Why Facilitating Better Collaboration Improves Morale | #hrmanagement #hrexecutive

The modern workforce is more dispersed than ever before while being more connected thanks to the variety of applications that facilitate instant remote and hybrid work communication. A manager in New York can video conference with potential business partners in Japan, while another employee in the same New York office can send an instant message to a teammate in California. The internet and new communication technologies have allowed us to connect in ways that earlier generations could never have imagined.

The capacity to interact from virtually anywhere in the globe opens up a slew of new opportunities for businesses. We’re seeing fewer employees go to workplaces, preferring to work from home or in collaborative co-working spaces instead. The concept of a corporation expanding regionally, nationally, or even worldwide is more feasible today than ever before.

While employees are no longer confined to cubicles or conference rooms when they are not present in the same room or office, something is lost: collaboration. With that in mind, below are some of the important reasons why facilitating better collaboration can improve morale. 

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Problems are Solved Faster 

Assume you’ve made significant progress on your project, but you’ve hit a hurdle that appears to defy all attempts to overcome it. You’ve run out of ideas, development has come to a standstill, and your deadline is approaching quickly. 

The natural thing to do in these scenarios is to seek assistance or a different viewpoint. You can have a brainstorming session with your team or ask for feedback from a coworker. Projects that may have been stuck can begin to move ahead again when a group of individuals combine their knowledge, skills, and expertise, then hash out difficulties and discuss potential solutions. Whether it is a data science team collaborating on complex statistical problems or call centre employees trying to address a customer complaint, collaboration improves outcomes, which improves morale. 

Creates Closeness

If you see that specific teams in your company seldom communicate with one another and that teams and departments operate in silos, you might want to consider forming a mixed-skills team. These are usually impromptu groups that work on projects that need a variety of skill sets and areas of expertise.

A product designer, a user experience designer, a developer, and a content writer, for example, might comprise a mixed-skills team. It’s effectively a new team formed to work on a common project for a specified length of time. You’ve brought together people from multiple distinct teams, given them a shared goal, and established ties that will benefit you all in the future. Facilitating relationships builds closeness, which improves office morale. 

Improve Communication 

Working with new individuals from other departments opens up avenues that would otherwise not be there. Finding new ways to interact and exchange information is crucial to an organization’s success, which is why collaboration must be used to build relationships across departments whenever feasible.

Establishing regular communication with team members helps you gain vital insights into the operations of each department and be able to handle concerns promptly, thus creating a more integrated, open workplace that benefits all. Furthermore, it helps bring everyone a little closer together and clarifies your organization’s main objective.

Collaboration Creates a Learning Environment

Learning from the expertise of others is one of the most important aspects of working collaboratively with individuals who have a variety of skill sets and experiences. Collaborating with team members or even different teams is a learning opportunity, and learning is important to employee satisfaction. 

This might involve soliciting views and thoughts, exchanging information, learning how your teammates approach their part of the project and getting a better understanding of how they work. Learning from coworkers isn’t simply a perk of cooperation; it’s also the first step in creating a culture of learning and development in the workplace.

Improves Retention 

Collaboration appeals to prospective and present workers because it creates the groundwork for a more open, connected, and engaged workplace—perhaps even more so than firms that are compartmentalized and separated. Your employees will value an environment that prioritizes teamwork, and it will go a long way toward keeping them happy with their current role and employer and not out looking for work elsewhere.

People value connection, especially in the workplace. We want to work with individuals we can trust, who understand and respect our viewpoints, and who collaborate effectively with others, particularly those with diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise. Collaboration allows this to happen and, in so doing, improves employee retention. 

Conclusion 

Better collaboration is the glue that holds teams and organizations together. When there is better collaboration and, importantly, possibilities for better collaboration, people enjoy their work and work environment much more.