10 Tips on Improving Team Efficiency
Want your dream team to be even more productive? Do more with less effort with these 10 tips!
This piece will be extremely useful for team leaders, managers, and anyone striving to get the most out of teamwork!
Why Is It Important?
According to GoRemotely, TeamStage and Biz Group:
- Employees spend on average about 50% more time engaged in collaborative work.
- Almost 75% of employees believe that teamwork and collaboration are important.
- Collaboration increases chances for successful innovation by 15%.
- Recognising the achievements of teams may increase company profits by 29%.
- Constructive communication ensures 4 ½ -times higher employee retention.
- Online collaboration tools scale up remote teams’ productivity by 30%.
- 81% of employees rate collaboration apps positively.
Here are the must-haves for every successful team and we recommend reading this entire piece. ;)
1. Set Clear Roles for Every Team Mate
Even before hiring employees, you should understand what tasks the person will do. Also, pay attention to their strengths and weaknesses when setting goals. So, if someone is struggling to cope with the work, before taking radical actions, ask a more experienced employee to mentor the newcomer.
2. Have Team Rules
These may be:
- scheduled daily meetings;
- one-to-one meetings with every team member;
- set rules for communication time and channels;
- defined working hours or possible variations, if you have a flexible schedule.
Anyway, there should be hours when the entire team is online or in the office. This is the time you can interact with everyone and expect a reply within 5–10 minutes.
The best idea is to lead by example. Follow your own rules and teammates will treat them as a must.
3. Set Attainable and Measurable Goals or Tasks
When it comes to KPIs and new tasks, check they can be measured and are achievable. If not, this can cause frustration and stress for your team. Before setting a goal, ask yourself if you could personally achieve it within the desired deadline. Also, pay attention to potential failures and include future amendments and adjustments to the deadline.
If you have an idea of which metrics you’ll use for measuring success, share them with the team. They will fill in the report and track the progress on every task.
4. Track Success via Management Tools
Having a dashboard with everyone’s tasks is a good idea, as you and other members will be able to see drawbacks. It’s great when you can share success, but it’s important that people know what to do in case of difficulties.
Tracking tasks with specialised tools like Jira and Trello will make the results visible and bring control to the whole development process.
5. Provide Your Team with Real-Time Collaboration Software
We’ve told you the story about how technology contributes to your productivity every day. There you can find several useful apps for online team collaboration. Developers, designers, managers, marketers and many other specialists will find something for themselves in this list!
Real-time tools for shaping ideas into unique original concepts are a must-have for companies. We at Collabio Spaces know this for sure. That’s why we’ve been focusing so much on our collaboration feature! ;)
6. Give Team Members Ownership and Incentives
Responsibility means motivation! The most creative people start booming with ideas when you let them do what they want. Sure, there should be a technical task for every piece of work, however, let your mates choose the way they cope with the task. Trust them and step back!
7. Exchange Feedback and Be Careful with Criticism
First of all, praise well-done work and show gratitude to colleagues. Conduct regular performance reviews so that people feel supported when needed and see their success noticed and appreciated.
In case of difficulties, reserve time to discuss these in 1–1 meetings rather than with the whole team. Use indirect language — don’t criticise teammates themselves but talk about cases, tasks, approaches and results.
8. Let Communication Help, Not Harm
Four simple rules may boost the efficiency of meetings and texting:
- Set communication expectations and convey them to every team member.
- Define a schedule for when to contact your mates and wait for their answers.
- Negotiate on communication channels and don’t use personal messengers or socials to reach out to people regarding their work.
- Avoid unnecessary meetings, and if they are unavoidable, use these 9 tips!
Check this piece for more recommendations on communication!
9. Nurture Positive Work Environment
No one wants to work in an unhealthy environment where conflict provokes thoughts like “I should quit this now…”
To build a dream team, you should focus on:
- Good relationships between teammates and solving issues before they ruin these relationships.
- Being friendly and positive to everyone.
- Success, even if there are mistakes. Mention something good first, then discuss drawbacks.
- Development options. Offer your team growth opportunities — webinars, conferences, courses.
- Flexibility. When the company is flexible with vacations, days off and common working hours, people become grateful and loyal.
10. Organise Team Building Events and Exercises
This point depends only on your creativity and the quarantine measures!
If you decide to hold online events, there are many quest games on the Internet. Friendly Friday meetings on Skype are also a great way to get to know each other better.
If you have an opportunity to meet offline, set up a picnic or a meeting in a city park or a dinner in a restaurant.
In any case, keep in mind that team success consists of every member’s contribution. Gathering a dream team is like cooking a delicious dinner. It will taste its best if all the ingredients are put in certain proportions. That works well with people too. ;) Having correctly mixed everyone’s strengths, you’ll enhance your team’s superpowers!
