Last updated on 20th February 2024.
Collaboration has become a buzzword in today’s corporate world, but it’s more than just a trend. When done right, it can bring countless benefits to your teams and organisation.
From increased productivity and creativity to better problem-solving and decision-making, the advantages of team collaboration are numerous.
5 benefits of workplace collaboration
- Increased communication
- More flexibility
- Enhanced productivity
- Learning potential
- More engaged employees
In this article, we’ll explore these 5 key benefits of collaboration and provide practical tips on how to unleash them within your business.
So, let’s dive in and discover the power of working together!
Article Contents
1. Increased communication
Communication is the cornerstone of collaboration. When teams talk to each other they can empathise with each other’s problems and understand what everyone needs to do their best work.
This leads to tasks being completed more efficiently, resulting in more successful projects. And, of course, on the flipside of that, clear communication reduces the likelihood of project errors and setbacks – saving you time and money!
But, increased communication shouldn’t just be for the benefit of internal teams. When you focus on improving communication and collaboration with your clients you’ll see strengthened relationships and, as a result, increase the amount of repeat clients you have.
How to:
One of the biggest culprits to blame for poor communication is email.
Using better collaboration tools might be an easy win you’re missing. Ditching email for an effective project management tool could help your teams to communicate more effectively – both with each other and clients.
Project.co’s discussion tool is a great way to foster better collaborative working. It keeps all communications in one central place, visible to everyone involved in the project.
Team members and clients can also chat directly within tasks, so that everyone knows what needs to be done – and when.
Plus, email notifications ensure that people don’t have to completely give up their inbox!
Example: iFood + Slack
iFood, a tech leader in food delivery services across Brazil, benefitted from increased communication when they implemented Slack as a collaboration tool for their team.
Slack empowered iFood to make decisions asynchronously and integrate with other apps its teams use daily to make the whole business more productive and collaborative.
2. More flexibility
Flexibility is an invaluable asset. You only need to look at the long list of defunct businesses that didn’t have the flexibility to evolve (Blockbuster. Toys R Us. MySpace) to realise that adapting to changing situations is what helps businesses stay afloat.
When your teams collaborate, they are more likely to work together to find newer (better!) ways of doing things.
Increased flexibility also works to further improve communication, as people who collaborate closely are more likely to be open to each other’s suggestions – creating a greater sense of equality among team members.
How to:
Increased flexibility in the workplace starts with creating an environment where everyone feels safe to input and give suggestions.
This can be encouraged through regular project meetings where everyone has a chance to be heard – from entry-level staff through to senior levels of management.
But, being heard is one thing and making changes is another. To really benefit from increased flexibility you need to be willing to change direction at any point in the project if a team member offers a suggestion of a better way to do things.
Example: Google + the 20% rule
Google is known all over the world as an innovative, forward-thinking company. The 20% rule they’ve implemented gives staff members the flexibility to collaborate on projects (for 20% of their working week) that they are passionate about with the hope – but no pressure – that big opportunities will be revealed.
And this has worked in the past. Many great products have come from the flexibility offered by the 20% rule, including Gmail and AdSense!
3. Enhanced productivity
The biggest benefit of successful collaboration, when it comes to your bottom line, is enhanced productivity. When productivity increases, projects are completed more quickly – giving you an accelerated time to market and increased profit.
Productivity typically increases when everyone knows what their role is within each project, As long as everyone is on the same page there will be less crossed wires and delays.
And this can even reduce the amount of meetings you need. We all know meetings are notorious timesinks.
How to:
So, aside from cutting down on the amount of meetings you have, how else can you unleash the benefits of productivity?
Using a project management methodology, such as kanban, can help you to map out every stage of your project so that you have visualisation over which team member is needed and when, and also what’s required of them.
On Project.co, you can set out your tasks visually using our kanban feature.
With our drag and drop functionality you can quickly move tasks from to-do, to doing, to done! You can use custom fields to rename these statuses and make sure they reflect your specific workflow.
Another great tool for improving productivity is Google Drive. We all know how disastrous it can be collaborating on offline documents – there’s always multiple versions and before you know it, no one knows which version is the most up to date one. This can lead to duplicated work and a lot of wasted time.
With Google Drive, everyone can work on the same live document. You can see your team making updates in real time, and you can also check the version history to see the edits that have been made since you last opened the document. You can embed Google docs and sheets (along with tons of other 3rd party tools!) for collaboration right within Project.co.
This ensures that everyone invited to the project – both internal team members and clients or stakeholders – can access the latest version of your document without ever leaving the software!
4. Learning potential
When teams collaborate with each other, they can learn from one another. Just look at Pixar:
“Technology inspires art, and art challenges technology.”
When teams learn from one another they can also learn more about themselves, and begin to grow from that.
The simple act of an outside party asking you why you do something a certain way can inspire a change that may make everything quicker, easier, and even more profitable!
What’s more, learning is important to modern workers.
On top of that, 87% of millennials rate ‘professional or career growth and development opportunities’ as important to them in a job.
How to:
As demonstrated by the Pixar example above, creating a culture of collaboration starts with the environment. If you want your teams to learn from each other then they need to be encouraged to communicate with each other.
An open plan office can help with this and – if you work remotely – so can interdepartmental meetings.
Example: Pixar
Of course, we have to talk about Pixar here. Pixar creates boundary-breaking animated movies, and it does so by fostering a culture of collective creativity. Huge teams work on these movies and they all learn from one another. The company even has their very own Pixar University!
5. More engaged employees
When employees enjoy collaborating, your office will benefit from a better atmosphere. And this can make for happier employees in general.
This is great news, not only for workplace satisfaction, but also for productivity.
So happy employees are not only more engaged, more likely to come up with innovative ideas and do their best work – they’re also less likely to leave, reducing your turnover rate.
How to:
Incentives are a great way to recognise and reward great teamwork. This could be in the form of a gift card for projects that are completed in an exceptionally efficient way or a trophy that can be shared around the team.
It also helps to encourage engagement through regular group activities such as team quizzes, pizza nights in the office, or even a charity bake sale – whatever gets your team working and having fun together!
Final thoughts
Overall, more collaborative teams leads to better employee engagement, productivity and satisfaction. A collaborative environment can help facilitate better work, more innovative solutions – and, ultimately, successful projects!
You can build a more collaborative team and your clients together with Project.co.