Written by Jamie Yan. Category Employee community Employee engagement. What is workplace collaboration Collaboration is the act of individuals working together to make unified decisions.
Why collaboration in the workplace is important If you think about collaboration in general, the goal is to maximize the success of a business. Collaboration in the workplace: Promotes problem-solving Generally speaking, when diverse knowledge and skillsets are in the mix, it increases competence and experience. Spurs innovation The diverse expertise and perspectives of your team will foster problem-solving. Connects teams to the bigger picture Many times the bigger picture gets buried when an individual is focused on a problem.
Boosts learning and skills-sharing When you have people working together, there is a tremendous opportunity for individuals to learn from each other.
Increases employee satisfaction Collaboration in the workplace helps create an open environment where people feel valued and heard. Aligns distributed or remote teams The workforce is more distributed than ever. Tips to improve workplace collaboration There are more than enough reasons that prove collaboration in the workplace is beneficial not only to your employees but to your entire company. Here are some tips to better collaboration: Listen first, talk later.
A large part of collaborating successfully between employees and teams is listening to one another and making sure that everyone feels acknowledged and heard. Also, it builds trust, leading to better relationships.
Set ground rules and goals. When you have a large group of people collaborating in the workplace, it can become chaotic. Goals should be iterated at the beginning of every collaboration meeting so that everyone is aligned. Rules will create a structure for the process.
For example, to make sure that collaboration is efficient, you can set rules to limit time. This means asking for feedback and opinions, sharing knowledge, finding out how your collaborators approach their side of the project, and gaining a better sense of how they work. Teams that collaborate not only have an opportunity to learn from each other—their mistakes, successes, failures, workflow, etc. You get a chance to hear their side of things: their pain points, priorities, even the way they think.
Which can be extremely valuable as you work together going forward. Working with new people from different areas of your business also opens up channels that would otherwise remain closed. Finding new ways to communicate and share information is hugely important to the success of any business, which is why collaboration should be utilized whenever possible to form bonds between departments.
A lot of collaboration tools, like an intranet for example, do just that. As connections are made between teams and departments, people will naturally trust each other more, which can gradually boost the morale of your entire organization. Regularly working together with people outside of your own team or department is one of the most effective ways to build trust. This is also attractive to top performing candidates who are increasingly looking for more open, engaged workplaces.
Connection matters to people, especially in the workplace. We want to work with people we trust, who understand and respect our points of view, and who work well with others, especially those who come from different backgrounds and areas of expertise.
Simply put, working collaboratively makes this possible. Working independently has its advantages. Collaborative communication has a positive impact on the business and its employees. It helps to:. There are a lot of things a company can do to promote professional collaboration among their employees. However, the specifics of establishing collaboration at the workplace will depend on the team size, whether your team works remotely or in an office, the number of departments, and others.
If you want to foster a collaborative spirit at the workplace, then below are some effective methods to consider! This can include organizing interior design like arranging a separate lounge area for coffee breaks, establishing a communication corporate culture like encouraging active listening or special meetings to greet newcomers in the company. The atmosphere in a workplace means a lot.
An overly authoritative working style can ruin trust among employees, putting them under pressure and making them survive, not thrive at work. For this, you need to encourage the development of horizontal communication and transparency among your employees when everyone feels equal and treated fairly.
Evidently, even at Google according to their own research , levels of psychological safety varied greatly from team to team, and it made a lot of difference in their performance:. The more you try to establish control over your employees, the less they feel secure enough to express themselves. There are still ways to manage employees in a more gentle way.
For example, simple time tracking vs. Teams that collaborate also communicate. Integrating collaborative tools like Asana and Todoist into your workflow, is the first step to communicating efficiently. A team that knows how to collaborate is comfortable sharing their ideas and adding new processes and tools to the table.
That level of participation means teammates can communicate with each other in a clear and direct manner. This brings forth new innovations and ways the team can improve. So your team is communicating, forecasting change, and problem-solving—but a team can't do this without the exchange of knowledge. If your team is able to bring its expertise to the table, everyone can coach each other, teach new skills, and elevate the team as a whole. And every good team has a diversity of knowledge that will contribute to new approaches to achieving success.
A team reaches a common goal through a combination of individual and team-driven efforts. With a clear goal in mind, you understand your role and the purpose of your work.
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