You may have heard the phrase “employees are the life of a company”. Building a stable employee base and teams that work well within that is not an easy task. It may be easy to find a replacement if an employee leaves, but it’s not easy to rebuild the same relationship or loyalty that the old one had.
Successful teamwork has always been essential to building a successful business, and that is truer today than it was ever before because circumstances have changed and evolved.
In a 2016 study titled “The Deloitte Millennial Survey”, it was reported that millennials linked job satisfaction with being exposed to cross-team collaboration, open communication, a culture of support and tolerance, active involvement, and free-flowing ideas, as well as strong commitment to equality and inclusiveness. In short, millennials stay in their jobs when they have good teams.
So, how do you build the perfect work team?
Teams of the future will find it important to encompass the 4-Ds: diverse, dispersed, digital, and dynamic. However, the fundamental aspects of building a successful team have always been the same and they will remain the same well into the future. Here are the 5 essentials to building a perfect work team:
Communication
Having good communication is an important aspect of teamwork, perhaps even the most important. This means regularly updating each member of the team with the goings-on instead of simply assuming they must know.
To be good at communication, you must also be good at listening. Listening to your colleagues is a way of showing respect and thereby, building trust. Encouragement is also a part of communication, and the most effective way to bring the best out of someone. Open communication is also a great way to bring new and innovative ideas to the mix, and a way for everyone to feel involved and like they are a part of the team.
Delegation
A great team is one that understands the strengths and weaknesses of each of its members. This way, each employee is allocated a task that they excel in. Leaders and team members should also identify areas that their colleagues might find difficult and encourage or help them get better at them.
Efficiency
A successful team understands and develops a cohesive system that helps them complete their tasks, both collaboratively and individually. By working with and around each other, members of the team come together to organize the workload and complete tasks on time and with as much efficiency as possible.
Ideas
Employees within a successful team feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, concerns, and ideas. This is only possible when a feeling of respect, tolerance, and togetherness is cultivated. When colleagues feel they can think freely and creatively, brainstorming sessions are a lot more fruitful and productivity is high.
Support
All workplaces are bound to have challenges, and it is up to the leaders and employees to create an environment of support and acceptance so that such challenges can be dealt with effectively and respectfully.
When members of a team feel like they belong to something greater than themselves, it is easier to face such tests and trials. Building lasting bonds comes from trust and reliance on each other, which is of major importance to a company as a whole. Colleagues help each other improve their own performances as well as improving the overall productivity and development.
