How to Build Successful Collaboration in the Workplace and Why Is It Important?
Reading Time: 4 minutesWorking in business for some time, you’ll know that efficient collaboration in the workplace is a must for achieving your goals. Lots of business use cases have already proven that when your employees work together to reach the same purpose, they reach far better results than when everyone works on their own. So if you make your team come together for your business’ behoof, you’re most likely to get a synergistic effect and increase your business productivity.
To top it off, when your working atmosphere is focused on collaboration, your employees feel themselves a part of something big and important. All you have to do is to encourage them to be active participants in the teamwork. But how to build successful collaboration in the workplace? What is the best collaboration tool? Goals team answers all these questions and provides you with 5 tips on building your collaborative teamwork. Check it out!
- What are the key benefits of collaboration in the workplace?
- 5 tips on how to build successful collaboration in the workplace
What are the key benefits of collaboration in the workplace?
First things first, we should make clear what a collaborative work environment is and why you need it. In simple terms, it is a process where two or more people work together to achieve a common purpose via constant communication and sharing of their ideas and skills. The key benefits that collaboration brings to your business are as follows:
- Collaboration provides value for your employees. When people work towards the same goal, they begin to have a deeper sense of it. As a result, this greater understanding provides them with a meaningful reason to keep working together and motivates them to effectively cooperate with team members.
- Collaboration helps to keep the bigger picture in sight. As the saying goes, four eyes see more than two. This also applies to collaboration. You and your employees are different people with varying business backgrounds. That’s why your vision of any business situation can be wildly different. Encouraging constant feedback from your employees, you’ll see how these visions complement each other and help to boost your problem-solving.
- Collaboration maximizes synergy. In case you don’t know what synergy means, it is a situation when a combination of some elements brings greater total effect than their sum. For instance, multiple employees that work together on the same project are more likely to bring innovations to the end result than if they worked separately. The synergy from collaboration in the workplace results in the increased business efficiency.
5 Tips on How to Build Successful Collaboration in the Workplace
Let’s start building collaboration in your workplace. How to do this? Here are some helpful tips:
1. Provide your employees with a clear cause
To effectively work on your projects and successfully achieve your business goals, your employees have to be cohesive. In order to unite your workers, provide them with a clear reason to become a part of the business project and your company’s mission. The better they understand it, the more inspired they will be to be a part of its goal in all sincerity. When you give your employees this reason, they might become passionate about this project almost the same as you are.
2. Set SMART team goals
In order for your team to achieve business success, they have to know what regular results you expect from their work. That’s why you have to set SMART goals for them that they have to achieve within the prescribed time frames. These goals need to be achievable, feel like a real win of your team, and create a positive momentum of collaboration in the workplace. At the end of each quarter (or any other period you choose for your team), the results of your team’s work have to become available to all team members so that they could analyze and (ideally) celebrate their progress.
3. Communicate your expectations
It is about the roles and responsibilities of your employees. There also has to be a clear understanding of who is in charge of the project, and what is the position and responsibility of each team member. When your team works in a state of clear understanding of their responsibilities, people will work more effectively and will know for sure how it feels to take part in the shared responsibility of results.
4. Use best team collaboration software
In present-day reality, there are probably no businesses that don’t use software to organize their work. Our team, in turn, highly recommends you to turn your attention to Goals by KeepSolid for this purpose. In a nutshell, it is a goal-oriented platform that helps you manage your business workload, appoint employees to the needed goals and tasks, and boost your team collaboration. Thanks to the best collaboration tool, your team will always be on the same page and will have a clear understanding of what is going on via their Objectives and Tasks.
5. Welcome new ideas
Brainstorming is a great idea to bring innovations to your working process, help your team grow professionally, and boost your collaborative teamwork. Encouraging innovation in your business environment, you will teach your workers that there is no challenges they can’t overcome. New ideas can help your team realize that they can handle any business obstacle, making them even more motivated to act accordingly. Ask your team members for their ideas on a regular basis and don’t forget to reward their creativity!