Tags – Tools to support teamwork
In any organisation, good teamwork is essential.
Although collaboration and being a part of a team requires effort from everyone involved; without it, productivity will drop.
There are also many other benefits in collaborative working. For instance, it significantly boosts creativity and motivation. Furthermore, working as a team can encourage learning and even relieve stress.
So, how can you bring about and support the required team spirit amongst your employees? Here are 5 tools to help.
1. Team Meetings
Holding regular team meetings allows you an opportunity to fully discuss objectives.
Also, sharing achievements and challenges is a great way to help teams bond and work together.
The chance to keep people on track by discussing their progress will allow you to manage your staff better.
Similarly, having the capacity to keep your employees motivated, productive and accountable is a great way to develop positive collaboration.
2. Appraisals and Reviews
So, by ensuring you conduct a regular appraisal with each of your team members, you’ll be much better placed to measure their performance.
For instance, an appraisal or review with a member of staff identifies their strengths and weaknesses.
Consequently, this helps your employees develop both personally and professionally.
A regular review will also make staff feel valued and give them the opportunity to raise any issues they’d like to discuss too.
3. Having Difficult Conversations
Regular appraisals and staff reviews will without doubt reduce the likelihood of issues becoming problems.
However, there will be differences of opinion.
Also, there will be those that don’t perform and those with personality clashes too. Therefore, there will be a need for difficult conversations.
As such, these should be dealt with as soon as the need arises, make sure you don’t keep putting them off.
If any bad feeling is left to fester, it can create a lot of damage within any team.
4. SMART Targets
Always ensure any goals or targets set for your team fit well with what your company stands for, its mission and direction.
These targets should also align with the five SMART criteria which are:
Specific
A focused target is clearer and more meaningful for your team to work towards.
Measurable
Putting in place targets which have measurable results makes it easier for you and your team to know if they’re on track.
Attainable
Whilst all goals need to stretch those involved and encourage them to be the best they can, it’s crucial that they are also achievable!
Moreover, attainable targets are key to getting your team to motivate and push each other towards achieving their target.
Relevant
There’s always a temptation to set a target which is a bit too optimistic.
Therefore, for a collaborative approach, it’s important to keep in mind all that’s relevant when setting a goal. For example, the current economic climate, market trends or competition will all impact on what’s achievable.
Time-Bound
Another key component of keeping any team target very clear is to give it a specific time frame.
Whether the goal is revenue-driven or signing up a certain number of new clients, it’s imperative to give your team a clear directive.
5. Share Knowledge
A hugely important tool to implement when actively developing a collaborative working environment is to encourage all those involved to share their knowledge.
Whether industry knowledge or technological information, prompting your team to pool all relevant information will build an even stronger team.
To learn more, get in touch with us today.
In the meantime, please check our HR Consultancy Birmingham service.
This blog is a lead on from our earlier blog: