8 Ways to Foster Team Collaboration

Most people get wrong about developing a sustainable and efficient team because they think it is as simple as bringing the smartest people under one umbrella. If there are conflict and a lack of team collaboration, then all the skills and intelligence can waste.

Why is Team Collaboration Important?

Okay, there’s nothing new about team collaboration, but it’s more than bringing fresh and efficient talents under one roof. It is about having effective communication, fostering growth, and coming up with efficient and cost-effective solutions.

Every team member must resonate with each other and move towards a common goal. It is one of the most critical aspects that affect performance and turnover rates. 54% of employees revealed a strong team collaboration made them stay at a company longer than they had initially planned.

Technology is changing at a breakneck speed, and so is work culture. People are more connected. Freelancing is on the rise, and so is work from home. Considering all these aspects, building a lasting workplace experience has never been so important. Not only that, but successful collaboration also helps deliver optimum results and helps your company in being ahead of your competitors.

Ways To Increase Team Collaboration

Since we have learned how important is team collaboration, let’s look at how we can optimize our efforts.

1. Effective Communication

Great communication is one of the key aspects of an efficient team collaboration technique. Effective communication improves bonding within a team, and guesses what? It’s the cheapest way too.

Not only that, having clear instructions on the project, asking questions before making assumptions, and taking into account every employee not only creates a great work culture but also improves transparency. Every employee should be able to communicate with authority and autonomy. This promotes transparency and accountability in the workplace.

2. Employee Engagement

Whatever you do, one thing’s for sure. A disengaged employee is not likely to be a great team player. An employee who is not satisfied is unlikely to contribute towards collaborating with his/her team.

To maintain a perfect team, employee engagement is one of the first steps that must be on your mind. Take frequent feedback from your employees to get an idea of the engagement level, ensure that every team member knows its purpose and their contribution is valued.

3. The Values of the Company

The first step in bringing everyone under the same umbrella is sharing the idea of the company. The idea for which your organization stands for is as vital for your employees as the paycheck. When the values of your organization are meaningful, your employees are that much more passionate.

Passionate employees always tend to work with their teammates to achieve the company’s missions. People want to work with companies that have invested in identifying and developing their mission. This gives your employees a solid reason to put effort into improving team collaboration.

4. Appreciating Individual Strength

Research by OfficeTeam revealed that 66% of employees would quit their jobs if they felt under-appreciated. Take into account millennials, and the figure jumps up to 76%. This starts way back from hiring. Make sure you are hiring perfect fits and give them appropriate opportunities to showcase their talents.

A more difficult part of this is identifying the skillsets.

Not everyone is a team leader. You should be able to identify the skillsets of the members of your team.

On top of identifying individual efforts, you should also be focused on the team’s collaborative efforts. Extra points for you if you can identify and show appreciation for your efforts in real-time.

5. Set an Example

You can strategize as much as you want, make as many plans and conduct as many sessions, but if you cannot act as you speak, your efforts will not bear great results. As a team leader, you should set an example at every turn.

Make sure the top management team displays the same kind of collaboration that you want in your employees. When your employees see an effective team collaboration, it is likely to increase cooperation in the workplace.

Also, face-to-face interaction is crucial here.

You need to show your employees that you are ready for one-to-one interaction and are ready for dialogue. When your employees come to you for a request, handle them appropriately and stress more on the team’s collaboration. This will show that your team can trust you and appreciate the team’s collaborative efforts.

6. Team Building Activities

This is a fun one. Team building activities are the perfect ingredients in the making of a great team collaboration recipe.

When your employees engage in fun activities that promote teamwork, team collaboration becomes that much easier. Successful teams often indulge in fun team activities both to encourage collaboration in the workplace and to relax. A few examples can be two truths and a lie, helium stick, memory wall, tied together, etc.

7. Team Collaboration Tools

Cloud collaboration tools have truly taken off in the past decade. With the rise of multinational companies and remote working, cloud tools offer a comprehensive solution to modern businesses. They have reached a place where they are an indispensable part of the company culture. They are bringing diverse teams together, allowing teams to work together and achieve the common goals effectively.

It is no brainer that every business must leverage cloud tools to boost collaboration in the workplace. Unique benefits of team collaboration tools include:

• Clear and precise delegation.
• An easier way to work across geographic locations.
• Better tracking and reporting.
• Better organization of workplace documents.

8. Smart Hiring

This might seem like an unusual one, but this is as important as any other point in this list. If you end up hiring a misfit, then no amount of team collaboration activities or team collaboration software can help you. Not only that, a misfit is likely to disturb the balance and might create a domino effect and end up spiraling a series of resignations.

To build an amazing team, you must get appropriate people on board. This starts right from creating a perfect job description to onboarding. Perfect fits can improve not only the bonding of the team but also improve productivity and efficiency.

Finally

Today’s team members require much more effort to keep them on the same field than teams of yesteryears. Today’s diversity, long-distance cooperation, and new skill sets add to the complexity of maintaining a well-oiled team. But this doesn’t mean that team building and team collaboration is a thing of the past. In fact, due to the influx of young people entering the industry, community building and team members are as important as a paycheck.

This article is written by Iftekar Ahmed. He works as a Content Creator and Digital Marketer at Vantage Circle. When he is not playing guitar or solving puzzles, he is often seen fussing over foods he can't eat because he is on a perennial dieting spree. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com