According to Forbes, companies that promoted collaborative working were 5 times as likely to be high performing. When done right, it can encourage a team to drive results, but when done wrong, it can demotivate and frustrate team members.
How can you ensure that your team is utilizing collaboration best practices and activities?
We sat down with nine collaborating experts to find out their tips and tricks to ensure that collaboration is done right.
Shared Inbox Tool
Our shared inbox tool is a perfect way to unite your marketing or customer success teams! Threads can help your teams work more efficiently by sharing all your business emails with your colleagues and syncing said information directly with your CRM. These unique features can help your team collaborate and all be on the same page!
John Yardley, Threads
Shared Google Calendar
An easy way to collaborate with the team on upcoming events and meetings is with a shared Google Calendar. This way, we know what deadlines are coming up, what meetings we all have going on, and if there are any special events to look forward to. When working remotely, this is an easy way to see if people are busy or could easily hop on a call to answer a question. Knowing what’s on everyone’s professional calendar makes us feel in the loop and united in our efforts.
Henry Babichenko, Stomadent Dental Lab
Collaborate on Different Channels
Our team is always united and collaborating on Slack! We have different channels for different items of business to keep things organized. These conversations sometimes stray from being work-related and turn into fun back and forths between employees to stay connected and get to know each other better!
Chris Dunkin, Portable Air
Egg Drop Activity
My favorite collaboration/team activity is the egg drop. This is a cheap and simple activity that works! Each team gets an egg and has to come up with a way to protect the egg from breaking when it is dropped from 8 feet. It shows how a team will communicate, what role each person naturally takes, and who is the leader amongst them. It also helps them create a way to deal with conflict, all while having fun. You can run the activity as many times as you want (or until you are done cleaning up egg!)
Debra Hildebrand, LurnAgile
Daily Wins
At our company, we meet daily over Zoom for a morning meeting to start the day as a team. We all share our biggest “win” from the day before and share what our highest priority is for that day, to stay accountable! On top of these quick, 15 minute daily meetings, we also host some kind of happy hour even each month to be able to connect without having to talk about work. We usually play a game, like 2 Truths and a Lie or Jeopardy to build morale and get a little break from the workday. Meeting every day as a team, even over Zoom, is so important to keep teams feeling united!
Kayla Centeno, Markitors
Anthym
Our team has recently signed up for Anthym, a platform that uses music to foster connection and the power of trust between our team members. Utilizing this platform helped unite our team, making us all a little more vulnerable and approachable as we talked through historic events in our lives and the songs associated with them. It is a great team-building activity I recommend to any company!
Jenae Nichols, Y Scouts
Eating Together
We try to eat together as a crew every day when on a job together. It’s a good opportunity for everyone to unwind and get to know each other on a more personal level. I find that trading stories about our families and lives outside of work help our employees feel more connected to each other. It also fosters a stronger workplace culture, which is proven to reduce turnover and increase job satisfaction!
Blake Murphey, American Pipeline Solutions
Celebrate Session
We meet virtually as a team every two weeks for our Celebration Session. We share good stories, whether related to work or not, and we have a theme at each session. Our last session was our Ugly Christmas Sweater Party, and the one before that was a show-and-tell of the most interesting item found in your home. These meetings keep morale up, and we get to see our office-mates!
Kirsten Selvage, ShopPros
Stakeholder Meetings
There are many ways that we work to foster team collaboration and unity. Our monthly Stakeholder Meetings are mandatory for all team members and provide an opportunity for us to share important information and hear updates from all company departments. This is also a time for team members to ask any questions they have. Questions can be submitted beforehand anonymously or in-person during the meeting. Additionally, we have monthly team outings that let us kick back and have some fun together. Team outings help us to develop stronger relationships and thereby boost internal communication and collaboration.
Johanna Snearly, TechnologyAdvice