Top Tips for Effective Teamworking

It can be difficult to get effective teamworking at the best of times, but throw in a pandemic with heightened workloads, stress levels and emotions, it can be even more difficult. However now more than ever is it important that people work together and support each other. So how can you ensure that your teams are working as effectively as possible together in these difficult times?

Some things are easier than others, and some you will already be doing, but for a reminder, some of the top things to consider for effective teamworking are:

· Communication – this is the key to so many things, including effective teamworking. Ensuring that there is open and honest communication between team members can help diffuse any disagreements and can help the team work better together.

· Have clear objectives and expectations – if everyone in the team is working to different goals then they aren’t going to be able to work effectively together. Therefore, it is important to ensure that everyone understands what the objectives are, so that they can work together to achieve these.

· Have clear roles within the team – everyone in the team will have different strengths, so it is worth playing to these, but if you do make it clear who is doing what, as there is no point having everyone doing the same task if it will end up with something else not being done.

· Cooperation – it is a team effort not an individual achievement, encourage teams to work together and not let one person pick up all the work.

Whilst a lot of these things can be done and worked on during normal working, there are times where it is also useful to get outside this environment and for the team to get to know each other in a different setting. This could be done through more structured team building exercises, or something as simple as a coffee break together. This may be harder at the moment with social distancing and restrictions in place and may need to be put on hold until these ease or be carried out virtually instead.

If your team can work together effectively then this not only increases productivity but also can help keep your employees happy and motivated.