Collaborative Working

Your Guide for Successful Collaborative Working

Working together builds on the talents and experiences of a team to produce a result that is greater than the sum of its parts. Whether within a single department, between departments or between different organizations, collaboration supports innovative solutions.

Below is a comprehensive guide that highlights the importance, benefits, challenges, and practical applications of collaboration in modern teams.

The most important facts

• Collaborative work can take place between aligned organizations or within a single organization.
• Collaborative working creates learning opportunities, improves employee engagement and leads to more creative solutions.
• Collaboration software helps teams work well together.

What is collaborative work?

Collaborative working refers to a variety of ways in which multiple organizations, teams, or employees can work together to achieve better results.

Creating a collaborative work environment

Creating a collaborative work environment requires continuous effort from managers and employees. It can be challenging to shift the company’s approach away from individualistic work processes. Below you will find some tips that can make the transition easier.

Recognize individual strengths

Effective collaboration arises from bringing together people or units who support each other’s strengths and compensate for each other’s weaknesses. Each part of this new team brings their own unique talent that enriches the whole. From there, you can assemble employees into teams with complementary talents and strengths.

Value acceptance highly

A diversity of viewpoints is central to collaboration. Promoting acceptance within your organization ensures that employees from different backgrounds and experiences can share their perspectives in a safe and supportive environment. This diversity of contributions helps a team look at a project from all angles and encourages creative problem-solving that an individual could not accomplish.

Use of software for collaboration

Implementing a single platform for teams to communicate and brainstorm helps them collaborate more effectively. Information is shared through a single channel, allowing each team member to refer to their instructions and reducing the risk of misunderstandings. Consider communication tools like Slack or Teams to share ideas and stay connected, as well as cloud-based tools like Google Suite to collaborate on documents.

Reward the team’s success

When a team celebrates their accomplishments after completing a project or reaching an important milestone, they stay motivated to continue doing good work. By viewing it as something everyone contributed to, you can show them the value of collaboration and encourage them to work even more closely as a team.

Cultivate a sense of community

Employees cannot work effectively with their colleagues if they feel like outsiders. That’s why it’s important to promote a sense of belonging among your employees.

Explore collaborative working methods

There are several methods a company can use to demonstrate its willingness and ability to collaborate both inside and outside of the workplace.

Team collaboration

In this common method, each team member is assigned a specific role that outlines the expectations for their work during the project. All team members know who is responsible for which tasks and how these tasks contribute to the result.

There is usually a manager who oversees the work of their colleagues and ensures that it is completed by a certain deadline. Once the project is complete, the team receives equal recognition for its success.

Collaboration in the network

This is about creating a pool of resources through the actions of individuals. The people within the network don’t necessarily know each other, but the experts make their knowledge available to everyone in the network.

Social media is often used as a vehicle for network collaboration. Members typically describe their problems and ask for recommendations on who they should contact to resolve them.

Video collaboration

Certain cloud-based platforms have video conferencing capabilities that allow professionals around the world to work together on a project. This expands the perspectives your employees can take on developing new projects or overcoming obstacles while seeing the team face-to-face.

Internal collaboration

This refers to implementing a company-specific means of sharing information between colleagues. You can use a forum to encourage discussion and cross-team problem solving, or set up a wiki that contains important technical knowledge.

External collaboration

This generally refers to feedback about your product or service that comes from outside sources. This is a more indirect collaboration in which surveys are often sent to customers, suppliers and clients. Their contributions are then used to identify problems or vulnerabilities and resolve them.

Benefits of collaborative working

Companies benefit from more robust processes and tools for employee collaboration. Improving these aspects of your business can provide benefits such as:

• More creative solutions. Employees who brainstorm together can come up with more innovative solutions than someone doing it alone. More diverse viewpoints within a team can consider practical application issues that others may not see.
• Learning from other teams. Collaboration allows multiple teams to pool their knowledge to find better solutions to problems. Each group brings a different specialty.
• Higher employee engagement. When team members learn to work together, they often develop a sense of camaraderie that motivates them to perform well at their jobs.
• Improved mental health in the workplace. A healthy support network can help employees reduce workplace stress by sharing responsibility for a project with multiple people.

Obstacles to collaborative work

Although collaboration offers many benefits, certain obstacles can hinder progress. The most common obstacles are the actions of individuals within a group. Diversity within a team can improve its overall effectiveness, but there is no guarantee that everyone will get along. Tensions can lead to unproductive competition and conflict that reduce productivity. The larger the team, the more likely a conflict will arise.

Examples of cooperative work

Below are some useful examples of collaboration in a typical work environment that can help you design your company processes.

Document sharing

When sharing documents, all employees, regardless of where they work, can be part of the team. Cloud-based tools keep all team members up to date on their team members’ progress and any important updates to project goals.

Mentorship

A new employee joins the team with good technical knowledge, but still needs more experience. A group in a collaborative work environment can guide this employee and fill knowledge gaps. By learning together, the new employee becomes productive in their role more quickly and makes fewer mistakes overall.

Cross-functional teamwork

A team encounters a problem on their project that no team member has faced before. Rather than settling for a potentially suboptimal solution, someone on the team probably knows someone they can ask for advice.

Tips for choosing the best collaborative work style for your team

There are a few things you can do to ensure the collaborative work style in your company is as effective as possible. These include some methods:

• Be transparent. Use the company’s communication channels to keep employees informed about changes in the company. Also, give the entire team access to these channels so everyone is on the same page.
• Develop clear goals. Determine what a team should work toward so they can properly focus their efforts and avoid costly mistakes.
• Stay open to feedback. Accepting employee feedback shows that collaboration is valued at all levels of the company. It is also an opportunity to identify problems in collaboration.

Tools for collaborative work in a remote team

Collaboration software supports teamwork regardless of distance. These tools are essential for success in the modern workplace. Look for the following features to get the most out of your software.

• Integrated social networks. Collaboration tools often have a built-in messaging service that allows team members to chat and ask questions.
• Cloud-based document storage. The entire team can access the most accurate information from anywhere.
• Search functions. Team members can quickly discover data.
• Task management tools. Assigning tasks, tracking time, and sharing files are some of the most important features of collaboration software.

Community instead of competition

Your company can benefit from having a diverse group working to solve a problem, and your employees can benefit from having people around them they can rely on. And with collaboration tools becoming more commonplace, there are more ways than ever to work with people around the world to create something greater than the sum of its parts.

Frequently asked questions about collaborative work

What does collaborative work mean in a remote team?

Working collaboratively in a remote team means considering tools that keep physically separated people on the same page, regardless of distance.

What are collaborative work skills?

Collaboration skills are competencies that help employees excel in a group environment, such as: effective communication or active listening.
What are popular tools for collaborative work?
Some popular tools for collaborative work are:

• Slack

• Google Drive

• Dropbox

• Asana

• zoom

• Notion

How can I create a collaborative work environment?

Promote diversity, reward success, and give your team members the tools they need to succeed.