Most, if not all, businesses start with one main goal, which is often the reason for their existence. The main goal differs across businesses, but the process of realizing it is the same. It requires breaking down the goal into small, achievable ones. A company needs various departments to execute these small goals. These teams must work together to achieve the greater purpose.
It all boils down to collaboration. Team collaboration brings about creativity, better problem solving, and enhanced productivity, which all companies hope to achieve. Here’s how to achieve collaboration across the teams in your workplace:
- Hold Team-Building Activities
The first secret to ensuring great collaboration is fostering relationships among your workers, and team building is the best way to do so.
You want first to develop relationships among workers outside of their actual tasks by holding fun and engaging activities that require teamwork. As they work together to finish a game, they get to learn and trust one another. They also become comfortable around one another, creating synergy, which you’d want in your workplace. When people are friendly toward one another, trust and understanding follow. They can then easily work on projects together and yield results.
When holding team-building activities, you shouldn’t forget your team working remotely. With the hundreds of virtual work happy hour ideas from Mystery to try, you can easily pick one or two to make them feel they belong. It can evoke the right energy for work and even outside work.
- Assign Tasks
When people are working together, there’s a possibility of conflict. You don’t want this in your workplace, especially when your focus is on collaboration. One way to reduce conflict is by delegating tasks to each team. You can let the teams subdivide the tasks you’ve allocated among themselves for better teamwork.
With task assigning, everyone knows what’s expected of them regarding a project. No one will take up a task not assigned to them, which can lead to conflict. After assigning tasks, it’s best to work with team managers who’ll ensure that the quality of work is up to par. They’ll also see to it that their members execute their tasks before the deadline.
- Invest In Collaborative Tools
Boosting your collaborative efforts requires collaboration tools. These tools can help your teams work and effectively communicate with one another. Several communication tools are available for any official and unofficial purposes; you simply have to choose which fits your organization best.
For instance, you can use emails for official communication and chat applications for informal communication. Informal channels are crucial in creating and maintaining happiness in the workplace. Your workers can take a break and discuss their weekend, a new movie in play, and other unofficial events. Sometimes, best ideas can be generated from such conversations.
Besides communication tools, you should invest in project management tools. Everyone can access the documents to a given project on a project management application. They can even work on the project concurrently, leading to faster completion.
- Advocate For Open Communication
For collaboration to be effective, free communication among your team members is vital. It’s important to create a space wherein workers should not hesitate to express themselves for fear of ridicule or other reasons as long as they’re respectful.
You can do advocate for open communication by asking insights from everyone in a meeting. Everybody can then be motivated to open up and communicate directly with one another. Through open communication, your workers can solve their issues amicably without involving the higher ups unless necessary.
Advocating for open communication necessitates the involvement of the management team as well. The aim is to push for them to listen to workers who come to their doors with issues. Dismissing them without hearing their concerns can make workers be afraid to speak up in the future. You want to avoid this scenario when aiming for effective collaboration.
- Bring Your Team On Board
As a business owner, you might have come up with several great ideas and invested in many resources, including finances, to execute them, but to no avail. It’s likely the case if your team isn’t on board with your plan.
As you push for collaboration, involve your workers by not only highlighting the importance of teamwork but also informing them how they’d benefit from collaboration and how their work would be easier. In turn, they’d support your idea and ensure it succeeds.
Conclusion
Teamwork is an aspect often underlined in a business setting. However, establishing it is no easy feat. As a manager or business owner, you have to be proactive in doing this. The discussion above highlights tips you can use to boost collaboration across teams in your workplace. By implementing these tips, you’ll have greater-than-even chance of achieving efficiency and teamwork at work.
