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Around the ClearCompany offices, we’re fond of joking that “teamwork makes the dream work.” While it may sound hokey, we truly believe the mantra. We also greatly benefit from an open office space that fosters social collaboration - the process by which people in your company interact, share information and collaborate around goals. After all, you want your best people working together to stay engaged, remain productive and reach company goals.
In theory, social collaboration makes it easier for workers to contextualize their daily work, engage with coworkers and increase productivity. This is because 67 percent of workers believe their colleagues improve their work experience and help them do their jobs better. However, 38 percent of employees rarely ask for help or advice from their coworkers. It’s not enough to simply implement collaboration tools. Social collaboration is only effective if clearly tied to organizational goals and objectives.
Here are some ways to ensure collaboration and goal alignment go hand-in-hand:
Social Collaboration Must be Targeted
It's great to use social collaboration to get your team on the same page. But even the best collaboration doesn't work if it's not being targeted, tracked and reviewed in order to be efficient for your organization. Collaboration should revolve around goals, rather than existing in a vacuum. Using a talent alignment platform like ClearCompany helps you easily see and understand how your team's collaboration dovetails with larger organizational goals.
Talent visualization tools not only help enhance teamwork, they also provide at-a-glance answers to the questions about your team’s direction. Targeting your social collaboration toward overall company objectives helps you keep track of your team, ensuring work cascades toward goals instead of in errant directions unknowingly.
Highlight Accountability
Using talent alignment to visualize workflow allows for all employees to be accountable, not just to management, but to their coworkers and themselves. Social collaboration increases accountability and gets team members in sync, working to accomplish the same goals.
When employees can keep track of their own work and their status on important projects, intrinsic interest in hitting targets improves because employees are accountable for their work. High accountability also means employers know who is working hard, allowing for rewards and recognition for the most assiduous employees.
Get Your Whole Team Looking at the Big Picture
One of the big obstacles to targeted social collaboration is when teams have a hazy grasp on the big picture view of your company strategy and how their work contributes to larger organizational goals.
By using collaboration tools and proper talent alignment, you can tie daily workflow to overall organizational objectives. This helps employees understand what they’re collaborating on, how it adds to company strategy and how they can most effectively add value. It helps your team provide better suggestions, smarter innovations and more actionable feedback on workplace strategies.
Social collaboration is a smart way to ensure your team is pulling in the same direction - toward accomplishing your company's large-scale goals. By focusing on proper alignment and using collaboration tools, you can keep collaboration targeted, improve employee accountability and get your whole team across the finish line.
How do you use social collaboration to accomplish company goals? Share in the comments!
