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Teamwork Skills - What Are They & Tips To Improve

11 Dec 2024

Having excellent teamwork skills is crucial to a successful and happy working environment. As a result, it’s a skill that employers value highly, making it a great skill to have under your belt to help you advance in your career. If you’re wondering how to develop teamwork skills, this article has got you covered. 

What is teamwork? 

Teamwork is working with others together can in a range of situations, meetings and projects to meet a common goal or complete a task. Teamwork requires empathy and organisational skills.  

Why teamwork is essential

You’re likely to work with people across different teams, whether that’s on projects or in meetings. Having great teamwork skills allows you to work better as a team, achieve your and the company’s goals and boost your CV. 

Businesses will look for people with excellent teamwork skills as they’re proven to increase employee morale and productivity, as well as staff retention. Teamwork is also important as it: 

• Brings diverse views and experiences, allowing problems to be solved more efficiently.  
• Allows everyone to learn new skills from each other when they work together.  
• Helps to improve efficiency and productivity due to responsibilities being shared. 
• Helps build strong working relationships, in turn improving communication and efficiency. 

Examples of teamwork skills 

There are a range of skills that encompass your ability to work with others: 

• Communication - Being an effective communicator, verbally and in writing is crucial for successful teamwork. When working you’ll often need to communicate with others over the phone, video chat and/or emails. Perfecting your communication skills will allow you to share your ideas and plans and enable others to execute them separately or alongside you. 
• Influencing - Having the ability to influence and inspire team members to achieve goals and complete tasks is a crucial part of teamwork. 
• Problem solving - Problem solving skills are essential when working as a team as it allows everyone to come up with solutions to issues or problems they face along the way.  
• Listening - Effective listening skills prevent miscommunication and help the team build a rapport. This helps build trust and improve communication and problem- solving skills. 
• Empathy - This is another key skill that helps team members understand each other's thoughts, feelings and experiences. This will help create stronger relationships and improve communication. 

How to improve teamwork

You can improve your teamwork skills by: 

• Asking your team and/or manager for constructive feedback - Constructive feedback enables you to understand your strengths and weaknesses. This allows you to develop your skills and work better as a team. 
• Building trust among your team - When all team members make it clear that they trust each other to complete their tasks. This will foster mutual trust. 
• Resolving conflicts quickly - When conflicts aren’t resolved quickly it can harm team morale and productivity.  
• Defining each team member's roles and responsibilities - When everyone's roles and responsibilities are made clear it prevents miscommunication and ensures deliverables are completed on time. 
• Identifying goals - When goals are defined as a team it ensures everyone knows what they’re working toward as a collective. This will make it easier to plan tasks and designate roles and responsibilities. 
• Scheduling regular meetings - Regular meetings are a great way for everyone to keep on top of everything. It will also provide a great opportunity to raise issues, allowing you and the team to develop your communication and problem- solving skills.