April 14, 2021
A team of cohesive employees is crucial for any workplace. A lack of cohesion prevents management from getting the most out of their workforce.
How to Increase Cohesion
A cohesive team is crucial to improving many basic components of a proper workplace. According to job search platform Indeed, there are abundant benefits — such as better communication skills, better completion of company goals, more positive work environments, and increased job satisfaction — that correspond with workplace cohesion.
The company also observes that a cohesive workplace can lead to quick conflict resolution among employees, as well as and an increased sense of personal accountability.
Why Cohesion Is Important
The Forbes Coaches Council, a group of expert business and career coaches, explains further that a cohesive and trusting team is critical to maximizing work productivity and satisfaction.
The group states that one of the main ways to increase cohesion is by increasing trust — for example, by giving employees trust and receiving trust back in response. Managers can achieve this end by giving employees more important tasks or ensuring transparency with all relevant information.
One member of the council suggests increasing argumentation. Allowing employees to voice opposing views fosters increased respect and trust among the employees and management. More broadly, communication is particularly important — especially understanding the different facets of communication that employees might desire, which allows for diverse forms of direct or indirect access to various levels of management.
Cohesion also rises alongside a consistent system of values within a company.
Harvard Business Review states that “the foundation of every great team is a direction that energizes, orients, and engages its members.” Teams cannot be inspired “if they don’t know what they’re working toward and don’t have explicit goals.”
HBR stresses that common goals should be understood across all levels of a company. This leads to a mutual understanding that encourages clear expectations, a stronger sense of purpose, and a communal objective that can excite all levels of the company to work cohesively.
Adam Bryant of the New York Times interviewed over 500 business leaders about fostering a strong sense of teamwork and found that alongside clear goals, there must be a clear measurement of progress. Executives must carefully put such measurements together “as the trajectory of a rocket launch.”
Bryant finishes with another key value that improves workplace cohesion — a willingness to gather constant feedback. Holding conversations about perceived issues with the workplace and permitting consistent positive change makes a high degree of meaningful difference. Management should give constant feedback to employees — including progress on company goals — while employees supply their own constant feedback to management.
Qlicket offers solutions that enable seamless, anonymous feedback between employees and management. This constant engagement fosters workplace cohesion that is otherwise unheard of within frontline businesses.
Written by Qlicket team member Ethan Forde.
