The 15 Best Teamwork Examples to Implement at Work Today

Supporting teamwork in an increasingly remote and hybrid environment is no easy task. In this guest article from Erica Pezza, you’ll learn 15 tactics you can use to facilitate teamwork among remote employees.

As we continue to see companies going hybrid, remote, and in some cases completely distributed, we also have to get accustomed to new habits in the workplace. That could mean scheduling time to communicate with an employee in a different time zone or making time for “water-cooler chat” online. Those organic conversations and opportunities for teamwork need to be thought out now more than ever before.

According to a study from 2022 by Zippia, 86% of employees in leadership positions say that a lack of collaboration is the top reason for workplace failures. Yikes! So what can companies do to fix it? Or, more importantly, how can you take control of your team and start implementing more opportunities for collaboration and teamwork?

Whether you’re managing (or a part of) a team online, in-person, or a mix of both, here are 15 tips for improving teamwork in the workplace, broken out into five categories, that will inspire you to make positive changes today.

1.    Active listening

Active listening is not only hearing what your colleagues are saying but paying attention to non-verbal messages as well. By practicing active listening, you will likely come across as more trustworthy, thoughtful, and empathetic, which are all great qualities in a leader, whether in a managerial position or not.

Workplace examples of teamwork related to active listening can include:

• Active Listening: Whenever chatting with team members, either one-on-one or in a team meeting, put down your notes while others are speaking, give them your full attention.

• Reiterate and Confirm: When another person is finished speaking, you can respond by paraphrasing what they said. This is especially important when someone addresses a concern or challenge. It shows that you understood the problem correctly and will work to help them fix it.

• Acknowledge Messages:For remote teams, it can be especially challenging with all of the written chats. But, it can be done! Show someone you received their message with a simple “got it!” or a “like” on their message. This way, it’ll relieve their concern about whether or not you missed it among the 300 other chat bubbles you received during the work day. A little goes a long way here!

2.    Giving effective feedback

Feedback in general is super important when working with a team. Your team is your backbone at work – they’re the ones supporting your efforts to drive goals forward! Think about how much better you feel when someone says “great job on that task!” or “thanks for helping me with that customer question!” A little support goes a long way. Feedback is effective when it’s honest, consistent, and constructive! Let’s dive into some examples!

Teamwork examples at work related to effective feedback include:

• Immediate Feedback: You should focus on giving feedback immediately after something has happened, this way the moment is fresh in everyone’s head. Some ways to approach it are:
  • Hi, I’m a bit concerned about  _________, are you free for some strategy planning this week?
  • Thank you so much for the help this week on ________, it’s so nice to have someone with your ________.
  • Hey, I noticed ________, should we schedule a quick chat this week to touch base?

• The Right Tools: Using employee engagement & feedback software like TINYpulse, or Weekdone Team Compass can help everyone in your team start making habits of giving feedback to others on a weekly basis. Whether you throw someone a high five and add them to the company spotlight, or a leader schedules weekly 1:1 reviews with individuals on the team – feedback is recorded on a regular basis.

• Open Communication: Effective feedback can be the sharing of lessons learned, future team improvement ideas, or challenges faced because of something at work.

You can also consider enlisting a group skills training program like Performance Management Fundamentals which can teach your team to learn the performance management cycle, build performance-driven relationships, coach colleagues more effectively, provide more impactful feedback, and measure performance more effectively.

3.    Sharing wins

A great way to support teamwork is to share! Much like effective feedback, sharing wins is a way to engage employees and get them feeling comfortable, confident, and proud of the work they’re putting in each week.

Examples of teamwork related to sharing wins include:

• Icebreaker Games: When starting a team meeting, it’s great to get everyone excited with some fun and light-hearted games. And they don’t have to be cringeworthy either. Need some inspiration? Check out this list of The 300 Best Team Building Icebreaker Questions for Work.

• Success Boards: Have a shared space where your employees write down their successes. At the start of each meeting, highlight a specific team member accomplishment and let them shine!

• Employee Spotlights: Create a “Leaderboard” or “Employee Spotlight of the Month” – choose a different person on your team each time, create a list of “get to know you” questions for them to answer and share them publicly with the team.

4.    Collaborative problem-solving

Everyone experiences a problem every now and then, and when you use some best practices in creative and collaborative problem solving, you’ll often come to solutions quicker and more efficiently than ever before. After all, teamwork grows stronger as you come out of hardships together. Let’s think of some examples of teamwork you can use when faced with a challenge.

The best teamwork examples in collaborative problem-solving include:

• Get Together: At the first sign of a challenge, hold a meeting with your team. Even when certain team members aren’t directly involved, invite them. Oftentimes, an outside perspective is most helpful! Talk through the problem and come up with solutions together.

• Five Whys: Suggest the person going through a challenge to use the 5 whys problem analysis technique. This helps you to find the root cause-and-effect of the issue. Start with the issue, ask “why” it happened. The response you come up with for the first “why” becomes the question you answer with the second “why” and so on. Getting to the root of an issue can often help it be avoided in the future.

• Cross-Departmental Mentorship: Offering a peer-to-peer mentorship or learning partnership within teams or even across departments is a great way to solve problems on a smaller scale. It gives individuals a designated person to turn to before addressing the whole team or manager. Often having someone to turn to for side concerns or issues is a great option.

5.    Clear communication

Lack of clear communication, or communication in any sense, can be a common struggle within teams. Without it, you’re lost in a silo with no specific direction. It’s wise to air on the side of over-communication rather than under-communicating.

Some teamwork examples to promote clear communication in the workplace include:

• Use the Right Tools: Have a clear tool you use for keeping up with your team. There are a ton of them like, including Slack, Google Chat, and Microsoft Teams. Make sure you have one designated chat for your team communications, and individuals as well. If you use any other software, be sure to onboard your team there when they first get started in the company. Explaining the different use cases for each of the tools you use will reduce confusion and help keep the lines of communication clear, and open!

• Get to Know Your Team: Learn about your co-workers as individuals so that you can understand the different personalities and communication styles in your team. This will help you when presenting information in meetings, or even talking one on one. Do you need to adhere to some visual learners with a slide deck? Also, think about the language and tone you use to speak as well in these situations.
• Be Direct: Practice getting to the point of your message within the first 10 seconds of your conversation. This helps you focus on the important points and remove the filler words: “ums” “well” and “I think”. A good way to do this is to create an agenda for your discussion. Discuss your concern, make your point, and leave the conversation open for feedback!

If you’ve been thinking about improving your skills, these teamwork examples are some basic ideas you can start trying out in your team today! Continue thinking of how to improve your teamwork skills and practice these as you go about your workday. Ask yourself some questions to track these things over time. Are we enjoying our tasks more? Are we more productive? Are our meetings more efficient?

Of course, you should always incorporate some type of team building activities with your team to promote engagement and communication outside of work. Facilitate those meetings so you can grow together and learn about each other as people, without the workday tasks hanging over your head!

Want to Learn More About Team Building and Training Programs to Help Support Teamwork?

For more information about how to support teamwork through team building and group skills training programs, reach out to our Employee Engagement Consultants.

Author Bio:

Erica Pezza – Content Marketing, Weekdone Team Compass

Erica Pezza is the Content Marketing Manager at Weekdone Team Compass, a team management software and productivity toolkit that helps you set and track goals to lead your team in the right direction, review team reports, and conduct surveys to connect and guide your team.