Collaboration is the buzzword in workplaces across the globe today. Business leaders see collaboration between teams as a key to their success. Working effectively as part of a team is incredibly important for output, quality, morale, and retention. It is predominantly difficult to progress as a business without good teamwork in the workplace. Collaboration only succeeds when you have two ingredients: communication and teamwork.
Importance of collaboration in the workplace
Workplace collaboration is two or more individuals coming together to solve a common problem. A collaborative team is a slightly different version of a traditional team because its members have different skill sets. Collaboration in the workplace can be extremely effective because individuals with different expertise, perspectives, and ideas can brainstorm to find innovative solutions and implement their ideas. It is important because it allows companies to solve problems faster and more efficiently.
Is your company maximizing productivity by encouraging collaboration? Here are six tips to boost collaboration at your workplace:
1. Project Management tools
Bringing teams together is no easy feat. There are a variety of online project management tools to embrace flexible working practices, help track projects and teams, from conceptualizing an initial idea to the final results to dramatically improve teamwork. Teams can collaborate and set up projects using boards, calendars, and timelines.
2. File sharing process
There's nothing worse than having to sift through emails and hard drives for important documents that have gone missing, never mind having to send the same document back and forth to another colleague with minor adjustments all day.
For a faster and more accountable way of sharing files, utilize a file-sharing app in your working day. They are useful for users to share and receive different file types from other users, anywhere in the world.
3. Hot Desking
Hot desking is a concept where employees no longer have assigned seating within an office, instead of taking a desk somewhere different every day. Workers in these environments get to rotate through different spaces. This impacts collaboration at work as it means that different people can work together on different days, depending on what projects are going on. It makes it more acceptable to bounce ideas off different people and collaborate in new ways.
UP1 Height adjustable table by Sunon, is an apt solution for Hot desking.
4. Huddle Rooms
A huddle room is a small meeting place where people meet to brief, debrief or have short meetings. They aren't for big occasions; the rooms typically can hold up to five-six people. Huddle rooms have some great benefits, including being private and productive spaces, being available without disrupting the main office, video conferencing support and being unobtrusive and cost-effective.
5. Overlap Zones
Designers who want to encourage collaboration are creating what is called “overlap zones,” where the opportunity for interactions between employees increases. These unplanned interactions can spark collaboration and innovation. They can be as simple as a common space that is shared between multiple departments. The goal is to get employees who don't regularly interact to talk with each other more easily.
6.Team Building
It's no surprise that employees with good rapport tend to collaborate better, and team building days are social opportunities to showcase team collaboration skills and help build positive relationships. It's important that they contain activities that show people's different skillsets and provide them with opportunities for how they can function together.
Start improving your workplace collaboration today
Hot desking, huddle rooms, and overlap zones are just a few ways that companies are taking steps to improve collaboration. There are lots of other great ways to collaborate in the workplace as evidenced by the above examples of good teamwork.
Sunon is committed to designing workplace solutions that facilitate collaboration in the workplace. Take a look at our extensive range on www.sunonglobal.com.
