Communication and collaboration are the foundation of a healthy and productive workplace environment. In fact, 64% of workers in a recent survey reported that poor collaboration costs them three hours or more each week in lost productivity, while 70% believed better collaboration would improve their productivity.
In this blog, we’ll explore strategies for improving communication in your workplace and enhancing collaboration, from simple fixes to longer-term adjustments.
Lead by example
Incorporate collaboration into your company values
When you ensure that communication and collaboration are addressed in your organisation’s values, you’re establishing clear expectations for your team and encouraging them to practise these behaviours. Leadership teams need to commit to these values and model them in their interactions with employees.
Establish a culture of open communication
Not only is communication important for workplace productivity, but it’s also essential for creating an environment where employees feel they can express themselves openly. This is especially important when it comes to mental well-being. Employees should feel comfortable speaking up when they need support in the workplace.
Invest in tools that promote collaboration
For many teams, it’s common to use a combination of different communication tools that are either synchronous (video conferencing, instant messaging, phone calls) or asynchronous (emails, collaborative documents, dashboards). Consider doing some research on the kinds of communication tools best placed to service your industry, then test to see which of them most effectively support your team.
Actively involve all team members
Create a shared vision
Though an organisation’s vision is often developed by the leadership team, involving employees in this process can yield valuable insights from their front-line workplace experiences. This contributes to alignment between a company’s vision and employee understanding of this vision, which is essential for ensuring all team members are on the same page.
Over-communicate
Though leadership teams may feel they already overload employees with information, it’s rare for a workplace to ever have “too much” communication. By over-communicating, you ensure that employees feel like they’re being kept in the loop and are considered a vital part of the organisation. Team leaders should also schedule regular check-ins with team members and request their feedback on any barriers to communication they have experienced.
Spotlight collaboration-driven wins
While it’s important to highlight the positive performance of individuals, recognising instances of effective teamwork contributes to a stronger culture of collaboration. Consider ways you can integrate team-based praise into your employee feedback infrastructure. This will help encourage and incentivise ongoing collaboration.
Create a workplace environment that supports collaboration
Communicate effectively
Ensuring alignment between the message and the channel through which it’s communicated is becoming more and more important as the number of channels (in-person, phone call, email, instant messenger, video call, etc.) grows. Make sure you consider the context of the communication when deciding on the right channel. For example, providing in-depth feedback on a team member's work via instant messenger may risk losing some of the nuances you could communicate in person or via a call.
Invest in informal interactions
Doing things as a team outside of the office, whether it’s work-related or social, is a great way to build team culture. This could be as simple as spending an afternoon with your team working from a coffee shop or as elaborate as organising regular social events and team-building activities.
Promote community at work
With many people working flexibly across different locations, it’s more important than ever to cultivate a community working environment where teams can come together and collaborate in person. Make coming into the office an event that staff feel excited about by organising collaborative sessions where team members can share the knowledge, insights and resources they’ve uncovered in the course of their work.
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