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Workplace collaboration is one of the most essential aspects of a successful business, but it’s a major struggle for many organizations. In fact, workers waste approximately 25 billion hours each year because of poor collaboration practices, according to a 2024 Atlassian survey of Fortune 500 companies. Some businesses fail to foster a company culture of community and belonging that supports effective teamwork, while others fail to recognize and reward collaborative behavior.
If your company needs help improving collaboration so team members can spend time focusing on what matters most, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive into what good collaboration looks like, its benefits, and five strategies to help boost collaboration in your workplace.
What is collaboration at work?
Collaboration at work is when team members and departments align on a common goal or set of goals, agree on the best plan of action to reach those goals, and share knowledge and skills to execute that plan. Collaboration is one of the most critical components of a successful business—so much so that office employees spend at least 42% of their time collaborating with other team members and departments. And while 60% of workers believe that their organizations need to change how team members collaborate, they aren’t confident their employers will follow through.
Clearly, something needs to change.
The benefits of workplace collaboration
Here are just a few of the reasons collaboration matters and how it can help your business thrive:
- Better communication. Communication and collaboration go hand in hand. If your organization is actively fostering collaboration and providing clear guidance on how to achieve it, good communication will be a natural byproduct.
- Improved knowledge sharing. Similarly, instilling good collaboration skills into your staff means they’ll get better at sharing information both among their team and between other departments. The free flow of knowledge helps employees come up with more creative solutions to key business challenges.
- Increased productivity. Team members who can rely on co-workers to get the job done and provide assistance when they need it will be more productive.
- A sense of belonging. And of course, teams that collaborate well together tend to form strong connections and feel a genuine sense of belonging in the workplace.
Challenges to workplace collaboration
Improving collaboration takes time and thoughtful effort and comes with its share of hurdles to overcome. Understanding the challenges of workplace collaboration in advance can help you avoid some of the common pitfalls.
A lack of trust
Individuals are often slow to trust new acquaintances, both in their personal and professional lives. Especially if they’ve had to endure a toxic work culture in the past, some employees are more inclined to rely on themselves than turn to a teammate. To get past this roadblock, leadership and HR should develop a plan for building mutual trust in the workplace. Though that plan will look different depending on your team’s needs and experiences, there are a few proven ways to help foster that trust.
Trust your team to do their work
No one likes a micromanager, so ensure that leaders start every relationship from a place of trust. They should delegate tasks to staff and let them handle their work on their own. That doesn’t mean leaving them completely to their own devices—still plan for periodic check-ins where it makes sense, like weekly department meetings and regular one-on-ones—but trust them to ask for help if they need it and avoid the urge to ask for updates outside of those regular check-ins.
Listen and act
When it comes to problem-solving and developing workflows, it’s always helpful to gather different perspectives from the staff who are doing the day-to-day work. But there’s nothing more frustrating than being asked for your thoughts only to have your input seemingly dismissed. So don’t just solicit feedback from your team—be prepared to take it to heart and act on it. This action lets employees know that their voice really matters, and it helps them trust that they can come to you with other feedback and critiques in the future.
Provide opportunities for new, meaningful work
As a direct report, one of the ultimate signs of trust is for a manager to hand the reins over on a project that pushes you to learn new things. Encourage leaders at your organization to empower team members by periodically assigning stretch projects to those who are ready for them. It shows that you’re invested in their growth and trust them to take the lead and see the project through.
Communication struggles
Naturally, teams that consistently communicate well have a better chance of successfully completing projects and hitting goals compared to teams that don’t. Some employees are naturally skilled communicators, while others are more reticent—particularly when communicating with leadership and management.
To help employees feel comfortable communicating more transparently with peers and managers, encourage active listening, effective information sharing within and across teams, and open-minded problem solving. For instance, in remote work environments, over-communicate to avoid acting on assumptions, and create written reference materials to help employees work asynchronously. Communication also benefits from an environment of  psychological safety where employees feel comfortable being their real selves, expressing constructive criticism, and contributing unconventional ideas.
The wrong tools
Even if your organization optimizes workflows and policies with collaboration in mind, those efforts only go so far if your teams don’t have the right tools at their disposal. These include instant messaging platforms like Slack and Google Chat that help employees connect quickly and asynchronously. Project management tools like Jira and Asana also improve collaboration by helping staff keep track of where tasks currently stand and what needs to happen to move them forward.
Perhaps most importantly, companies that are serious about collaboration should adopt an employee engagement platform. These solutions include a variety of tools to help gather feedback and insights from workers that leadership can then act on to eliminate roadblocks that are hindering collaboration. The best engagement platforms offer modern, targeted ways to quickly collect feedback, like pulse surveys about specific topics and weekly check-ins to keep track of wins and blockers. These platforms can also highlight positive teamwork-related trends, like new processes that are helping teams work together more efficiently.
5 ways to improve collaboration in the workplace
To change your organizational culture and foster closer collaboration between staff, your company needs to take a multi-faceted approach. These five strategies are a great starting point.
1. Build a framework for collaboration
Your company can help staff get a better sense of what good collaboration looks like and what’s expected of them by developing processes focused on communication, community, and resource sharing. Consider the following best practices.
Choose the right channels to share information
What type of information is appropriate for sending over chat? For an email? What about team meetings? Your company should provide guidance on how to use the most productive medium for every message so collaboration isn’t derailed by poor communication.
Meet with intention
Time is a scarce resource. Disjointed, agenda-less meetings fail to drive collaboration and waste employees’ time. Bring structure to each meeting with clear agenda items and concrete outcomes in mind. And don’t forget to ask yourself if a meeting is the best format for collaboration. When leaders promote effective teamwork through efficient meetings focused on company goals, the rest of the organization will follow.
Be clear about project ownership
While project structures can vary depending on the objectives and teams involved, your organization should standardize as much as possible. For example, project managers should always own the timeline, people managers should create objectives and key results (OKRs) and key performance indicators (KPIs), and team leads should be in charge of collecting data for KPI reports. Leaders should make these expectations clear by outlining who owns each part of a project in advance, so all team members stay on the same page.
Outline which tools teams will use
Create guidelines covering which tools team members will use to track and complete their work. Identify cross-functional integrations that can help departments work together more seamlessly. For instance, integrating project management, communication, and HR tools helps employees stay connected and access relevant information without having to constantly switch between platforms throughout the day.
2. Celebrate teamwork
When employees collaborate well, praise the parties involved, let their managers know, and recognize them publicly. After all, employees are much more likely to repeat behaviors that their colleagues show appreciation for. But don’t just limit praise to meetings: announce wins in company-wide emails or intranet bulletins, and create a formal employee recognition program so team members can show meaningful appreciation year-round. There’s no need to build your own initiatives from scratch, though; instead, adopt an employee recognition and rewards platform that provides all the social and monetary recognition capabilities your employees could ever want in a centralized location available from anywhere with an internet connection.
3. Ensure leadership buy-in
Leadership should understand how critical collaboration is and should routinely demonstrate what successful teamwork looks like. After all, if leadership isn’t exemplifying how to effectively work with others, how can you expect employees to do so? Leaders’ behavior signals to staff what’s appropriate and what’s not, sending a clear message about what your company wants its culture to look like. HR professionals should train leaders on why collaboration is one of your organization’s chief imperatives and guide them on how best to empower their direct reports to frequently collaborate on projects both big and small.
4. Support soft skills
Successful collaboration often relies on soft skills, which are often trickier to train than technical skills. To help build soft skills, especially in younger employees, offering relevant professional development opportunities is the key. According to 2024 research published through Wiley, only 25% of employees said their company offered soft skilling training. However, 63% of those who received professional development for soft skills said it had a positive impact on their work performance. Beyond incorporating soft skills into your company’s talent development program, look to establish mentor-mentee relationships where employees can pick up additional soft skills from those who already have them.
5. Align on goals and expectations
Of course, it’s tough to foster collaboration when people can’t get on the same page. As we discussed earlier, buy-in can be a powerful tool, and this applies to your company’s goals as well. Some objectives, like strategic business goals, are often created without employee input, which can make getting staff buy-in more difficult. But there are other ways to earn widespread support for these top-down goals and expectations.
One approach is for employees to create department-specific objectives that support larger organizational initiatives. For example, maybe your C-suite executives want to improve year-over-year profitability. Each department can come together to discuss how their operations impact profitability and establish goals to support the larger effort. Sales, for instance, can work towards closing more or larger deals to earn more revenue, while the product team can work towards delivering projects on time and under budget to keep overhead costs in check. This is just one way that involving employees in the decision-making process can give them a sense of ownership while uncovering new opportunities for collaboration.
Unlock the benefits of collaboration at your company
A collaborative culture leads to a more prosperous business and a more engaged workforce. If you’re looking to create this type of positive environment at your organization, look no further than the Achievers Employee Experience Platform. Designed by the science of belonging, the Achievers Employee Experience Platform is dedicated to fostering connection among your workforce through delivering actionable feedback to leaders, fighting isolation among hybrid and remote workforces, and putting meaningful recognition and rewards into the hands of every employee.
See how Achievers can help your business improve collaboration and engagement by scheduling a demo today.
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