6 Benefits of Teamwork in the Workplace

What should you focus on when you’re aiming to get the most out of your employees? Building an effective workforce isn’t just about finding the best performers in every separate discipline. You also need to make sure every one of these professionals understands effective communication and collaboration, as well as how to set and pursue a shared goal.

Teamwork in the workplace is an area of employee development you can focus on whether you’re in the midst of a hiring spree or have had the same team in place for years — it is a truly universal need.

Why Focus on Teamwork?

Some executives may assume it’s pointless to train their employees in good teamwork. This is because the necessary abilities for better cooperation are “soft skills” rather than technical facts. It’s easy to assume that some people are simply good at communicating and others are not.

Of course, that view of teamwork as impossible to impart isn’t true. There are employee education options to help your workers learn how to collaborate and contribute to team goal accomplishment. 

Adding these courses to your training curriculum is a way to boost the overall effectiveness of your workflows because nearly every process in your company requires input from more than one person. From serving customers to executing ambitious internal projects, nearly all employee activities go more smoothly when workers know how to work as a unit.

Teamwork in the Workplace: 6 Benefits

There’s no need to be vague when discussing the role excellent teamwork can play for a company. By assessing the concrete benefits of training your workers’ soft skills, you can see why this is a potentially valuable employee education approach.

The following are six of the areas where improving teamwork can help your company thrive:

• Opportunities to build competency: When employee team members work well together, they get a close-up look at their colleagues’ unique skill sets and specialties. Glassdoor noted this increased contact can lead to accelerated professional development for all parties.
• Increased willingness to take risks: Employees who feel supported by their teammates may feel less restricted in their thinking. This leads them beyond safe thinking, as they will be sure their coworkers will not dismiss or belittle their latest idea. One of those risky concepts could be the company’s next big win.

• Better outcomes enabled by collaboration: Since each team project is carried out to achieve a business goal, creating better teamwork is a way to drive overall results. Gallup pointed out that internal cooperation is one of the many business factors company leaders should consider when creating plans to achieve their corporate objectives.

• A greater sense of creativity and innovation: Creative thinking and innovative ideas are closely related to the concept of risk-taking. Once employees have gotten used to collaboration and sharing ideas, they can take their plans beyond the basics and truly break new ground. While team members working in isolation may fail to deliver next-level concepts, those supported by their peers can find greater success.

• Enhanced speed and consistency: As Glassdoor added, workers who are effective team players can quickly share information and opinions. When the feedback process is fast, professional and non-judgmental, effective teams can produce a reliable output at a consistent pace, fueled by a productive give-and-take of ideas.

• Lower-stress everyday work: Even the most well-adjusted workplace will come with some differences of opinions. The difference between a successful business and a dysfunctional one may come from the way people process those disagreements. Gallup explained strong teamwork skills allow employees to get around potential conflicts, moving forward in mutually beneficial ways because their dialogues are positive in tone. From individual job satisfaction to company culture, fostering teamwork can boost the business in many ways.

Building Effective Teamwork through Training

As with so many subjects, it’s easier than ever to train your employees in teamwork and cooperation. This is due to the rise of video-based courses which allow you to reach your whole workforce affordably and effectively, even if they are scattered across multiple offices or work remotely. 

The subject matter of these courses touches on several aspects of effective teamwork. While some use examples and storytelling to remind workers of the ways they can come together for collaboration, others focus on concepts such as trust. By finding the right material for your team, you can revolutionize team performance and the employee experience simultaneously.

Check out MasteryTCN to learn more about these and other soft skill courses.