5 Reasons Collaboration Should Be Nurtured in The Workplace
A lack of collaboration in the workplace can create a disconnect that makes it difficult for a business to succeed. Collaboration enables individuals, teams, and departments to work together in a collective effort to solve problems and achieve goals. It brings together people with different ideas, skills, expertise, and talent, who work together with a common purpose.
There are many reasons why effective collaboration may not be occurring in the organisation, including having departments or teams siloed, too many individuals working remotely, or holding meetings that are unproductive and overly long.
For businesses to succeed, they need to find ways that will allow their employees to effectively exploit the skills, knowledge, and experience that individual members bring to the team and use this to focus on and achieve shared goals. What will often take one person days to accomplish can often be resolved in a matter of hours when you have a team with the right skills working together effectively.
Working collaboratively enables teams to achieve goals more efficiently, more easily overcome challenges, identify opportunities, and learn from one another. This approach therefore not only reaps benefits for the business but also for its employees.
Why Collaboration Matters in The Workplace
- Forms the foundation of all work processes
Organisations are made up of individuals who can easily get lost by being focused on their individual tasks and functions. Collaboration with others within and beyond their departments gives them a broader understanding of how their efforts contribute to the bigger picture and those made by others in the organisation.
Collaboration is what helps individuals understand the connections between the processes they and others execute and how it all leads to delivering the end product or service to the customers. While technology can help make collaboration easier, it is important to note that it is still a fundamental aspect of all work processes.
- Contributes to business success
Collaboration promotes better teamwork, which in turn contributes to the success of the business. For businesses to carry out projects, they require teams of people in different departments and roles to accomplish tasks. These people need to work together in a collaborative effort, however, even how this will work may vary.
In some cases, there may not be a need for much supervision and coordination, while other teams may require keener attention and a strategic platform that enables them to more effectively communicate, organise and convert ideas into new projects fast.
- Improves team success
While each team member will have their own assigned tasks to undertake, achieving common goals requires a team effort. It is a trickle effect that allows individual contributions to group together and leads to the achievement of common goals. Management can more easily oversee entire projects and individual contributions of members using project management software that helps track success and pinpoint problem areas early.
This success is made possible by work collaboration that enables individuals to communicate, coordinate, and execute tasks alongside or in tandem with other members of the team, leading to the successful achievement of set goals. Software with built-in teams modules can help facilitate this collaboration, increasing the chances that organisational goals will be achieved on time and that the business or project is deemed a success.
- Promotes team focus
Although collaboration from a broader perspective contributes to overall business success, it also stirs personal responsibility on the part of team members. They become more aware of how important fulfilling their role is and this gives them focus and a desire to work harder at their jobs and when collaborating with others.
While focused on their individual role, they still manage to grasp the bigger picture and the necessity of ensuring their efforts keep pace with the rest of the team for the project to remain on track.
- Drives innovation and growth
Innovation helps businesses to more creatively and effectively solve problems. By bringing together people with different skillsets and experiences, better ideas and new information are put forward.
Applying the collective expertise of the team and their deliberations helps in developing better solutions. More innovation and growth are generated from bringing together great minds who can not only suggest new ideas and solutions but also evaluate them to pinpoint which ones offer the best value.
4 Key Benefits of Collaboration
- Increased flexibility
When teams can effectively collaborate, the organisation is better able to cope with unexpected changes as the response time will be faster. Stronger communication and teamwork will allow the business to adjust quickly whenever there are changes to the business environment, such as new legislation, disruptive technologies, or changes in customer preferences.
- Higher engagement and satisfaction
When more of your employees are engaged, they become more proactive and willing to accept change as they have a better understanding of its need. Since collaboration also creates a workspace or work culture where employees feel heard and valued, they enjoy greater job satisfaction and are more inclined to work harder at their jobs to retain them.
- More productive meetings
When you have strong collaboration between team members, there is less need for meetings. Good collaboration already fosters effective communication that can nullify the need to waste time discussing topics that have already been resolved via chat messaging or email. This means that where meetings are actually held, it is because there is a need for proactive engagement on topics that need it. With fewer meetings, employees can spend more time focused on their work, boosting productivity.
- Enhanced learning
Collaboration provides ample opportunities for team members to learn from one another and grow their skills. Whether it is through debates or feedback, they gain insight into different viewpoints from different team members and other teams, helping to expand their knowledge, understanding and experiences.
