Employee collaboration is more than just a buzzword. It refers to a work style that motivates employees to work more diligently and efficiently in order to complete their assigned projects successfully. According to a Stanford University study, participants who worked collaboratively could stay with a task 64% longer than those who worked independently. This method of project and task management is more than a passing fad. It is a way of working that is here to stay. This article discusses some of the advantages and examples of workplace collaboration as well as specific strategies for implementing it.
What is Workplace Collaboration?
Collaboration entails a group of people sharing their skills and ideas in order to achieve a common goal. Workforce members with diverse perspectives, ideas, and expertise collaborate to find innovative solutions, allowing organizations to solve problems more efficiently. Collaboration can occur in any setting, whether teams are based in an office or work remotely. The goal of a collaborative workplace is to maximize success opportunities by implementing a communicative and collaborative experience throughout the organization.
Why Is Workplace Collaboration So Important?
Every individual has unique skills, talents, and expertise. When all team members work together, they can use their knowledge, skills, and experience to achieve a common goal. Employees combine their expertise to get things done in the workplace, which aids in project delivery tracking. It also enables employees to share their ideas while learning about how others think, work, and operate. This, in turn, can be beneficial to both employees and the organization.
However, effective collaboration is not easy to achieve. A collection of remote jobs does not necessarily constitute an effective digital workplace. Perhaps too many employees are working remotely, your organization’s departments are siloed, or perhaps most meetings are ineffective. The key is to provide employees with the appropriate workplace collaboration tools so that they can effectively collaborate across the organization.
The Advantages of Collaborating at Work
Innovation
Perhaps the most important advantage of workplace collaboration is innovation. When people connect and work together to solve a difficult problem, magic happens. Teams produce more interesting, interesting, and unique solutions than individuals working alone.
The team’s shared resources foster an environment that encourages problem-solving, fosters creativity, and fosters innovation.
Engagement
Employees who work collaboratively have a stronger sense of purpose, ownership, camaraderie, and belonging than those who work alone. Working in a group makes it much easier to see how your ideas and work contribute to the organization’s success.
Employee engagement and belonging are linked to higher productivity, job satisfaction, and retention.
Learning
Working together allows your employees to tap into one of their most valuable learning resources: one another. As they contribute to team goals, new employees can learn from seasoned professionals in context.
Collaborative environments facilitate onboarding by providing a natural learning and skill-sharing setting. It also encourages veteran employees to keep their skills sharp and look for new opportunities for advancement.
Six Effective Collaboration Principles
While the skills listed above can help you collaborate effectively, it’s not just about what you do but also how you do it. Collaboration styles vary greatly, so the mindset with which you approach collaboration can make all the difference. Remember these values the next time you need to collaborate with your team.
Efficiency
Meetings are essential to collaboration, but they’ve gotten a bad rap over the years. After all, who hasn’t sat through a meeting that felt excessively long or unnecessary? You can do a few things to turn your team into a productivity machine.
One strategy is to hold meetings only when absolutely necessary. Virtual collaboration is fantastic, but everyone has heard of the pandemic of video burnout. You can improve collaboration and efficiency by carefully selecting your meetings.
Another approach is to ensure that any meeting or conference call has an agenda and clearly defined goals for each participant.
Finally, remember to assign action items to everyone involved in the project at the end. If you have a project that requires more teamwork from meeting attendees, why not set up a project-focused team chat for everyone? RingCentral’s video conferencing app, for example, allows you to do just that: not only can you have virtual meetings, but you can also create a group conversation for follow-ups after the meeting—all within the same app:
Trust
People must feel safe in order to provide and receive genuinely constructive feedback, be inspired by a common goal, and have the tools and opportunities to connect. This can only happen in a trusting environment where employees believe their teammates and leaders are looking out for their best interests.
Empathy
Every member of the team plays an important role. Nonetheless, collaboration can break down when one or more people believe they have it worse than everyone else or that other team members are out to bring them down. The more you get to know your coworkers and understand how they work and what challenges they face, the better your chances of successfully collaborating with them.
Optimism
Just because a group project failed in the past does not guarantee that it will fail again. Try to let go of any old grudges and approach each group work situation as if it were a fresh start, with an open and positive attitude.
Clarity
It is unusual for everyone on a team to be on the same page from the start. It is normal for people to have different priorities or interests. That is why it is critical to identify everyone’s priorities and agendas to find a common denominator that will move the project forward.
Accountability
The most successful businesses have systems and processes that allow employees to refer to a project’s schedule and tasks to understand how their contributions affect the group. That way, if deadlines are missed, or someone isn’t pulling their weight, it can be addressed as soon as possible.
How Do You Demonstrate Workplace Collaboration?
Actions, like many aspects of a hectic workplace, speak louder than words. It is not sufficient to state that people are expected to collaborate. Some circumstances foster collaboration and teamwork, and others that undermine a creative, cooperative workplace.
Here are six suggestions for improving workplace collaboration:
Keep your teams small
Because there are fewer people in a small group, each person has more opportunities to be heard. Individual contributions will also be highlighted more. Smaller teams also make it easier for team members to connect with and get to know one another.
Set specific goals.
Prepare your teams for success by outlining the end goal for them. Even if you give them as much creative freedom as possible, that doesn’t mean they won’t benefit from having clear goals. Tell them what kind of impact is important (and how you plan to measure it).
Giving them a common goal and telling them what you expect in terms of timing, budget, or scope will make it easier for them to collaborate productively. Keep it simple — a presentation, proposal, or action list is sufficient.
Provide numerous opportunities for participation.
Everyone does not learn or think in the same way. Offering a variety of ways for team members to contribute allows everyone to contribute in ways that are comfortable for them. It allows everyone to shine in their own unique way.
Wins should be celebrated.
As you create a collaborative environment, remember to celebrate each step along the way. Depending on how they currently operate, this may be a departure from what your team is used to. As your team develops its collaboration muscle, praise and acknowledge them for stepping outside of their comfort zone.
Equip and empower people.
Listen to your teams’ real-time feedback and give them what they need to be more effective. They may request specific communication tools, resources, or leadership input and feedback as they gain confidence. Work as much as you can with them. Always declining requests dampens enthusiasm for new ideas.
Include everyone (but not all at once).
Traditional-minded employers frequently express reservations about remote employees’ ability to collaborate effectively with their colleagues. However, with so many available virtual collaboration tools, this should not prevent you from ensuring that every employee, regardless of work arrangement, has opportunities to collaborate.
Collaboration can be asynchronous; encouraging quieter or more deliberate participation may be beneficial. Use video conferencing and file-sharing tools to connect remote teams easily. These online workspaces enable remote workers to collaborate across time zones and geographical boundaries.
Maintain its freshness.
Stagnation and routine dampen innovation. Don’t always assign the same types of projects to the same people to achieve better results. Collaboration entails more than just delegation and task assignment. Try to assign projects that are interesting and provide a break from the same old, same old while also considering which projects (and coworkers) could benefit from a fresh perspective.
Workplace Collaboration Examples
Teamwork is a strategy that has proven to be extremely effective in assisting organizations of all sizes to achieve a common goal. The following examples of real-life problem-solving demonstrate what a team that collaborates and works well together can accomplish.
— NASA Apollo 11 Moon Mission, 1969
The Moon landing in July 1969 was a “giant leap for mankind,” in astronaut Neil Armstrong’s immortal words. The journey of Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon, landing on its surface, and returning safely to Earth captivated the entire world.
Many hours of work and years of research led to the crew splashing down in the ocean. Multiple teams were at the top of their respective fields, working to achieve the best possible outcome. According to NASA, approximately 400,000 people worked on the moon landing project. Many of them had never before worked on aerospace applications. However, they could apply their knowledge to this new field and collaborate closely with the astronauts.
— Early 1990s Starbucks Store Expansion
Starbucks is a well-known coffee brand that most people are familiar with. You don’t have to go far in any major city to find one of their stores. Starbucks’ product line has grown over time to include breakfast, lunch, and snack items, as well as a variety of hot and cold beverages.
In 1971, the company opened its first store in Seattle. According to the company timeline, it had grown to a chain of 84 stores by 1990. The company announced its new mission statement at the time: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit — one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.”
At around the same time, Starbucks introduced a stock-options plan for employees (including part-time workers). However, the company still had issues with customer service and a lack of communication among various roles.
Howard Behar joined the company as President in 1995. He made changes to the workplace to make it more responsive to the needs of employees. Overall, customer service improved as a result. Mr. Behar advocated for the company to sell an experience rather than just coffee and encouraged team members to collaborate successfully around that mission.
Why do companies set workplace collaboration goals?
This working style makes employees feel more engaged in their work by fostering interpersonal relationships and encouraging them to advance in their careers. Tasks that would be far too large and difficult for one person to complete can be divided among several people and successfully completed by a team.
Which Skills Are Required for Effective Workplace Collaboration?
Working in a group is not something that everyone is naturally good at. Developing the skills required to implement collaborative working practices takes time and effort. Remember that everyone has both strengths and weaknesses. However, by working as a group, the group can capitalize on its strengths and find ways around the areas that its members find more difficult.
Soft skills such as active listening, empathy, problem-solving, and accountability are required when teams collaborate.
Employee Collaboration Strategies for the Workplace
How do you go about achieving your goal of creating a collaborative and trusting environment in the workplace now that you’ve seen some of the benefits? Consider the following workplace collaboration ideas:
Set clear objectives for the team
“What brings us here?” is a reasonable question to ask at the start of the collaboration process. The group must understand what constitutes a successful outcome. The team has no direction and no idea whether it is even on the right track unless someone comes up with a “big picture” idea first.
Encourage people to listen actively.
The majority of people do not engage in active listening during their interactions with others. They instead wait their turn to speak. Active listening necessitates that the other person or people slow down and consider what the speaker is saying. It also gives the person responding time to collect their thoughts before responding thoughtfully.
Provide employees with the technology they require for effective collaboration.
Working collaboratively should be something that enhances the employee experience rather than something that is imposed on a worker. Assure employees that they will be provided with the necessary collaboration tools to complete their tasks effectively.
Encourage accountability by documenting the processes that the team has agreed on.
It can be difficult for team members to remember everything said and decided during a meeting, whether in person or virtually. Depending on the team members’ preferences, using shared documents to take notes or sending a follow-up email after a meeting to summarize decisions and the next steps for the team can be beneficial.
You can use the company intranet platform to distribute information in the form of posts or articles. Sharing information and collaborating on a cloud-based platform keeps all team members on track and establishes a foundation for future projects.
When problems arise, concentrate on finding solutions.
When snags occur, and plans are disrupted (which they will), it is critical to focus on finding a solution rather than trying to figure out who on the team is to blame. In the end, problems are opportunities for everyone to learn how to do things differently the next time.
Employees should be recognized and rewarded for their efforts.
When a team completes a project, it is critical to recognize the members’ efforts somehow. The award does not have to be monetary. It could be a mention in the company newsletter, a thank-you note from the CEO, or a catered lunch from a local restaurant.
Employees should be given a platform to share their accomplishments through recognition.
International organizations, such as Imerys, are using communities to create a global employee recognition center (Life@Imerys) where both leaders and coworkers can share success stories. The important thing is that management recognized the team’s hard work, completion of the project, and achievement of its goal.
Consider workplace collaboration to be a living, evolving thing.
It is insufficient to “try” to improve collaboration as a pilot project. If a company adopts it as its way of working, the management team and employees must understand that this is how things will be done in the future.
There is always room for improvement and modification over time. Collaboration at work helps projects run more smoothly, keeps employees engaged, and ensures the company meets its objectives. When everyone on your team works well together, the results will speak for themselves.
5 Essential Workplace Collaboration Skills
If you’ve ever worked on a group project that didn’t go as well as you expected, you know that encouraging workplace collaboration is often easier said than done. Perhaps your teammates work from home and are difficult to reach. Perhaps your organization is too siloed, with departments unwilling to share information.
If you’re having trouble with collaboration at work, one of the best things you can do is work on improving your soft skills. Believe us when we say that mastering these five collaboration skills will make working in a team much easier and more effective.
Setting objectives
When working with a group, everyone must understand the project’s purpose and vision and how success will be measured. Transparency from the start fosters trust and ensures that everyone is committed to success and working toward a common goal.
Interaction
Make sure you have clear intentions before beginning a task or assignment. Let your teammates know what you’re up to, set realistic deadlines for yourself, and then stick to them.
Remember to communicate if you need to make changes to the plan you’ve laid out. If something unexpected occurs and you will be unable to deliver the expected results, communicate these changes.
Again, having an all-in-one communications tool comes in handy here—if your team can video call and instant message each other from the same app, there’s a better chance they’ll communicate quickly when an issue arises:
Listening actively
When working closely with others, you must pay close attention to each team member’s ideas, feedback, and advice—and respond with consideration and respect. That is the concept of active listening.
While you may have ideas about how you want the project to progress or who should do what, you must also consider your colleagues’ opinions. You may not always agree with the outcome, but at the end of the day, you must prioritize the group’s needs and responsibilities over your own desires.
Problem-Solving Abilities
Sometimes problems arise, and people make mistakes. It occurs. When problems arise, remember to analyze the situation as a group without blaming anyone in particular. Instead, concentrate your efforts on collaborating to find solutions. This promotes trust among team members and ensures that everyone feels comfortable communicating and being transparent with one another, even if they make a mistake.
Time Management
When you collaborate with others, you must be accountable to yourself and your group members who rely on you. This is where time management abilities come into play. Being able to prioritize your tasks and schedule them accordingly is critical to meeting deadlines and completing the work that your team expects from you.
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