How to Increase Collaboration in the Workplace Promotion of a business in the right manner is important to make your business successful. Workers must be able to collaborate properly with each other and must be comfortable while working together.
Why is Collaborative Work Beneficial? Collaboration is a great inherited quality. It makes everyone allow themselves to distribute the workload, allocating tasks based on the capability which yields better results. This will also assist in approaching more creative solutions, especially when the team has a variety of backgrounds.
How to Collaborate: Brainstorming A managed brainstorming session can often help you to devise plans that no one would have come up with in isolation. Make sure that everyone feels comfortable speaking up, and that you have a forgiving attitude to failure. If every idea is given a fair crack of the whip, then more ideas will surely be volunteered.
It’s a good idea to provide a loose structure for your brainstorming session before it gets up and running. Make it time-restricted, and provide yourself with an opportunity to reflect on the session and how it went after you’ve had time to implement the ideas and judge their efficacy.
Collaborative Spaces Deep work and concentration require isolation and freedom from interruptions. But not all work should be deep. You might set your office up such that people can sit close enough to one another that they can share ideas as they occur. You might also arrange recreational areas to promote informal conversations about work-related subjects.
The right outdoor seating area might provide a break from the office environment. Using paving slabs to create a paved area outside the office, with some potted plants and a chair or two might help to create a calming and collaborative outdoor space for employees to work.
Online Platforms In recent years, collaborative workspaces like Slack and Trello have become extremely popular. They offer a way to communicate and share updates that email can’t easily compete with. If your workforce is at least partly remote, then the benefits might be considerable.
Establish Judgement Free Culture The fear of judgment or rejection is one of the top reasons why employees often dismiss their decision to present an idea or active participation. The intimidation can be a barrier that prevents ideas to bubble at the surface. For eliminating this fear of intimidation it is very important to create a workspace culture i.e. judgment-free and creative. It will help in welcoming new ideas and feedback consistently, irrespective of their niche.
Chose to avoid setting up tight deadlines as that can push down the creativity of the employees. Do emphasize more on valuable collaborations and establishing a judgment-free workspace.
Encourage Through Offers and Rewards After all, we all are humans and as a human even if there is any most-dedicated employee, it is important to provide rewards to them to show the acknowledgment of their hard work. Make sure you give rewards to the individuals and also reward the team for their efforts too. This will motivate future collaborations as the team will start realizing the significance of working together. It’s true every other idea doesn’t worth implementation or is not superb, but it’s important to stay positive.
Do offer constructive criticism but also make sure you don’t miss out on recognizing their efforts. It can be time-consuming to respond to each idea. Hence, it is a good approach to encourage peer-to-peer discussion for further enhancing collaborative efforts.
Creating a supportive Workplace It can be oppressive and stifling to have a toxic workspace. Whereas, having an open and optimistic workspace can help you to feel professionally fulfilled. It’s like when the workers do feel good about the work they are doing they are more likely to be disposed towards their colleagues and this will eventually increase their performance. Although, this effect tends to be self-reinforcing, which means happiness and satisfaction are contagious in nature.
To achieve this kind of work environment, the input of a professional, skilled HR department can be invaluable. You might also encourage workers to come forward with suggestions about how things might be improved. Even if these suggestions aren’t always implemented, you can foster a culture in which ideas are at least considered – which, again, can help to encourage them.
