Top 5 tips for team engagement and collaboration

SA Department of Human Services’ Executive Director People and Performance Sue-Ann Charlton presented at the Teamgage hosted event Create strategic impact through modern collaboration practices discussing how Government departments are using modern team collaboration practices to create strategic impact.
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1. Technology

‍Ensure that you have data to show that your work (practice) decisions are the right ones.  

‍2. Outcome-focused

Measure outcomes, not time in the office. If they’re not working at home, they’re not working in the office either! Do you have a defensible remote working plan?

‍3. Wellbeing

‍When you are informed it is less likely that you need to have that meeting or send that email. Ensure that you have systems in place to correctly check in regularly. Overdoing check-ins and not acting on feedback can lead to team fatigue and lower trust. Trust is core to any engagement activity and is created through action, by demonstrating that you’re performing on their feedback you will increase trust across the organisation.

‍4. Mutuality

‍Remote working can greatly limit knowledge transfer within an organisation. With demographics shifting, it’s important that younger people can learn from those who’ve been in the business longer so that you can manage that succession planning as best as you can. Set boundaries and review regularly – Is it working for you? Is it working for the company? Consider doing this every 6 months. How are you ensuring that your knowledge transfer is enabling newer employees in a hybrid or remote environment?

‍5. Be present

‍We’re all multi-taskers and meetings via video calls make it so easy to work on something else, but it’s important that we're all present. When leading a meeting, engage with individual people online and this will help them to feel connected with what is happening. It’s important to ensure that technologies and remote working don’t create a disconnect and keep attendees present and engaged.

If you enjoyed this, stay tuned to our series of posts about the takeaways from this and future events.

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