Keeping employees motivated and engaged through team efficiency strategies is a prime concern for business leaders. While this has always been a challenge, the rise of remote and hybrid work has made it a top priority. Enhancing team performance in this changed work model is crucial for innovation and productivity.
Irrespective of the sector you operate in, using actionable insights and practical team efficiency strategies to optimize efficiency and collaboration will pay rich dividends. In this guide, we will identify the challenges to team efficiency and share effective collaboration best practices for streamlining workflows.
Challenges to team efficiency
Why is there a greater focus on boosting productivity techniques for teams? Because leaders have to deal with these new challenges in the workplace:
-
-
- New models: From being co-located, teams have evolved into remote and hybrid entities. Without in-person meetings with multiple participants, it’s difficult to communicate and collaborate seamlessly.
-
-
-
- Different structures: Earlier, team members had to report to only one leader. There’s greater fluidity, and employees might belong to different groups for different projects. This has not just structural but also cultural implications.
-
-
-
- Lateral movements: When team compositions frequently change with the entry and exit of employees, it could be challenging to foster sustainable team spirit for greater cohesion.
-
-
-
- Project complexity: Projects have become more complex, with more individuals from multiple domains having to work together. This creates operational challenges for both team members and managers.
-
-
-
- Time zone differences: Members located in different time zones may find it difficult to coordinate meetings. This can lead to a lack of clarity on project deliverables, misunderstandings, and missed deadlines.
-
-
-
- Lack of social interactions: When team members are located in different places, there are limited avenues for social interactions. While increasing loneliness and isolation, this can also reduce employee engagement.
-
These challenges require a relook at traditional boosting productivity techniques. Managers and HR leaders should invest in effective teamwork methods suited to the new reality for streamlining collaboration workflows.
10 team efficiency strategies for boosting productivity
These team efficiency strategies can equip team leaders and managers to enhance communication, streamline workflows, leverage proven project management techniques, and create a culture rooted in collaboration.
1. Establish attainable goals
Every team has a purpose. That’s why the first step for managers is to state precisely what they want to achieve with their team. Keep in mind the domain expertise of employees when constituting your team. You also need organizational support and effective processes to manage workflows.
Large projects with unreasonable goals and impossible deadlines can deplete team morale and reduce productivity. Your goals should be attainable and divided into subtasks for greater efficacy. This also helps you measure your team’s progress and give your input on time.
2. Be specific about tasks and roles
If you’ve been managing the same team for years on the same kind of projects, your team members would have greater clarity about the tasks and roles. But that’s hardly the case anymore. With fluid teams, there could be confusion about responsibilities. That’s why managers should spell out what they expect from each employee.
Be clear about the quality of work you expect and the timeline for its completion. Prioritize tasks if there are several of them. Finally, empower your team members to work in ways that they’re comfortable with. Heycollab’s Tasks make it easy to assign tasks and quickly make important decisions.
3. Provide and receive feedback
To enhance team performance, you need to create a culture of trust. That begins with providing and receiving constructive feedback. Whether it’s about roles and responsibilities, deadlines, or access to resources, employees should feel free to approach you with their feedback.
Some employees may not feel comfortable raising their concerns or queries in public. Some might have problems with their workload but could be hesitant to directly come to you. This is where real-time, one-on-one messaging platforms such as Heycollab’s Chat can be highly useful.
4. Be genuine and vulnerable
Conventional team efficiency strategies don’t include this, but it has never been more important to be authentic and vulnerable. A manager doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, striving for perfection in all areas puts enormous pressure on their team members.
Share your failures and fears, and try to be more human. That makes it easy for others to believe in you and makes people more empathetic. This is how you prevent toxic cultures from forming in the workplace.
5. Constantly prioritize tasks
Boosting productivity techniques is mostly about focusing on the most important task at hand. By now, organizations know that the concept of multitasking is a myth. Besides decreasing productivity, it also increases fatigue and reduces employee engagement because they must constantly switch from task to task.
When delegating tasks to your team members, get them to focus only on the most important ones. Everything else should be ruthlessly sidelined. This facilitates deep work and creates room for innovative solutions. With Heycollab’s Dashboard, managers can easily monitor how employees progress on their assigned tasks and identify over or underutilized people.
6. Centralize information
One of the most productive team efficiency strategies is to put all your resources in one location. With multiple people involved in projects, there will be a constant array of questions and requests for resources. If you have to manually give access, it will delay tasks.
Whether it’s a spreadsheet, document, website, infographic, or video, ensure employees know how to easily access it. With speedy access, people can get started faster and finish their tasks on time. That’s the reason Heycollab has simplified access with file and folder management.
7. Limit the number of meetings
Most meetings are nothing but rituals. Participants often do not learn anything new, and most team members understand that most staff members do not have to be in attendance. One of the most practical team efficiency strategies is to decide that you will only have meetings for essential topics that absolutely require the presence of everyone concerned.
Secondly, define the agenda for the meeting, including what questions have to be answered and what decisions have to be made. Avoid meetings if any of these can be achieved through chat, email, or one-on-one interactions. If it’s about someone needing access to a specific piece of information, tell them how to get it. Finally, stick to only the pre-determined topics and write down the outcomes.
8. Track relevant metrics
Measuring your progress is one of the most crucial team efficiency strategies for enhancing team performance. But it can be tempting to measure everything. That only leads to chaos. The trick is to identify the key metrics that will impact your project execution and delivery.
The number of tasks completed is a better metric than the number of hours spent. The number of approved campaigns is more accurate than the number of revisions incorporated. Always focus on the bigger picture and align your team toward achieving those goals. What doesn’t move the needle should be ignored.
9. Act like a coach
Looking for boosting productivity techniques? Be more of a coach than a manager. A manager can focus excessively on only the job, not the individual behind it. But a coach will understand the individual, identify their challenges, determine the opportunities and training they need, and continuously motivate them to be their best.
Even when a coach criticizes, it won’t be punitive in nature. They would highlight what the employee did right and what could have been better and then give actionable advice on how they can improve themselves. This makes team members believe in themselves, improving their engagement and productivity.
10. Choose the right platform
You may have the best intentions for enhancing team performance and streamlining collaborative workflows, but most of your efforts will be wasted without the right technology solution. That’s because team efficiency strategies must be up-to-date with the challenges managers and employees face. Manually solving them will be cumbersome and involve a lot of your time.
Fortunately, now you have digital tools designed specifically for maximizing team efficiency. Importantly, you don’t need multiple solutions. Project management tools such as Heycollab give you all the functionalities you need to improve collaboration.
You can centralize information, give access to resources, monitor tasks, engage in one-on-one or group conversations, and provide feedback in real-time. Heycollab also offers you Video Calling and Templates to customize your workflows. It also elegantly integrates with other tools your team might be using. Plus, it has unlimited space to save your files and folders.
An advanced collaboration and communication tool such as Heycollab empowers your team to achieve higher productivity levels, meet goals more efficiently, and drive overall success in your projects and endeavors. Join now to see how it can boost your team’s productivity.