Successful collaboration in the workplace is the cornerstone of every business. Particularly if you’re in the design or creative industries, delivering work for clients; there is usually more than one cog to make up the wheel. Even if you are a sole trader, it is impossible to avoid working with other people. Whether your “team” is you and a client, or you have a large group of colleagues working on projects, collaboration in the workplace is key to delivering strong results.
As the saying goes: “Two heads are better than one.” It is the collective input of various individuals which creates the most powerful ideas and results.
This is why collaboration has become a hot topic in business over recent years. With business cultures becoming more inclusive, the impetus for collaboration and tools to aid it has grown exponentially. Today, collaboration and making everyone’s voice feel heard and valued is essential, not only for good morale but also to ensure you’re delivering first-class work with input from the best minds in your team.
Successful Collaboration in the Workplace with Heycollab
As a leader, it is tough to get everyone in your group to perform as a “team member.” Some will feel more confident than others to voice their opinions. Achieving this, then, relies on you creating an environment where your staff feels encouraged to contribute, and the process is made as painless and straightforward as possible.
Culture of Collaboration
People will speak up when they are comfortable. Thus, creating an environment where people feel their voice is heard and valued is critical to creating a culture of collaboration. The primary principles to achieve this are:
- Ask
- Listen
- Consider
- Never criticize
People won’t always offer input unless you ask for it, get comfortable asking your staff and your team members for their opinion. Then, be sure to listen and carefully consider everyone’s point of view. What’s most important is to never criticize. Every opinion is valid, and it is vital that you show this to your staff. Ideas can be improved upon, but none should be shut down entirely, or else you can expect never to hear from this person again.
Utilizing collaboration tools
One of the biggest challenges for collaboration amongst teams, until now, has been employing systems that make this process easy, both to do and to track. Whether you have a team of 2 or 20, reviewing all feedback is challenging when it’s not at the source. Most teams are sending emails or messages, which get lost after a day worth of communication across the team.
Heycollab eliminates this problem and makes team collaboration streamlined. Within your team’s workspace, you can track projects, and your team can add comments directly to shared files, allowing feedback to stay at the source, easy to track and easy to input. It’s real-time collaboration for teams.
Effective collaboration starts with strong leadership and the right culture; the heycollab platform simply helps your business to radiate those values through our all-inclusive messaging and collaboration tool which allows your team to share and track their ideas. Sign your team up for a free trial today.