The Best Practices to Ensuring Team Collaborating in Your Business

Team Collaboration Best Practices July 28, 2020

Dakota Sheetz

Writer

Benefits of Team Collaboration

Team collaboration is extremely beneficial in a business setting for more ways than one. Discussing and opening up any new problem to a team of minds instead of focusing on individual performance can help to improve efficiency through feedback and joint team work strategies.

While one person might not be able to put together the perfect answer, stitching together solutions that are offered up across departments offers perspective and often leads to an amicable resolution.

According to a study conducted by Stanford in 2014, 64% of workers who were prompted to collaborate prior to beginning a project were more resilient in tasks than their solitary counterparts. Retention is just one of the many benefits of collaborating in teams, among the others are promoting healthy communication, 24/7 training, and driving competition.
Managers and owners are meant to be behind the scenes directing finances, placing supply orders, and making sure the front of house business is thriving and has the tools to succeed.

Best Practices for Team Collaboration

The statistics and benefits associated with best practices for effective team collaboration have been studied by experts in the business world for decades. An article written in Forbes about the top practices used by companies who have highly collaborative environments put together the below list of common habits and success factors-

1. The individual benefit is just as important as the overall corporate benefit
When communicating collaboration with any team, putting yourself in their shoes and considering how working together will directly affect your employees' days can help drive the point home.

2. Strategy before technology
Understanding why technology works for you before jumping on board with the newest trend can help save you time and money!

3. Listen to the voice of the employee
Making your employees a part of the decision-making process will drive trust and collaboration throughout all levels of management.

4. Learn to get out of the way
At a certain point, you have to let the employees work together, too much regulation will reverse all of your hard work!

5. Lead by example
The more thought leaders within your company who are engaging in collaborative team building behaviors, the more likely others are to follow.

6. Integrate into the workflow
There isn't an employee in the world who wants to add another task to their daily workday to-do list. Integrating new collaborative behaviors into current workday practices that may not even add extra steps will promote adoption.

7. Create a supportive environment
Motivating employees through individual performance bonuses may cause them to hoard information and can hurt any collaborative work environment.

8. Measure what matters
Determine which metrics matter for your business model and only track the essentials. Just because something can be measured doesn't mean it should be!

9. Persistence
When at first you do not succeed, try and try again! While not all of your collaborative efforts will work, finding a few that do is worth your time.

10. Adapt and Evolve
Don't just listen to your employees, learn from them! Collaboration is a perpetual process that only grows stronger with time.

11. Employee collaboration also benefits the customer
The ability to tap into internal databases and cross-department support will improve your customer's overall experience when dealing with a support representative. The more employees that have crucial daily working information, the better!

12. Collaboration can make the world a better place
Along with reducing stress in the workplace and better connecting employees with their work collaboration can easily move outside of the workplace and better employees' everyday lives.

By tasking objectives and team-based timetables for work completion, you're bound to see increased accountability and even a bit of intercompany competition resulting in increased drive!

Conclusion

In conclusion, maintaining operational standards and improving corporate visibility has proved to be a successful step forward for any business owner, large and small who aren't achieving their full potential.

Whether you're a large restaurant chain, a small food service business or a retail storefront promoting team collaboration throughout all levels of your business could be beneficial.

Luckily promoting effective team collaboration can be as easy as developing standard procedures and putting a system in place so that your employees can take full advantage of the change!

No more stressing about safety inspections or food going bad in the back fridges. With modern restaurant technology, you can quickly reduce your employees' margins of error and improve safety standards throughout your entire supply chain.
Lead from the top; your employees won't be motivated to collaborate if it isn't happening at all levels!

Adapt and evolve if at first you don't succeed, try again!
Create a supportive environment where employees can thrive!
Ask questions and listen to the answers you receive.

Implementing team collaboration best practices and the success factors listed above have helped countless businesses improve visibility, promote free thought, and grow in ways they had never thought possible.

Imagine what your top-level managers will be able to do when there is open communication across previously distant departments and key metrics are able to be accurately tracked!