A considerable chunk of organizational success comes from effective team collaboration. When team members are all contributing to a collective effort, they are more likely to reach success. However, it’s no simple task to nurture a workplace that promotes collaboration across all departments.
Team collaboration refers to a work strategy that focuses on bringing two or more people to work on achieving a common goal through shared efforts and ideas. Whether you are working remotely or in the field, collaboration can work just as excellent as long as members understand the purpose behind it. It allows all team members to brainstorm, provide value, and participate equally in the company, contributing to work optimization, increased productivity and efficiency, and employee retention.
What team collaboration promotes
Team collaboration is essential for every team in materializing their goals. Businesses should find a way to encourage collaborative efforts to ensure goal attainment and nurture the relationship among its members.
To shed some light on why it is a key to team success, here’s a breakdown of what team collaboration does in the workplace.
1. Encourages problem-solving
The more people involved in identifying issues, the higher the chance of finding resolutions for them. As there is a bigger number of people with diverse expertise and skillsets, solving problems will be a breeze since there will always be someone who can provide the proper actions.
2. Promotes skill sharing
Team collaboration promotes the acquisition of new learnings together. Since each member has his/her own set of skills, there is an open opportunity to learn from one another’s knowledge, experiences, and even failures.
3. Boosts employee participation
When employees are grouped in working on some tasks, there is the inclination to participate actively. There is the responsibility to speak up, provide input and feedback, and find solutions for said projects, all of which contribute to increased employee engagement.
4. Increases efficiency
Since team collaboration consists of skilled individuals going after a common goal, there is better efficiency because there are more hands involved in a particular project. All processes speed up, and there is a higher chance to yield far better results than when done individually.
5. Provides a bigger perspective
When members come from various departments and backgrounds, there is more chance to cover all blind spots. All members have their own differences, and team collaboration may help break down barriers through understanding each problem and looking at the bigger picture.
6. Aligns team members even when working remotely
When dealing with distributed teams, collaboration can be a way to bring everyone together. It becomes the passage to get to know one another and even build that relationship to accomplish more things in the future. Even when working remotely, team collaboration is possible through several online project management tools widely available.
7. Defines responsibilities
One of the benefits of having team collaboration is the clear establishment of roles and responsibilities for everyone involved. Without setting up the key roles and goals, success cannot be met. To ensure good results, all skills are taken into consideration to assign the task to its rightful owner correctly. This increases accountability and the shared responsibility for the project.
8. Fosters trust on one another
Collaboration can only be effective if all parties involved are honest and transparent. And this open communication paves the way for fueling trust among all members.
9. Elevates employee satisfaction and retention
A workplace that promotes team collaboration is more likely to have happier employees. The thought of being a part of a collective effort demonstrates their value as team players, which makes them satisfied over their job. Besides, having known more people in the workplace adds fuel to staying longer since they are already comfortable working with them.
How to successfully launch collaborative projects
So how do organizations effectively promote team collaboration? Here are some guidelines to keep in mind.
Identify goals before beginning
When groups are collaborating, it can cause chaos. To avoid this, a team must set goals and establish rules to tidy up the process. These may refer to a time limit, room assignment, people to present first, and more.
Listen before speaking up
Before sharing feedback, members should listen first and digest what someone is talking about. Not only this shows respect for the person speaking, but it also allows you to gather your thoughts and understand the subject.
Use collaborative platforms
An online collaborative platform is like a virtual environment where team members can work together (often in real-time) to achieve common goals. Using the internet, these platforms connect users from different physical locations and offer them helpful functionalities such as document sharing and editing, file storage and sharing, collaborative design, and many others. Find a platform that best suits your needs and educate your team members to use it efficiently.
Keep an open mind
Listening to other people’s ideas will spark up some ideas you never knew were there. Always promote openness to suggestions and feedback as these are the foundation of good collaboration.
Be transparent
Practicing transparency and honesty at all times in brainstorming and executing processes will keep the company integrity intact and foster a more robust work relationship among members.
Be flexible and adaptable
Aside from having an open mind, the team should always be flexible in strategizing processes. Having flexibility and adaptability will amp up the success of team collaboration.
Plan team-building activities
Team building activities help increase employee engagement while building work relationships among its members. It motivates, increases productivity, and improves communication, all of which have a positive impact on collaborating with other coworkers.
Give credit where it is due
Proper recognition and acknowledgment of effort go a long way in motivating team members. When they feel appreciated, they are more willing to participate and provide feedback, thus enhancing the team effort. Practice regular affirmation to boost the morale of the team and demonstrate gratitude over everyone’s effort.
In nurturing a healthy workplace, both company and employees must understand the importance of team collaboration. Without establishing its value, it is harder to optimize processes and boost productivity. If you want to dive deeper into building and enriching a collaborative workplace, you can reap some one-of-a-kind tips from this online course, Collaboration and Emotional Intelligence.
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