Striving to achieve a positive company culture should be a priority for all managers and business owners.
Teamwork and collaboration are part and parcel of a positive work culture and vice versa because you really can’t have one without the other.
This type of company culture also tends to see higher levels of productivity as well as being more likely to retain their staff for longer periods and limiting employee turnover.
The question is then: how can you achieve this? Keep reading to find out.
The Difference Between Collaboration & Teamwork
Collaboration in the workplace refers to employees with different strengths coming together, working towards common goals, and accomplishing tasks or producing results.
It can be used to solve problems, encourage teamwork, improve working relationships and boost productivity overall.
A business that wishes to encourage more collaborative efforts among its staff really needs to think about the skills and traits that its employees display and whether the business is geared towards collaboration.
For example, without solid resource management strategies and effective communication tools, collaboration will be all but impossible.
Teamwork, on the other hand, refers more to the qualities needed to excel at collaboration.
The employees need to possess the abilities required to work well together, like communicating, leadership traits, sharing resources and active listening.
Learning the right teamwork skills helps to improve morale, build bonds between staff and increase the quality of the output.
Teamwork skills include things like conflict management, respectfulness and interpersonal skills.
Collaborative teamwork, then, is a combination of the above. It is all about creating a team that has the skills needed to be about to work together productively.
The workers need to have the ability to work well both individually and as part of a team. They need to be aware of their strengths and what they bring to the table.
The team needs to be engaged and aware of their individual tasks and the autonomy they have, and how they can be used when working together.
The Benefits of a Collaborative Workforce
Fostering a healthier company culture is incredibly important, and there are a number of benefits to doing so.
Firstly, by creating a more robust company culture that encourages collaboration and teamwork, you are likely to see a dramatic increase in the productivity and the efficiency of the workforce.
This is because a collaborative workforce allows the workers to really lean into their strengths, and the whole team benefits when this happens.
Working within a collaborative environment that openly encourages teamwork forces the employees to improve their communication skills and their social skills as a whole.
The individuals need to learn how to better relate to their colleagues, enhance their decision-making skills, ask for help when they need it and share their knowledge for the betterment of the entire team.
It also encourages employees to work towards common goals and always have a view of the big picture.
Businesses with a company culture that is lacking often find their employees to be more selfishly motivated, looking to further their own agendas, which may or may not align with the ultimate goals of the business.
A healthy and positive company culture teaches employees that they can succeed better together, as well as also working towards their individual achievements.
It can also be really informative for the employees; they can gain an insight into their own personal working styles and how it could be affecting their colleagues.
They might not notice certain behaviours or mindsets when working alone, but when they are trying to collaborate, they might discover that they can be quite defeatist, or they are overwhelming positively, or maybe they could do with being more proactive.
Whatever the case may be, teamwork and collaboration can be really illuminating and help you to adjust your working style to make you more effective in your role.
When the company culture is geared towards inclusivity and collaboration, then the whole business benefits from the different perspectives that each worker brings to the table.
Your team is likely to be made up of people of different backgrounds with different life experiences that they can draw on.
These can help to shape the direction of the business and allow the different departments to learn from each other for the betterment of the entire business.
Encouraging Collaboration & Teamwork
Overhauling your business’s company culture is not something that can be done overnight; it will take some work.
Luckily there are some strategies that you can use to transform your company culture and make it more geared towards teamwork.
Firstly, you should assess where you are starting from. What is the current company like? If you want to change it, you need to know what, precisely, needs to change in order to achieve the results that you are looking for.
It should really go without saying that you will need to implement a zero-tolerance policy on bullying in the workplace; you cannot hope for a cohesive team if the workers do not feel safe and supported.
The management team needs to be more intentional in their leadership. They need to think about what they are trying to achieve and how they can do this.
What factors do they need to change, what things do they need to start doing, and what factors are going to encourage teamwork and collaboration in the workplace?
You then need to be intentional in your leadership and how you are demonstrating and encouraging these things. Creating a good company culture is also something that you need to work on.
It will take continual refinement and evolution. Learn how to embrace change and accept it with open arms.
Asking for feedback and taking criticism well can help you to address things you might have considered previously and improve the efficacy of your efforts.
Embracing technology is also paramount; there are so many pieces of tech and software that can help to connect different factions of the business, encourage communication and make it easier to share ideas.
For example, if one of your employees wanted someone else to cast their eye over what they have been working on to provide them with some feedback, then they could use Smallpdf to compress their files to make it easier to send via email or messaging services.
Everybody within the business needs to know what their role is, they need to have an understanding of their responsibilities as an individual worker, but more than this, they also need to know how their job fits into the big picture of the business.
Ideally, all workers will understand the importance of each other’s roles; this helps them to develop an appreciation for each other and encourage accountability too.
The team should also be encouraged to tackle issues together. They don’t always need to be so insular in their approach. Group problem-solving can actually help them to come up with a solution much more quickly than they otherwise would.
In Summary
Company culture is incredibly important to today’s workers; obviously, there are a number of things in their benefits package that holds value, but the company culture really can be make or break for staff retention rates.
You could offer everything they want, but if they don’t feel safe, comfortable or valued within the business thanks to a negative company culture, they will look for work elsewhere.
From a business perspective, then, it makes sense to work on your business’s company culture; happy, engaged employees are much more likely to be productive and you are likely to see increased profits as a result.
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