Benefits of Teams in Workplace

Benefits of Teams in Workplace

The use of formal work teams is commonplace in modern organizations. But why we have teams? What are the benefits or advantages that teams provide for organizations and employees? Do we really need to adopt formal team structures and use team-building approaches in organizations? Read this article to explore and learn the benefits of having formal teams in organizations.

There exist several organizational and individual benefits of using teams. These include increased workplace productivity; improvements to product/service quality; a reduced management structure; lower levels of absenteeism; reduced employee turnover; and increased industrial harmony, with all these benefits ultimately leading to improved workplace performance. It also enhances the quality of work-life (QWL) for employees and leads to increased work satisfaction. Teams are found in many workplace environments, including corporate, government, and education because they allow the organization to:

Organizational Benefits of Teams:

1. Workplace Productivity:

Having structured teams eliminate problems, waste and errors by removing variation in the work system by bringing individuals together to resolve work-system problems. The removal of variation in the work system produces a more productive system. Teams ensure that the work continues in the absence of a human ‘part’ by building ‘redundancy of parts’. This ensures that the system will not malfunction due to the absenteeism of any individual employee and will continue to perform without interruptions. Hence the organizations adopting team structures will have a higher level of labor productivity than firms that do not have these team structures.

2. Product/Service Quality:

As teams function to remove variation from a working system, resulting in the output being consistent and reliable. For example, in a production line work structure, employees focus on their individual ‘part’ in the system with quality generally inspected at the end of the production line. In the case of teams, a group of workers attends to whole tasks thereby ‘empowering’ such workers to take responsibility for their work and adjust work processes to improve the quality of their output. Hence the quality gets effectively ‘built-in’ to the process and therefore the organizations adopting team structure will gain higher levels of product/service quality than firms that do not have these team structures.

3. Lower Cost Management Structures:

By having teams, the responsibility for resolving work problems becomes collective and there is less need for external supervision. This reduced need for external supervision may result in a reduced number of levels in the hierarchy.

4. Lower Absenteeism:

Team structures provide an increased level of autonomy and responsibility and employees enjoying the social structure of teams are more likely to attend work. Thus, organizations with team structures will have lower absenteeism than firms that do not have these team structures.

5. Employee Turnover:

As with absenteeism, the social structure of teams is reported to positively impact employee turnover. If the quality of work-life is improved for employees when teams are present then a reduction in employee turnover is a likely outcome.

6. Industrial Harmony:

Teams actively encourage employees to present the results of problem analysis to management for approval regarding proposed solutions and this encourages improved labor-management interactions. Hence teams enable employees to have a closer working relationship with management which enables firms with these team structures to have a higher level of industrial harmony than firms that do not have these team structures.

7. Accomplish Big/Complicated Tasks:

Many organizational tasks and projects are too huge for an individual to do independently. Having team structures ensure that individual geniuses of the persons are collectively used and mammoth tasks are completed.

8. Brainstorm More Solution Options:

Different people looking at the same problem will find different solutions. A team can review ideas and put together a final solution that incorporates the best individual ideas. They can generate commitment for the final solution and work together to collectively pursue the same.

9. Review/Detect Flaws:

A team looking at different proposed solutions may also be in a better position to catch pitfalls that an individual might miss. This ensures that the final solution is much stronger and qualitative.

10. Build a Workplace Community:

Members of effective teams can form personal bonds which are good for individual and workplace morale. In the organizational setting, employees on teams may form bonds that extend beyond the work-place.

Individual Benefits of Teams:

1. Diversity:

Team structures provide exposure to different points of view. As the employees get exposed to methods and ideas that others have, they learn different ways of approaching a problem.

2. Enhanced Communication Skills:

Through teamwork training and practice, employees learn to actively and effectively listen to their team members to understand their viewpoints and concerns. A member needs to effectively articulate his ideas or your concerns to others to ensure they are taken care of or addressed. Members get genuine constructive feedback from each other and develop presentations, negotiating, and other related communication skills.

3. Critical Thinking and Evaluation Skills:

Team members must use these skills to evaluate the complex issues of team project goals and to formulate appropriate solutions and plans.

4. Conflict Resolution Skills:

Where there exists a diversity of ideas, there will naturally exist conflicts, but, with the right support and training in communication skills, team members can learn the skills to facilitate solutions to conflicts so that the team remains functional.

5. Higher Moral/Less Stress:

When things on the team are functioning well, it often results in higher morale and less stress at a personal level. Teams provide social support to team members and they can take help from each other in case of complex issues or other workplace-related problems.

Related Links

Creation Date Monday, 18 March 2013 Hits 35594 Team Management

You May Also Like

  • Concept of Innovation

    Concept of Innovation

    In today's innovation-driven economy, understanding how to generate great ideas has become an urgent managerial priority. Managers need to encourage and champion ideas and need to help their organizations incorporate diverse perspectives, which spur creative insights and facilitate creative collaboration by harnessing new technologies. Innovation is the embodiment, combination, and/or synthesis of knowledge in original, relevant, valued new products, processes, or services.

  • What is Communication?

    What is Communication?

    Have you ever noticed how we express ourselves or interact with each other? Have you ever wondered what communication is and what role it plays in our lives? One may wonder if communication is so omnipresent and integral to our lives, why study communication at all? We need to study communication because it is a complex process that consists of many elements and is also beset with a number of barriers and there is a need to remove the barriers so that the communication process is effective.

  • Bad Leadership Style

    Bad Leadership Style

    A good leadership style is something that every effective leader must have in order to succeed, but identifying what that entails or does not entails might be difficult to understand. Most of the research on leadership focuses on the exemplary, best practices, and positive attributes of effective and successful leaders. This article talks about a new approach to learn leadership using lessons from bad leadership. That is the lessons to be learned by examining leaders who have not effectively exercised their power, authority, or influence.

  • Share Information with Your Team

    Share Information with Your Team

    Willingness to share information is the most critical and the very first step in the Journey to employee empowerment and team development. People cannot make good technology or business decisions without information. They need to understand the purpose behind what they are doing and connect with the big picture. People with information feel the need to take the risk of making decisions that enable business growth.

  • Team Leadership Theory

    Team Leadership Theory

    Team leadership theory is a recent leadership theory that does not discriminate between the leader and the other team members. The approach considers contributions from each team member to be critical for organizational success. This approach focused on the overall team effectiveness and team problems are diagnosed and action is taken to remediate weakness. This approach provides for taking corrective action when the leader deems necessary.

  • Level Five Leadership

    Level Five Leadership

    “Level 5 Leadership”, this term was coined by Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great” and it is all about achieving "Greatness" as a leader. This article will explain what we mean by Level 5 Leadership and what the characteristics of a Level 5 leader are. What it takes to achieve greatness as a leader, and what are the steps and strategies that one can use to move up to this top level of leadership.

  • Facilitative Leadership

    Facilitative Leadership

    Facilitative Leadership is all about involving the employees in the decision-making process at all levels enhancing their sense of ownership, responsibility, and motivation. Facilitative leadership style uses a number of indirect communication patterns to help the group reach consensus and build commitment for the decision taken. To be effective in modern organizations, managers need to become facilitative leaders, learn what it means to be a one.

  • Team Development by Building Trust

    Team Development by Building Trust

    As your team begins to work together, you need to establish a way each team member can exchange ideas and build mutual trust. Successful groups are built on trust and collaboration. A free exchange of ideas, in an open environment, will allow your team to get to know each other and enable you to check on how they work together. Learn some tips to help build team trust and establish personal bonds.

  • Reasons behind Wastage of Time

    Reasons behind Wastage of Time

    Under-utilization of time may be due to the faulty system or faults of manager/officer/leader or due to lack of planning. There could be many factors driving the procrastination behavior like system issues, personal work habits, and lack of delegation, personality traits, and bad working habits of the leader, failure to tackle interpersonal conflicts, obstacles, and lack of far-sightedness.

  • Team Foundation in Forming Stage

    Team Foundation in Forming Stage

    This is the first stage of team development. This is the stage when the foundation of the team is laid. During the Forming stage, team members have a high dependence on their leader for guidance. Learn the practical strategies you can use during this stage to help your team develop into a highly effective performing team.

Explore Our Free Training Articles or
Sign Up to Start With Our eLearning Courses

Subscribe to Our Newsletter


© 2023 TechnoFunc, All Rights Reserved