What is collaboration in the workplace?

Collaboration in the workplace occurs when two or more people or groups come together to achieve a shared goal by discussing ideas and creating a plan they carry out together. In the workplace, collaboration means brainstorming ideas, dividing work duties up evenly so everyone is contributing and fostering a team environment where everyone is working toward the same end product.

Why is collaboration important?

Collaboration is an important skill that’s valuable in many areas of life, but in the workplace especially it benefits everyone. In the workplace, collaboration means employees are sharing knowledge while helping each other improve in their roles and become more efficient. Good workplace collaboration leads to healthy employee relationships, creating a positive workplace culture.

What are the benefits of collaboration?

When it comes to collaboration in the workplace, the benefits of encouraging this behavior among employees are endless. With good worker collaboration, your business will experience:

Improved problem-solving abilities

When employees collaborate, they’re sharing knowledge with one another, which means that in a situation where an issue needs resolving, staff members who may be weaker in that area benefit from the support of other workers with more experience.

Boost in morale

When employees form connections with one another, trust forms naturally, creating a positive work environment where everyone feels safe, confident and welcome.

Higher rates of employee retention

Similarly, when employees enjoy coming to work each day and are happy with their workplace relationships, they’re less likely to seek employment opportunities elsewhere. This leads to higher retention rates for your business, allowing you to cultivate a team with a strong bond and deep trust, rather than expending resources on hiring and training as you would with a higher rate of turnover.

Increased efficiency

When employees know how to work together as a team, they’re capable of dividing up tasks to complete them with maximum efficiency to the highest quality possible. This results in your business becoming more efficient and delivering high-quality work to clients or customers.

Stronger team bonding

Collaboration brings people closer together and can help encourage teams in your workplace that aren’t communicating well to improve their dynamics. Implementing team-building exercises with mixed-skill teams often proves beneficial for everyone involved. In high-pressure team-building exercises, the staff is forced to learn communication techniques in real time that they can put into practice when they get back to the office. Mixed-skill teams mean putting people from different departments together into a collaborative situation, allowing them to learn from each other and develop interdepartmental communication skills.

What are the disadvantages of collaboration?

While collaboration is typically viewed as a completely positive practice in the workplace, there’s a fine line between beneficial collaboration and a level of collaboration that detracts from employee performance. While it can help improve team communication to have departments talk with each another for the purpose of completing a project together, there are instances where the time spent in discussion is actually resulting in a lower efficiency rate or poorer quality of work being done.

To avoid collaboration that’s a detriment to your business, don’t overestimate the financial return on projects. If a task takes on a collaboration model where multiple employees are working on one item when they could be tackling several individually, you’re no longer profiting as a company. Encourage communication, but ensure staff members are still maximizing their productivity and completing their own tasks as laid out in the job description.

Tips for increasing employee collaboration

To encourage collaboration among employees in a way that benefits your company, implement these tips:

Establish a judgment-free space

If you want employees to feel comfortable sharing ideas and communicate openly with one another, it’s essential to establish the workplace as a judgment-free zone. Staff needs to be confident that if they speak their minds respectfully or put themselves out there, they won’t be embarrassed or ridiculed for it. Foster a culture of mutual respect among your employees and set the tone for encouraging ideation.

Lead by example

As an employer or supervisor, you must lead by example if you want to encourage collaboration among your direct reports. Your team will model your behavior, so rather than using mass emails to communicate with each department, implement the use of collaborative communication tools.

Encourage interdepartmental communication

A truly collaborative and positive work environment often means speaking to people who don’t perform the exact same tasks you do. Encourage employees to talk to staff members outside their own departments by hosting social events for the company or periodically setting up team-building exercises where everyone can get to know each other in a more relaxed setting. Communication between departments means improved efficiency and an easier time troubleshooting issues.

Offer team rewards

If you’re struggling to get your employees to collaborate, incentivizing teamwork is a good way to go. Rather than a traditional “employee of the month” model that recognizes the accomplishments of the individual, recognize a department each month based on performance so the workers in each area of the company will feel a sense of togetherness as they aim to perform well as a team. Be sure to keep it fun and positive so nobody gets too competitive.

Provide technology to support collaboration

If you want team members to collaborate, you must provide them with the tools to do so. Ensure your company computers are equipped with necessary apps and software for workers to collaborate on projects. Work in shared documents or host project files on a central server everyone can access at any time, making it easy to jump in and help one another. Digital collaboration tools are especially important for remote workers and teams.

Align your employees’ visions and goals

Collaboration is easier to build when employees have a common goal in mind, and at work that should align with the company’s objective or mission. Ensure that as a team leader you make it clear from the onset what each department or team’s tasks are and how they contribute to the business as a whole. When employees understand how their contributions are helping the company, they’re more likely to come together to deliver the best work possible.

Foster a friendship-building environment

Close friendships in the workplace are proven to enhance employee engagement. Women who have a close friend in the workplace are twice as likely to be invested in their work than women who don’t. A company can help cultivate an environment where it’s easy to form friendships by allowing employees time to be social, encouraging them to take their lunch break rather than working through it and hosting regular events attended by all staff.

What are some collaboration skills?

Collaboration skills are the personal tools or abilities an employee must have to successfully work towards a common goal with a team or group. In the workplace, some of these skills include:

• Communication
• Organization
• Open-mindedness
• Adaptability
• Tactful debate capabilities
• Ideation
• Active listening
• Diplomacy
• Tolerance
• Empathy
• Nonverbal communication
• Conflict resolution
• Patience
• Emotional intelligence

These are all direct skills that a hiring manager should be looking for in successful candidates for any role. You should also seek employees with indirect skills for collaboration, which are less obvious but also contribute to a positive, productive team environment. These skills include:

• Stress management
• Critical thinking
• Leadership
• Creativity
• Dependability
• Responsibility
• Decision-making
• Collaboration tool management

What are examples of collaboration tools?

Collaboration tools are technical applications that make working as a team in the workplace easier and more efficient. Some of the most popular tools used today are:

• Zoom
• Slack
• Skype
• Microsoft Teams
• Google Docs
• Asana
• Trello
• Webex
• Proofhub
• Igloo
• Quip

These are just some of the practical tools you can implement in the workplace to encourage better communication and collaboration among workers. To maximize the positive effects of these tools, it’s essential to train your employees on how to use them correctly. When you introduce a new collaboration tool to your staff, hold a brief workshop about how you want the tool to be used, plus give a brief overview of what useful features the application offers to help workers complete tasks. Not only will this ensure nobody is confused by the collaboration tools, but it also helps set the tone for proper etiquette and communication on a new platform.

When onboarding new employees, be sure to include the use of collaboration tools as part of their training to optimize your company’s success.