LoginSchedule demoLoginSchedule demoEmployee collaboration is a major aspect to how successful your organization will be. But what is it and how can you improve collaboration in the workplace?
There are many aspects to a successful workplace, but organizations often forget the impact that employee collaboration can have on the bottom line.
After all, your people are the lifeblood of your organization and are key to overall business growth and work culture.
Of course, this is also one of the more challenging parts of business especially with a growing organization filled with various teams, different departments, interests and cultural backgrounds, and office locations.
And as remote work continues to increase in popularity, collaboration can be difficult to consistently maintain and build upon.
This is why building successful collaboration in the workplace is more critical than ever before. Okay, but what are the true benefits of employee collaboration? And how can your organization build a collaborative environment that employees will love?
86% of employees and executives cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures. (Salesforce)
Granted, you are on this post and are probably already valuing employee collaboration. However, do you know all the benefits it can have on your organization?
Perhaps the benefits of employee collaboration is news to you, or maybe you’re looking to start from scratch with a workplace collaboration strategy. Regardless of your experience with the topic, let’s quickly explore why collaboration in the workplace is so valuable.
39% of surveyed employees believe that people in their own organization don’t collaborate enough. (Queens University)
Building a more collaborative work environment is not something that happens overnight.
Whether you are starting completely fresh or looking to improve your current employee collaboration strategy, making an organizational effort will be huge for the business and its employees.
Below you’ll find some tips and the best practices and ideas to boost collaboration in the workplace and to better streamline work productivity.
One of the most challenging things to do within an organization is to alter work culture. It can be done, it just takes time for new ideas and values to sync with everyone. But getting the idea of teamwork and collaboration built into the culture helps create a tight knit work environment.
With a culture of collaboration in place everyone in the company knows what to expect. Leadership values people working together, and new hires will understand the value of working together and interdisciplinary cooperation from day one.
This means leadership pushes toward the collaborative mindset with their teams, valuing feedback and ideas, and including other departments to work together.
Additionally, when on-boarding new hires there should be readily available information about how employee collaboration is a key aspect to everyday work life.
All too often, departments get bogged down in meetings after meetings. Typically, this can cause productivity to drop and important project flows to be disrupted. And look, meetings are inevitable and can be effective when done right.
Instead, there should be a focus on “smart meetings” that improve efficiency and happen less often to reduce wasting time on things that could easily be communicated without having to schedule a time slot together.
It might sound counterintuitive considering collaboration can happen in meetings too, but your organization and individual teams need to find the right balance.
Not everyone will agree on everything when collaborating, but everyone should be understanding and hear each other instead of just waiting to disagree or opine the final word devoid of consensus.
70% of employees attribute enhanced collaboration to digital technologies. Of course, there are also a lot of distractions and digital noise out there, so your company needs to find the right balance.
Which technologies are implemented will also vary based on your needs and how your team currently works. But because your employees are scattered within offices, potentially globally, or work remotely altogether – in person meetings aren’t always possible or (as stated in the previous tip) aren’t always necessary.
Improving collaboration and engagement is critical and some options you might already have in place include:
These technologies will help employees connect with one another, wherever they are currently located and working.
Again, you want to find that delicate balance of increasing productivity and collaboration with communication tools without creating distractions from employee workflows.
If your organization wants to fully embrace employee collaboration, that means accepting ideas and feedback without defensive criticism – wherever it comes from. This is the culture of innovation that Steve Jobs spoke of, and that Marc Benioff the CEO of Salesforce swears by.
When there is open dialogue, discussions, and ideas that are attributed to those who brought them to attention, people trust the culture and their company. This can encourage more people to speak up, connect, and engage more often with one another.
Besides showing that you want a collaborative workplace, you need to implement ideas that come from the team’s work as well. Seeing is believing, so besides talking about employee collaboration your organization needs to take action too.
Don’t just talk about collaboration, walk it too!
People should not be afraid to speak up or hesitate to share their insights. Even if the idea or what they share is common sense or ultimately not an idea worth pursuing, everyone should still be open without the fear of being belittled or criticized harshly.
Empathy is the key, and for good reason you also hear that word when it comes to marketing and sales.
Before we wrap this post up, I wanted to share some interesting employee collaboration statistics. After all, I love seeing the data that puts value on doing something or concrete validation of “why” a process or strategy should be focused on.
While I did sprinkle in a few stats earlier in this post, I figured a collection of some others might interest you. Check them out below:
For collaboration in the workplace to happen, employees need to feel trusted, that their ideas and feedback matters, and that they can be accepted by their peers.
If employees do not feel comfortable or if they are uninspired by their work, company, or leaders, and lack the tools to be successful – collaboration is easily lost.
Your organization needs to build a culture of collaboration and take the necessary steps to ensure that disciplinary silos and isolated departments are not institutionalized, as establishing communication barriers within any organization will always be a hindrance to collaboration in the workplace.
Finding the right balance of strategy, process, and technology will ensure your workplace continues to thrive with employees excited to work together and help each other win.
Todd served as Director of Marketing at EveryoneSocial, leading content strategy and editorial across the blog through 2021. Today he is Head of Content & Brand at RemoFirst, founder of Linkeezy (an inbox and content tool for LinkedIn), and a SaaS marketing and content advisor.
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