Work practices have been traditionally focused on solitary work. That’s why the cubicle system was the most popular format for offices for a long while; employees would sit in their own area, shut off from outside distractions and get on with their work for the day.
But in recent years people have started to rethink the way that we work and realized that often, working together on projects is a lot more productive than trying to work on your own.
In fact, employee collaboration can really help to improve your business. If you’re looking around the office and you don’t see much teamwork going on, try some of these techniques to encourage collaboration.
Link Up Software
If you’ve got a couple of employees working on different areas of a project and they’re both using different pieces of software that aren’t compatible with one another, there’s a big hurdle between them that slows their progress.
By linking up all of your software to streamline collaborations, you make things a lot easier. Buying most of your software from the same provider is one solution but you might not be getting the best you can get.
If you’re using software from a number of different companies, you can use hybrid cloud management to simplify the process and increase compatibility between different software.
When you take away those hurdles, employees are more likely to start working on projects together.
Create A Space For It
When you’ve got a group of people trying to work together on something and they’re all huddled around a single desk, they don’t have space to effectively organize their ideas.
If they have a dedicated space where they can spread out, all use their own computers, and put ideas up on a board, it makes collaborations far easier to organize.
You’ve probably got a meeting room or some other communal space in the office to make a few modifications and set it up as a group project room when you’re not using it for meetings.
Encourage Employees To Socialize Outside Work
It’s never a good idea to encourage your employees to go out partying all night together when they’ve got work the next day but if they’re socializing outside of work and they have a good relationship, you’ll see improvements in their work.
Nobody wants to do a project with somebody that they don’t like or perhaps don’t feel that comfortable around. Spending a bit of time together in an informal setting will improve working relationships around the office and help people to identify others that they’ll work well with.
Improve Communication
Good communication is vital for collaboration, especially if you’re working in a large office where people aren’t always on hand.
A great way to improve communication between your employees is to set up a live chat system on the computers.
That way, if they’ve got any questions for one another about a project, they can quickly get in touch with one another without having to walk halfway across the building.
By getting employees to work together, you can unlock their full potential and soon see a big improvement in productivity.
What are you doing to encourage employee collaboration?
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