Great Teamwork Tips for Remote Teams

The way in which teamwork manifests at your workplace is usually reflective of your company-culture. Enabling teamwork to thrive in the workplace in no easy task, however if you manage to develop your teamwork and produce good teams, it can have a profound impact on not only productivity, but also the general welfare of your employees. As Henry Ford once said:

Why is teamwork important?

Fundamentally, successful teamwork empowers individuals to contribute to common goals. And of course, the success of most organisations relies on the ability of individuals to build effective teams. Teamwork itself has been likened to two essential compounds of modern life.

It's the glue which keeps a team together, a bond promoting strength unity, support, and reliability. But it is also the oil that makes the team work smoother, and enables momentum as well as assisting the resolution of obstacles.

Moreover, vital to teamwork is the division of labour. This enables your workforce to split difficult tasks into smaller ones, and work together to complete an overall task faster. Also, by dividing the labour, individuals are able to specialise in certain areas, which means tasks can be divied out in accordance to individuals strengths, making the process far more efficient.

Not to mention it's morale boosting potential. Employee's tent to feel their work is valued when they contribute to something that produces results. Having the opportunity to contribute to a team builds both confidence in the individuals, and trust amongst the team. This also creates a sense of belonging and deep commitment to each other and organisational goals within the team.

10 Benefits of teamwork in the workplace.

Increased Creativity: Working as a team, enables people from a wide variety of backgrounds, each with different perspectives and insights to each contribute to a common goal. No

Complementary skills: Bringing together multiple individuals to take on a task or tasks is a great way to effectively complete work. This is due to the unique strengths of individuals. With each person having strengths in different area's you are able to dedicate certain area's of the task to the right people in order to get the job done in the most efficient manner.

Support network: Creating a positive team environment is vital to the success of any business. In order for employees to remain focused on the goal at hand, they should feel comfortable to be able to rely on one another for support and guidance.

Conflict resolution: Nurturing a cohesive workforce is vital to conflict resolution. So much time is wasted on resolving internal conflicts due to poor teamwork. A good team can disagree respectfully. This is done by listening to each others opinions, and equally working together to find a solution that everyone or the majority agree upon.

Attracting talent: Showing off your united team is a huge incentives for others to come and work for you. Gen-Z employees are known to value collaboration over competition, therefore make collaboration part of your culture, and win the best of the best employees.

Improved service: Developing teamwork within your organisation is unsuprisingly important to customer service. This is due to the tendency of people to be reluctant to work with unhappy people, and prefer to work with those who show team spirit and a value in their own work.

Career building: When you are working with others, you are benefitting both yourself and others. This can be accomplished through the trading of skill sets. You can learn of others, and create alliances with your colleagues, which in turn may lead to networking opportunities and further oppertunities both within your organisation and externally.

Risk taking: Employees that are working as a team towards a common goal are more likely to take take risks. This is due to shared blame if something does not work. Due to the decreased individual risk, employees feel more comfortable to share potentially ground breaking ideas.

Improved communication: When employees work together, they must communicate more often, and learn of the most efficient form of communications. This is so that no body is in the dark about any decision making. Making communication a priority within a team not only benefits that team, but also the organisation as a whole, as communications in general will be undertaken in a more concise manner.

Division of work: A huge benefit of teamwork is the division of labour involved. This means that employees can each complete specific areas of a task which they may be more adept in, instead of completing the whole task on their own. This reduces the workload, and also workplace stress.

Tips for effective teamwork in remote teams:

• Make sure your team understands the goals: Make sure you communicate the goals to your team, and that they are committed to attaining them. Giving clear direction and mutual support is essential for effective teamwork. Clarifying expectations for specific teams reinforces accountability and outcomes for everyone within the organisation.

• Make your communication honest and open: The best work is done when you get different perspectives to come to the ultimate decision. Therefore you need to create a space where team members feel comfortable to share their thoughts, opinions, and potential solutions to issues. Also ask further questions, this will show team members that they are being heard and there idea’s are being at least attempted at being understood.

• Create a sense of belonging: If you can create a sense of belonging in the team, whether it be by giving it a name, or creating social norms such as a weekly gathering in or out of the office, this creates an environment of commitment and the sense of belonging is enhanced.

• Acknowledge unique traits: Each individual is different, with a different way of thinking, working, and contributing. It takes many minds to complete a project to the best degree. So much so, that the more that a team can bring diverging perspectives to the table, the better. Therefore, you should highlight everyones individual strengths and utilise them to there utmost potential.

• Self Analysis: An effective team must be able to continuously self analyse to be able to improve its processes, practices, and interations with other team members. Therefore, it is good practice to meet once a week and discuss what issues are hindering the teams ability to progress with any tasks.

• Agree upon procedures: Vital to teamwork is agreeing to procedures to follow when diagnosing and issue. Following these procedures will allow you to resolve teamwork problems swiftly. This is more a conversation on how members can work towards a mutual resolution rather than a personality conflict.

• Have a dedicated leader: A high performance team will need a leader to assign tasks, lead meetings, record decisions and commitments, analysing issues and exploiting opportunities, as well as holding team members accountable for any misdemeanour’s. If you prefer a horizontal style of leadership, one option here is to rotate the leadership within the team so that each individual has the opportunity to take the lead and develop individually as well as providing a platform for team development.

• Help Eachother: You are a team, work as a team and help each other out where and when possible. Not only will this improve the overall performance of the team, it will increase job satisfaction as those who need support will have access to mutual support.

• Celebrate Success: If your team have worked hard together, let them know, reward them. Teamwork is built off hard work and communication, so why not reward their hard work with by communicating your appreciation!