What Is Team Collaboration: 5 Benefits of Team Collaboration

Team collaboration matters. This is because it could help your organization grow by encouraging employees to work smarter, more creatively, and more effectively.

Collaborative teams are motivated, efficient, and innovative problem solvers. Other benefits include more engaged and committed employees, better performance, and improved talent retention.

In this blog, we will cover the basics of team collaboration and some tips to help your company improve collaboration.

In this blog, you'll find:

👯 What Is Collaboration?
🌟 Why Is Team Collaboration Important?
😊 5 Benefits Of Team Collaboration
💻 Online Team Collaboration

What Is Collaboration?

Collaboration is the act of individuals or groups working together towards a common goal or objective, often bringing diverse skills, ideas, and perspectives to the table.

Think of collaboration as a group project where everyone pitches in their ideas and skills. It's not just about working side by side but really coming together to mix up all those different ideas, perspectives, and talents. This can happen anywhere – in school, at work, or even when planning a big event. The main ingredients? Talk things out, respect each other, and everyone being on the same page about what you're trying to do. It's like a brainstorming session where everyone's input creates something amazing.

What Is Team Collaboration?

Team collaboration is when people with complementary skills work together on projects or tasks in a genuinely connected and collective way. In other words, it is a joint effort and a shared responsibility. It is important to understand that there is a difference between collaboration and teamwork.

Yes, both definitions require a group of people working towards a shared goal. But in teamwork, people make their contributions as individuals. Collaborative work is when people share tasks and discover solutions together. As a result, team collaboration is a process that involves setting goals, deciding who does what, forging relationships, and communicating in a non-judgmental way.

Ultimately, it all comes down to the culture of the organization. A culture, that embraces flexibility and openness rather than, ego with a cooperative mindset is critical for a genuinely collaborative team. Instead of asking “who do you work for?”, replace the question by asking “who do you work with?”.

Why Is Team Collaboration Important?

In a collaborative workplace, people connect with one another to develop ideas, solve problems, and get tasks done. With a collaborative environment, people can pool their intellectual resources together and inspire one another with new ideas and suggestions.

The saying, ‘two heads are better than one’ applies to team collaboration and the value in collaborative work relies on the way people connect. It is more than the skills each person brings to the table. Creating a culture of collaboration sparks creativity, inspiration, productivity, and improves employee’s confidence through the recognition of talent and skill. Let us dive deeper into the benefits of team collaboration.

5 Benefits Of Team Collaboration

We know that having people working collaboratively is vital to the success of your organization. Here are five benefits of team collaboration that can improve your business’ success.

📈   Team Collaboration & Productivity

According to one Deloitte report, employees work 15% faster when they collaborate. The study showed that people were more interested and engrossed in what they were doing as a collaborative team. As a result, performance and engagement significantly improved. Since COVID-19, many people who work remotely report the same level of productivity as those working in the office. This proves that collaboration in the workplace doesn’t rely on physical proximity.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑   Employee Engagement 

With improvement in productivity, better performers are more likely to stay with the organization. This is due to team collaboration as people often want to use their skills to work things through together.

With an Employee Experience Platform (EXP), employees can collaborate wherever they are in the world with access to the same information as employees in the office. Workers are more satisfied when they have tools that allow them to collaborate. It is critical to note that collaboration only works when the entire team is willing to engage. Therefore, employee engagement is very important.

💡   Innovation

Growth and new ways of thinking are born out of collaboration. Collaborative teams bring together people of different backgrounds, with different ideas, experiences, and skills to explore new perspectives.

Because people are working jointly, they feel it’s safer to experiment and take risks. It’s not just a matter of collaborating within the workplace either: innovative companies often co-create products and services in collaboration with customers and external partners.

🧠   Employee Well-Being 

Employee well-being is vital in both engagement and productivity. With team collaboration, it can encourage workers to build relationships, learn from each other and give each other support and guidance. Effective collaboration is the key to mental well-being.

UK mental health charity MIND advises workplaces wanting to create a mutually supportive environment to encourage and support a culture of collaboration, teamwork and information sharing. Supportiveness is key. In addition, it’s important for managers to be aware of increased demands and ensure workloads don’t become unmanageable.

📣   Recruitment and Retention

Gen Z are advancing towards the workplace very quickly. Therefore, the competition for new talent is high within company competitors. Forward-thinking companies will want to attract and keep these valuable employees. As studies have reported, Gen Y and Gen Z say their best work happens in environments that enable them to focus and collaborate with others.

Online Team Collaboration: Why You Need It 

Traditionally, a lot of focus on team collaboration is focused on people being in the same physical space. While this still applies today, COVID-19 has changed the way we work as managers are still grappling with maintaining and growing collaborative teams in an environment changed beyond recognition.

How can team collaboration happen when many team members are still working at home? How can people collaborate effectively within the new hybrid workspace? Traditional collaboration needs to be changed.

A part of building team collaboration is a solid company culture. Having the right communication tools that allow team members to see what others are doing and that enable a team to interact together is key to getting people on the same page, whenever they are.