Employee Engagement Best Practices In Collaborative Efforts

Effective teamwork is essential to organizational success. If every employee doesn’t buy into and/or isn’t working toward the same goals, then reaching them will feel like a one step forward, two steps back process of chaos. Successful collaboration depends on some basic processes. Here are some employee engagement best practices and teamwork basics:

• Clear expectations: Communication is critical to any teamwork effort. Don’t assume expectations are clear. Communicate, discuss, and agree upon expectations before moving forward with a project. And, finally, stick to the expectations set. Don’t change standards depending on situations. Excellence should be something to strive toward on every level and in every project.
  
  
• Frontline and upper management collaboration: We’ve discussed the idea of a horizontal workplace. This is true; however, upper management and frontline management continue to be guides and leaders of company mindset. The people in these positions need to communicate that they value teamwork, what everybody is doing to work together. This needs to be seen and felt. Every effort will fall flat without this leadership “buy-in.”
  
  
• Have structure: How often will the team meet? For how long? What is the structure of each meeting? Who is responsible for what? How is the follow-up practice on action items? What are the communication protocols? Who is in charge of follow-up? Create check-pointed goals: at three weeks, six weeks, nine weeks … to make sure team is working toward expectations set from the onset.
  
  
• Respect as a mindset: Teams work well together because of individual strengths of their members. Healthy relationships must be cultivated using respect as a basis for everything. Respect empowers employees to be creative, work harder, and feel valued as individuals within the team while working with the team toward common goals. Respect must be a company value that is felt everywhere by everyone and practiced everywhere by everyone.