10 Steps to create a collaborative environment

Introduction

A collaborative environment enables teams to support one another, share knowledge, and work cohesively towards achieving shared goals.

With 64% of employees stating better collaboration improves innovation, creativity, and team engagement, businesses are increasingly focused on creating a collaborative workplace to maximize their potential.

While cultivating teamwork may seem straightforward, effective implementation requires dedicated efforts and commitment. That’s the reason, businesses should adopt strategic approaches to achieve optimal results and success. In this post, we will discuss 10 best practices to create a team-based environment. But first, let’s understand what a collaborative work environment is and why it is significant.

What is a collaborative work environment?

A collaborative work environment is a space where team members coordinate seamlessly to complete projects, develop solutions, and achieve shared objectives.

The goal is to create a co-working atmosphere where individuals engage in open dialogue, brainstorm collectively, leverage one another’s strengths, embrace diverse viewpoints, and share responsibilities. This dynamic encourages mutual support while breaking down any potential communication barriers.

Whether in a remote or on-site setting, a collaborative organizational culture motivates teams to function more efficiently, enabling them to achieve more in less time and with greater synergy.

Importance of collaboration at the workplace

Considering that 75% of individuals look at teamwork and collaboration as essentials for success, their significance becomes even more crucial.

It signifies that a well-aligned team can get more done together, than they can achieve individually. When you’re part of a team, you can accomplish goals with greater efficiency. Let’s see the importance of collaboration in an organization.

• Effective collaboration creates an amicable, team-friendly structure.
• Motivates the workforce to outperform themselves constantly.
• Encourages flexibility and thus, allows the business to respond to change faster.
• Enhances problem solving by developing a combination of various solutions and result-oriented approaches.
• Supports an empowered way of working to remove any workplace constraints.
• Promotes a comprehensive team structure with less hierarchy and complete transparency in all aspects.
• Encourages multi-disciplinary work.
• Propels teams to improve their soft skills for effective collaboration.
• Promotes face-to-face interaction and open communication with other team members for better teamwork.
• Foster’s responsiveness to a better change defines accountability within the organization.
• Promotes a sense of achievement significant for a motivated and self-driven workplace.
• Involves all project members in collaborating extensively.

How to create a collaborative working environment?

Creating a collaborative working environment greatly depends on how leadership envisions collaboration and how they aim to achieve it.

Read on for tips to create a collaborative workplace that encourages team building and promotes accountability.

Step 1: Identify individual strengths

In a collaborative environment, it becomes essential to be realistic about everyone’s vulnerabilities. On your mission to promote collaboration, start with building teams around individuals who complement one another. One member compensates for the disabilities of others and vice versa. You will quickly delineate which team member will be contributing to which part, pairing them with the appropriate tasks that suit their strengths.

Step 2: Establish realistic expectations & clarify goals

With clear, realistic expectations in the team, they will be more able to focus on the tasks and decision-making. Altogether the team gets an opportunity to share their ideas and get support for the same. Now you’ll ask how to clarify the goals to each team member.

• Review their roles
• Check their responsibilities
• Clarify their expectations
• Allow cross-functional learning

Step 3: Use collaboration tools

In today’s time where face-to-face interaction is not possible, organizations employ online collaborative software to create a collaborative environment to collaborate better. Cloud-based collaboration technology allows companies to access data from any location to ensure people collaborate on a common platform. Cross-functional teams can share files simultaneously, communicate in real-time through online chat, and have an interactive collaboration through collaborative software.

Step 4: Encourage open-mindedness

The modern workplace has people from various backgrounds and life experiences. Give each of them a chance to be open-minded about their ideas and behaviour and approach every situation with a unique perspective. Sharing individuals’ experiences creates a sense of security in the team. They give a respectful approach to work, thus positively impacting overall performance.

Step 5: Reward innovation

To create a collaborative environment, organizations need to make innovation a human capital issue. You can prioritize innovation by linking it to the company’s reward system. Innovation is the key to maintaining a competitive edge in the growing industries. Therefore, encouraging teams to challenge the status quo means maintaining exemplary standards. It makes employees feel valued if you recognize their outside-the-box thinking.

Step 6: Build trust with your team

True teamwork is only possible when teams trust and support one another. When trust is present, teams work cohesively and in alignment, willingly sharing ideas, taking risks, and engaging in productive debates. With everyone contributing their best efforts and skills, team members can confidently rely on each other for help, guidance, and encouragement. Also, in such collaborative and transparent settings, hesitation, disagreements, and conflicts are addressed more openly, ensuring everyone feels valued, heard, and empowered.

Step 7: Celebrate the team’s success publicly

Don’t forget to celebrate your team’s success by improving team spirit and performance. Success primarily doesn’t involve money, it also counts whenever one achieves a goal. Take the team out for lunch or order pizza. Motivate them to share their success story in ways to make a difference. This is more likely to boost their confidence and make them more inspired to contribute more to the team. Show them their efforts are not taken for granted.

Step 8: Support a strong sense of community

It is imperative to share a sense of community to feel secure, nurtured, and supported. Nobody wants to be a part of a team where they are made to feel like an outsider. It destroys the whole meaning of working in a group and makes it impossible to accomplish anything meaningful. Make them feel a strong sense of community, be more comfortable, share the proper knowledge appropriately, and help to solve problems. Teams will be more committed and have a global perspective.

Step 9: Proper delegation of tasks

You cannot do everything alone, and of course, you cannot have the same people showing up all the time. When you start delegating the tasks, individuals feel powerful as they will feel their actions will impact the organization. They’ll be more motivated to be there in the team and make their efforts. They feel valued, and overwhelmed and feel they have an essential role to play.

Step 10: Appreciate diversity

Appreciating diversity opens the pathway for innovation, creativity, and growth. When team members bring different perspectives, experiences, and skills to the table, problems are looked at from all angles, and possibilities are explored thoroughly. This leads to richer discussions, creative solutions, and effective problem-solving. Also, when employees feel their voices are taken into account, significant enhancements can be witnessed in job satisfaction and employee retention statistics.

What tools can be used for team collaboration?

You can find several tools, each with its unique strengths and weaknesses, for facilitating effective team collaboration. Here are some popular options to choose from:

• Project management tools: These tools help teams plan, organize, and manage projects for successful execution. These provide features for project planning, task management, team collaboration, resource allocation, progress tracking, and more.
• Communication tools: Communication tools facilitate real-time coordination among team members. These tools support instant messaging, brainstorming solutions, problem-solving discussions, file-sharing, and more.
• File sharing tools: These tools create a centralized space for teams to store, share, and access files and documents. This ensures everyone has access to up-to-date versions and can access it from anywhere.
• Note-taking tools: Note-taking tools allow users to document, manage, and organize ideas, thoughts, links, information, texts, meeting notes, and project details even when on the go.  They can edit and collaborate on these documents collectively.
• Time tracking tools: Time tracking tools provide team information on time spent on tasks and projects for better task allocation and productivity analysis. They can use these tools to stay competitive and on track.

How ProofHub can help in team collaboration?

ProofHub is a cloud-based project management software with efficient collaborative capabilities to bring the best out of your team efforts. It brings all your teams, projects, clients, stakeholders, tasks, deadlines, milestones, and communication in one location, eliminating the need to switch between multiple platforms.

 It lets your team collaborate as a successful unit by allowing them to:

• Review assets, provide feedback, mark annotations, and assess previous file versions to ensure seamless collaboration.
• Utilize cloud storage to save and share files, collaborate on them, and access them from anywhere.
• Have focused discussions, share associated information, and keep them organized for later reference.
• Communicate one-on-one or in a group in real-time with built-in chat, regardless of location.
• Loop in team members on tasks, projects, or important updates for knowledge sharing by mentioning them.
• Delegate work, organize tasks, assign responsibilities, manage deadlines, and track progress for efficient work management.

Conclusion

A collaborative work environment is not a one-time setup; it is a continuous process that requires continuous shaping and nurturing.

From identifying the team’s strengths and weaknesses to celebrating their success and achievements, leadership plays a powerful role in contributing to effective team collaboration.

Also, by empowering teams to participate in problem-solving and decision-making activities, they spark innovation and shared ownership among team members.  This increases their morale and engagement, creating a workspace that is progressing towards collective success.

Related articles:

• Collaboration skills for managers: everything you need to know
• Collaboration evolution: Shaping the modern workplace
• How to improve teamwork and collaboration skills
• Why is real-time collaboration necessary & how can you achieve it?
• What is collaboration? Habits of highly collaborative organizations
• Experts share thoughts: A team collaboration strategy that helped them save projects from failing

FAQs