Jim Skamarakas

It has been proven that companies who create work-oriented teams will have more productive employees. As employees work together to resolve problems more quickly you’ll find that your costs can be greatly reduced - and there is often a corresponding increase in employee satisfaction.
Here are 5 quick tips to create a work-oriented environment at your company:

• Tip #1. Create A Model
  • Workplace teams differ depending on the type of organization and industry. To create your own unique model, research and examine your company’s structure and your employees’ talents. The important thing is to make sure that the model you’ve selected fits into your company’s culture.
• Tip #2. Empower Your Work Teams
  • In addition to organizing weekly meetings and sharing ideas, enable your work teams to become responsible for project outcomes. For example, ask them to not only identify problems but also create solutions to resolve the issue(s) and reduce costs.
• Tip #3. Create Cross-Functional Teams
  • Work-oriented teams are especially successful because they help bring together groups of workers who may not have interacted with each other before. For example, two departments like shipping and customer service frequently are at odds with each other. Customer service wants the product shipped out as soon as possible; but shipping has multiple deadlines to meet and does not want to provide poor service. By bringing the two groups together in a cross-functional team, both sides increase their understanding of the other groups” point of view, and can reach agreements to resolve the issues faster.
• Tip #4. Keep Teams Fresh And Flexible
  • The whole idea of teamwork is to bring together people with different expertise to address a specific problem(s). This often results in more creative solutions to the problem(s). Teams should be formed and disbanded as needed. Whenever a person or group identifies a problem, you can quickly gather the appropriate employees to form a team. When the task is completed, you can proceed to identifying new problems and creating new teams.
• Tip #5. Provide The Needed Resources For Your Teams
  • To be effective, teams may require access to key service departments such as legal, human resources, marketing and external assistance such as continuing education via consultants. In addition, they may require the company’s financial budget to conduct studies to compare two processes or benchmark a process with other companies.

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