Bookmark This! The Teams Edition
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
The New York Times recently published an article about “Who Still Works From Home?”. While the majority of workers are back onsite, there are still a small percentage of people who work a hybrid schedule or fully remote. The article is an interesting look at what types of jobs are more likely to fall into the category of remote and hybrid work.
Regardless of where a person works, one thing is important to all workers … and that’s teamwork. Being able to participate in a team matters, even when you’re an individual contributor. And, being an effective team member is essential to individual and organizational success.
If you’re looking for some resources to help build and maintain better teams, here are three articles to get the conversation started within your organization.
3 Proven Ways to Make New Team Members Feel Welcome and Included
There are countless studies showing that structured onboarding programs not only welcome new hires into the organization, but they help with employee engagement and retention.
It’s time to take what we know about onboarding one step further and provide internal team members the same type of structured process that we provide external candidates. It doesn’t necessarily have to include an in-person classroom program, although that could be fantastic. But it does need to include a plan, communication, training, and manager involvement.
For Productivity, Engage Team Members with Emotional Intelligence
When it comes to creating employee engagement, leaders play an important role. But we need to remember that team members also share in that responsibility. Employees will be enthusiastic and dedicated to their work when they are trusted and treated with respect.
If organizations want to get things done – and we all know they do – then they need to set teams up for success. That involves giving team members, and especially your leaders, the tools they need to engage, which starts with emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence drives team engagement and teamwork. Engaged teams get stuff done, which allows the organization to accomplish their goals.
Create Effective Organizational Change Through Leadership Development
Change happens all the time. And change can be hard. Even when the change is welcome, it still can be hard. It is critical for organizations to prepare their leaders, employees, and teams to effectively handle change.
The key to successfully managing any type of change starts with leaders. Organizations should give leaders the training and tools they need to manage change at every level. And that happens during leadership development. In turn, proper development will allow the leader to provide support to employees.
The conversation about teamwork needs to happen before new employees are hired and throughout the employee life cycle. Managers should be trained on how to build and sustain a positive team environment. Because organizations rely on teams to accomplish their goals.
Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the streets of Nashville, TN
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