When it comes to your business and encouraging a positive work environment, online courses and plenary talks are great resources that you can turn to. However, these can be made more effective if coupled with collaborative and employee-empowered practices.

Having a collaborative nature in your workplace is good, especially when you are either just starting out or want to refresh your dedicated pool of employees. Not only does it increase your productivity, but it also cultivates a positive environment for growth and empowerment. 

This article looks into the crucial competency skill of collaboration and how it positively affects your business. The goal is to develop this skill among your employees so that it can also give them the drive to work harder and become possible valuable partners in the long run. More importantly, it’s your duty. As a business owner, your role is to serve not only your customers but also your employees, after all.

• Model Inclusivity 

A collaborative work environment means that all your employees can be who they are and can freely express themselves. Inclusivity is important because it values self-image and also helps to visualize how each employee works within the whole company.

Imagine your business as a complex machine. There are many moving parts and functions that it needs to run smoothly to service its clientele. Employees are the different cogs and bolts in the machine that not only have different functions but also hold the machine together. 

Being inclusive simply means that you are aware that there are different kinds of people, and therefore you are prepared to hear out or welcome anyone to the team. Additionally, it means you are ready to highlight their strengths and work through their areas of improvement. By simply modeling inclusivity, everyone will follow suit and be driven to be their individual best. 

• Empower Insights

Aside from modeling inclusivity, you also want to empower your employees to speak up. After all, they may not only provide your team with a unique perspective on things, but they can also give efficient solutions to long-time problems in your business that only they can see. 

Empowering insights means cultivating a space in the office for opinions and seeking advice from anyone. It doesn’t matter if they are the CEO of your business or the lowest-ranking member; they all have insights that can positively impact your business. 

If you model this, fellow employees will soon be more vocal or understanding. Before you know it, they can solve office problems on their own as you focus on other more pressing matters. To better develop this, you can also encourage more team-oriented work projects or get them into a workplace conflict resolution online course. 

• Establish Office Goals 

Empowering insights need the guidance of set office goals or a united mission-vision statement. This is important because you and your team can lose sight of what really matters in your business. It’s not just about growing in revenue but about providing products and services to those in need. 

Big and small businesses alike struggle with vision, especially to employees in an office setting. They can easily find themselves in a rut and just coast along every workweek. You need to empower them and get them to see your vision. Define it and have them pitch in on what they want for the organization. 

Having office goals is not just about meeting quotas or numbers, by the way. It’s about setting your business goals like it’s a passion project. It’s about getting your employees fired up to provide products or services because you know that there are people out there who genuinely need you. Goals like this are easier to relate to and encourage both employees and customers. 

If you already have a mission-vision statement in the office, have a lunch-and-learn program or online course debriefing to revisit or update it. If not, put it in the next meeting agenda as urgent! 

Conclusion

Encouraging collaboration and cultivating a positive work environment is not something that can be done overnight. You can do the previously stated practices, but you really need to dedicate time and resources to it. As such, strongly consider integrating helpful tools like a  positive work environment online course or by having team-building activities. 

Want to positively impact your business? We can provide your office with a positive work environment online course and other related topics to get them working efficiently and proactively. Optimize work productivity with us from wherever you are!