clog up inboxes. So whether you are new to working remotely or a pro, it takes efforts to maintain the connection of team members, especially when the team is afar. Convo group chat brings the team members together for meaningful virtual interactions and strengthens the feeling of togetherness while they work from home.
Convo messenger is packed with innovative features that provide an experience of rich communication. Be it group or instant chats, time and distance no longer play a role. This reaps benefits, such as the employees being engaged, productive, and happy when surrounded by meaningful workplace relationships.
Your Choice of Communication
Communication is among the top issues that individuals encounter when working from home. As the teams are distributed across cities, Convo helps in communicating effectively through Synchronous and Asynchronous communication. However, a strategic balance between the two is useful for achieving maximum efficiency.
Communication that happens in real-time and requires an immediate response. Synchronous communication is usually beneficial when a project requires quick delivery or the team members are new and need to build rapport. This initial engagement should be used to establish a working foundation, such that future touchpoints can be primarily asynchronous.
One remote work best practice is asynchronous communication. This concept simply means that work doesn’t happen at the same time for everyone because the employees are dispersed, and they can respond whenever they want. Asynchronous communication is an asset when working remotely, especially when team members are in multiple time zones.
This makes sure that no one is excluded from important discussions, just because they work from home. Giving team members the ability to move projects forward on a schedule that suits them. This type of autonomy leads to extraordinary loyalty, retention, and quality of work, keeping productivity at par even when working from home.
Working Together Is Possible
Start calls instantly, stay on top of your calendar, encourage social connections, and more, all from within Convo. So whether you are working from home or you are all set to make your way back to the office, working together should be possible anytime, anywhere.
Your secret to revolutionizing your transition to work from home starts with Convo!
Most of our day to day things like working, shopping and learning are now being done virtually. Therefore, the rules for a business to succeed have changed, and are ever more reliant on harnessing the power of digital models to create new experiences with a collaborative leadership. However, digital transformation is not a new need for businesses across the globe, instead sustainability through digital transformation is the new trend.
To explore and discuss what’s new in the wake of sustainable digital transformation and the rise of collaborative leadership, Convo proudly hosted the monthly CXO Global Forum Meetup at their Islamabad Office on 27th October, 2020.
The meetup started with the host inviting Noshad Minhas, Chief Product Officer-Convo to inform the attendees about Convo and share what it does. He began by thanking the panelist, Abdul Rahim Ahmad, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) & Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)-SECP, Osman Nasir, Chairman-Pakistan Software Export Board, Fatima Mazhar, General Manager-Keep Truckin and Dr. Sahibzada Ali Mahmud, Managing Director-Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Technology Board for being a part of the meetup. He informs that “the slogan for Convo is Unify your workforce and collectively we should be unifying our workforces for a common goal which should be Digital Pakistan”.
The host continues “many people talk about when will the moment for Pakistan happen. The moment for transformative leadership, digital disruption and also the moment for collaborative leadership”. He added “we are almost there, but that does not mean that we are there yet”
He invites Osman Rashid, CEO & Chairman-Convo for his key note on what is it that the modern leader of today should be looking at. Osman Rashid began by focusing on his journey of two years and how he has been lucky enough to work with some of the best people. He also adds that the people of Pakistan have a lot of potential and what people at managerial positions should do to push forward, because our moment is almost there, but is taking a while.
Further, he continues “companies are built by teams underneath and not just the founder alone. However, it’s just that we do not aim high which is not okay. Because the spark that comes from some of the team members is the magic for the company to do great”.
By sharing examples of some of the successful entrepreneurs, likewise some of the individuals at Convo succeeded by taking a step forward, resulting in the recognition of Convo worldwide. Also, adding that Convo has opened up schools in Lahore with an idea to introduce concept based learning with the notion that if the generation does not step forward, we as a nation cannot move forward.
He encouraged the executives present at the meetup to find brilliant people and cultivate them to take the business to the next level.
The session went ahead with a panel talk on “Sustainable digital transformation and the rise of collaborative leadership” with panelist sharing their experiences of working as C-suite executives and the challenges they foresee. The host invited the four panelists; Abdul Rahim Ahmad, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) & Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)-SECP, Osman Nasir, Chairman-Pakistan Software Export Board, Fatima Mazhar, General Manager-Keep Truckin and Dr. Sahibzada Ali Mahmud, Managing Director-Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Technology Board to share their stories and perspectives.
The host began by appreciating the initiatives of Mr. Abdul Rahim Ahmad- SECP for the online registration of new corporations within a day, most of which were IT companies from Islamabad. The host asked “how does he ensure whether the companies that are coming into Pakistan for registration processes, filing, returns, etc., through the digital platform is a sustainable transformation?”
Mr. Abdul Rahim Ahmad responded “The number of companies getting registered in Pakistan is increasing due to firstly, the boom of entrepreneurship and secondly, even today, billions of companies are undocumented.”
He also mentioned that the idea behind digital registration was to simplify the process for companies starting up in Pakistan. On being asked whether the collaborative trait was easy to implement in a government organization, he responded “The idea was to talk about collaborative leadership, not only within the organization across horizontally and vertically but by engaging citizen and public as well. As a result, we saw engagement not only with the NIC but also with different sectors/industries.”
Next Mr. Osman Nasir, Chairman-Pakistan Software Export Board, commented “If we try and train most of our human resource into emerging tech, the value we will build for the rest of the world as an HR or a company will be immense. Nobody will be able to rule us out.” To which the host added that with the right people at the right job, things do happen.
With KPT being a huge challenge in terms of culture, language, academia and industry collaborations but huge opportunities, the host moved to speak to its Managing Director, Dr. Sahibzada Ali Mahmud. He began by asking “What are the few things you see that you want to work on, despite the challenges?”
“Regarding digital transformation, the two main areas I would like to focus on are digital governance and digital economy.” responded Dr. Ali Mahmud.
He also added “The biggest challenge of driving digital transformation is the change management and the changing mindset. With the right kind of interventions, we will drive digital transformation across the organization.”
Lastly, Fatima Mazhar, GM-Keep Truckin shared her perspective being the only panelist from the private sector and the one to launch Careem Pakistan. On being asked that what is the core element to digital transformation, she responded “There are four things which are very important for digital transformation to be sustainable; your customers, your own employees, your country and most importantly, somebody who thinks the core of digital transformation lies in processes.”
The Forum meetup ended with how Convo is seizing the opportunity to advance a new path for sustainable digital transformation by developing the capability of resources and their technical understanding to succeed in the digital world.
For the complete session be sure to view the recording of the meetup available on our Facebook page and let us know whether collaborative leadership is the heart of sustainable digital transformation.
Amid a second wave of COVID-19 around the world, working remotely is sharply on the rise. More and more people are getting their tasks done at home. Despite having the freedom to work from anywhere, it is important to consider the challenges of getting tasks done remotely. It can be difficult to balance your work and personal life, especially, if you are not able to complete your tasks in time due to lack of communication and coordination with your team members.
Communication and collaboration with the team members is a common barrier when employees are working remotely and this is where Convo comes into play with abundance of features for its users. One of the key benefits of using Convo for remote working is that you can achieve a better work life balance while boosting productivity.
Convo offers a variety of productivity bolstering features that encourage businesses to unify their workplaces and make Convo their go-to collaborative app. With Convo Simplify, you can integrate several email accounts with Convo and benefit from the full scope of features for each of them. Users can integrate their O365, Outlook, Zimbra, Gmail, Hotmail, or any other email account that works with IMAP APIs, with Convo’s interface via IMAP. Email communication with external clients, partners or even other co-workers can now flow through your easy to navigate Convo feed. This means you now have the option to compose, reply, reply-all, forward, mark SPAM/read and delete emails, all from within Convo.
Managing the workflow can be tedious, when working remotely. For teams and individuals to remain productive, you need a communication tool, like Convo and a feature like Easy Flow. It serves as a simple and reliable way to manage your workflow and optimize business processes through automation. It helps you keep your employees in sync, so that approval requests are streamlined, which in turn speeds up the internal processes. Not just that, you can also customize your organizational workflow with Easy Flow by Convo.
Brainstorming ideas and completing a task that requires team efforts can seem impossible when working remotely. But Convo’s chat is a great way to have quick discussions. Instant messages are much better than emails because they help in keeping remote employees more connected with the opportunity to chat separately with a single team member or by creating a group chat to communicate with a bunch of teammates at the same time. Also, email communication can get boring and monotonous, keeping this in mind Convo offers gifs and emoji to light up your project-centric conversations.
You can elevate your experience of chatting by combing Convo’s instant messaging with audio and video calling. So even if you are working from home or anywhere else, you can now seamlessly collaborate through remote engagement, all from within Convo.
ROCK YOUR WORK-FROM-HOME PERFORMANCE
Doesn’t it all sound so great? Yes, it does! Don’t make your life more complicated than it already is, especially, if you are working remotely. Convo knows and understands the struggles individuals might be wanting to overcome right this minute. Struggles of remaining productive or experiencing difficulties with communicating remotely, whatever it may be, Convo can help keep your tasks running and improve your work-from-home performance!
The entire business world is changing rapidly. But while the HR is guiding all this corporate change, the HR department itself requires changes to evolve into a more technology-based profession. Though HR serves as a helping hand, it has its own challenges and struggles. However, these challenges can be overcome by embarking into the modern world of HR with Convo. Convo will not only streamline and automate the operations of HR but will also help the department drive a successful change across the organization.
The future of onboarding
Building a strong manager-employee relationship is one of the most challenging part of the onboarding process. But through Convo you can seamlessly onboard employees where the HR can create a post for the newcomer to connect with the relevant team members.
Not just that, you can also decrease the amount of paperwork for your HR department by sharing the training sessions, updates on upcoming workshops, forms, policies, SOP documents (contract and insurance) in just a click.
No more chasing around
One of the hardest job of the HR department is to communicate announcements through email with having to check whether it has been read by everyone. However, with Convo’s acknowledgement post feature the HR can now ensure whether the urgent announcements have been read by employees across the organization. So the great news is that you no more have to chase around as you can set notification reminders for every 24 hours.
Your way to motivation
For a fact, public recognition make the employees feel more valued and engaged. But as an HR professional you are not sure about how to begin with it. The HR department can make use of Convo as a platform to highlight and reward high achievers and great employee performances in public, leading to a happier and motivated workforce.
Isolation to engagement
Low employee engagement is a business killer and is a major challenge for the HR department. Overcome the risks associated with a disengaged workforce by having them engaged in the trendiest activities at the workplace through Convo’s Analytics Dashboard. It lets you break off the isolation at digital work streams by keeping the employees up to date with the trending topics and hashtags.
Finding the right fit
One common difficulty faced by the HR department worldwide is the pressure of recruiting the right human resource. Take the stress out of hiring the right fit for your company with Convo. Our go to option of team directory helps in identifying department experts to bring in their valuable opinions. This is definitely a great tool to improve the quality of candidates while reducing potential bad hires.
It is believed that technological advancements make everyday life easier, and we believe that if this change is embraced inside an HR department, it will certainly maximize benefits and minimize problems for the organization as a whole.
Therefore, Convo is your one stop solution to make a strategic impact in your organization. With attention to user experience and loads of features, we strive to spark innovation within the HR department. NOW, it’s time for the HR to step up and shine!
If you’re still using email with your coworkers, your fancy tools are not giving you a true new-age collaboration experience. Finally, a solution to the email hell we live in! Imagine not have hundreds of unread and irrelevant emails piling up your inbox and causing you stress every time it catches your eye.
Majority of your emails are generated with internal email communications. What if all that went away and only critical external email communications were generated. With Convo Simplify, users now have deep two-way email communications from one interface, while still having all the new-age powerful collaboration features to collaborate with co-workers. This powerful combination will help unclutter email by decreasing internal email generation by almost 90%.
It could be emails from external clients, partners or even other co-workers (yes, not everyone in a 10,000 employee company may be on Convo) – all your communication now flows through your easy to navigate Convo feed. You can now compose, reply, reply-all, forward, mark SPAM/read, delete emails straight from within Convo.
A client or a co-worker sends an email, it comes to your feed via an integration, you collaborate with your entire team without generating any more emails. Then you can simply reply to the original email to the customer from within the same thread! Email Simplified!
Convo offers a variety of productivity bolstering features, and this latest feature will encourage users to make Convo their go-to collaborative app. The company has officially announced that the Convo Simplify feature is widely available for Web, iPhone, Android, and Desktop app.
The company quoted in an official statement, “Convo Simplify simplifies work communication by helping unclutter work communications. Using Convo’s collaboration platform with Simplify, users will find unnecessary emails no longer get generated.”With the release of Convo Simplify, a user can integrate several email accounts with Convo and benefit from the full scope of features for each of them. Users can integrate their O365, Outlook, Zimbra, Gmail, Hotmail, or any email account that works with IMAP APIs, with Convo’s interface via IMAP.
Convo Simplify now allows a user to respond to emails as well as other forms of synchronous and asynchronous messaging all from one platform.
Convo is a multi-platform communication and collaboration application that delivers team productivity and engagement to all of its users. The application is aimed at reducing the burden of email for internal communication within the enterprise, minimizing feedback delay and enabling employees to connect with eachother whether they are working on the desk or on the go.
Working on a number of projects at a time can be difficult and is bound to cause feedback bottleneck. With Convo, the process is made fast and simple so there are no more delays. Here’s how you can minimise feedback delay to improve employee performance:
1. Distraction free Notifications
Turn on notifications for projects you’re working on, new posts being shared with you or whenever someone mentions you on Convo. This makes it easy for you to be in the know whenever there’s new activity instead of having to search for updates that require your input. Simply click on the notification and get right to the post or comment.
2. Visual Feedback on Everything
Convo’s crisp and clear collaboration tools allow users to pin point parts of text, images, documents, videos as well as 60+ file formats in order to deliver precise visual feedback. The annotation feature makes this possible in an easy and flexible way. Simply select the part you want to call out and click comment. The selected part of text or image etc. will be added as a snippet to your comment. This allows you to make your feedback more clear. Clicking on these snippets will direct users to the called out part and highlight it for them, instead of them having to read long textual paragraphs to understand what you’re talking about.
3. Discussions within Threads
Convo supports threaded conversations which allow users to maintain context of the conversation, even if it is 100 comments deep. This is not easily achievable with email or chat. Imagine dropping in on a conversation with several comments and not knowing what the discussion is about. It will take you a long time before you are able to give any valuable input. However, with the threaded conversations, you can simple click on the thread to see what’s being talked about and pitch in your 2 cents instantly.
4. Quick Decisions with Polls
Not all things require long conversations. Some decisions just need a yes or no input and Polls on Convo let you do exactly that. With polls you can gather user opinion on a variety of matters using text or image options. These polls are easy to create and allow you to get to decisions faster.
5. Connected on the Desk and on the Go
No more out of office emails or waiting to get back to your desk to give feedback. Connect to your Convo network from wherever you are with the fuly functional mobile apps and give feedback in an instant.
Still suffering from missed deadlines and feedback delays? Shift your team over to Convo and experience an improved collaboration experience within days. Sign up for free today at www.convo.com.