Picture this: all of your employees are working and behaving with a collective attitude, functioning harmoniously in a regular, deliberate and positive manner. This is known as culture collaboration. And when achieved, it can completely transform your environment.
With everyone on the same page, inter-and cross-departmental communication becomes more fluid. Knowledge and ideas are thrown around like a professional game of catch, where no one drops the ball. The result? Greater job satisfaction, better performance and boosted company morale. Sounds perfect! But implementation isn’t always easy.
Ways to build a collaborative culture
Allow us to lend a hand by highlighting five effective ways to achieve culture collaboration in your workplace, and how Propel can help fuel your potential.
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Communicate a clear vision
Although there are many ways to build a collaborative culture, they aren’t worth much without first defining and communicating a clear vision. Your approach and desired outcome won’t be the same as the next company’s, so it’s important to highlight what makes you different.
Maintaining this culture for the long term relies on strong messaging from the outset. So get your leaders on board to project the vision down through the ranks, ensuring everyone knows it’s here to stay.
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Create opportunities for collaboration
A collaborative culture doesn’t happen by magic, it has to be facilitated. Planting the seed without creating the conditions for it to blossom won’t produce the desired results. Providing dedicated time for relationship building is vital, but this doesn’t have to be a ‘pass the bean bag’ session.
Be creative and set up cross-departmental meets to share knowledge and experiences, possibly incorporating a brainstorming session. Not only does this offer teams the chance to gel, but you might just end up with some productive ideas for the company too.
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Give constructive feedback
In order to cement behaviours and nail down desired attitudes, you’ll need a hands-on approach during the transitional process and beyond. By identifying what’s going well and what could be improved, you create the space to provide constructive feedback across the board.
Consistently encouraging the wins while coaching through the obstacles is key to creating a collaborative organisational culture that lasts. Reinforcement in its many guises should be utilised to the max to get your people where they need to be.
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Match tasks to interests
You know your teams better than anyone, but their interests and motivations may be less clear for some of your more introverted employees. Gain an understanding of what makes them tick and start matching culture-nurturing tasks to their taste.
Try conducting a survey to get a clearer picture. Work out what they think of the culture, what they might want to see, and how their likes or dislikes tie into this. Finding a productive balance between your approach and their preferences is a great way to strengthen the overall buy-in.
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Make room for remote workers
The working-from-home wave isn’t over, and for many, it never will be. Whether or not post-lockdown conditions have brought you back to the office, achieving effective collaboration in work comes with obstacles for any remote staff.
But if the pandemic taught us anything, it’s how to communicate through the screen. Using technology, social channels and company-wide online platforms, your off-site employees can still feel part of the culture. Don’t let their location get in the way.
Hire cultural fits with Propel
Wondering how to build a collaborative culture during a recruitment drive? Large influxes of new employees can sometimes disrupt the flow, making it hard to maintain a particular atmosphere. That is unless you purposely acquire talent with that exact issue in mind.
To define your own collaborative culture meaning, you need the right people in the right places to get behind your vision. That’s where Propel comes in. Our experts immerse themselves in your employer brand, ensuring new hires are skilled and compatible with your culture. So, everyone experiences a seamless transition that powers your company forward.
Learn more about how we can help to build your teams with the best tech talent around.