Developing and facilitating team cohesion

Effective managers facilitate team input into planning, decision making, and operational aspects of the team’s activities. This is because often the most effective and creative solutions to problems often emerge out of the successful interchange of ideas with team members. Team members are “on the front line” completing the work and often have the best insight into needs and potential issues. Some of the ways that a manager can gather input from team members include:

• Regular team meetings. Team members can have an opportunity to present their views during team meetings. Effective managers regularly use such meeting as an opportunity to encourage their team to provide ideas, suggestions, and feedback. When conducted effectively, team meetings can enable an energetic, effective, and efficient exchange of ideas
• Regular one-on-one communication. Effective managers also ensure that they regularly communicate with their team and encourage team members to come to them with any ideas or issues.
• Employee surveys. Employee surveys can be used as a means of obtaining input from employees in a more private or anonymous manner. Sometimes managers will use surveys to obtain feedback on specific areas. Team members should be allowed time during work hours to complete the survey because this ensures that employees will be engaged in the survey and therefore provide more useful feedback.
• Suggestion boxes. Like employee surveys, suggestion boxes provide a way for team members to provide input in a private or anonymous manner. They also provide a very time efficient way to receive input from employees.

Before, we mentioned that team meetings can be effective for obtaining employee input when they are conducted effectively. But how can a manager or leader ensure that they are conducting such meetings effectively? In an effective team meeting, various issues and challenges are discussed and potential solutions or strategies to address these issues are put forward by team members. This process is often called brainstorming.

One problem team leaders and managers often face is not gaining enough participation in brainstorming meetings. Asking team members for input only to be met with silence is obviously not going to result in a successful exchange of ideas; nor will this silence encourage team members to participate more. If a team manager is facing this problem, they should consider the way they communicate with their team members. Outlined below are some ways that leaders and managers can ensure that their team members will participate when asked (LaForce, n.d., Miller, 2019). Note: these principles also apply when obtaining feedback via other methods:

• Thank people who speak up. When your member comes to you and share their concerns or ideas, always thank them for bringing it up with you. For example, “Jane, thank you for sharing this with me! I’m glad you find this important enough to let me know. I’ll bring it up with xxx/We can discuss this further during the next whole team meeting…” They will feel appreciated and become more encouraged to share their thoughts and feedback with you
• Think about how you ask the question. It’s important that you ask open-ended questions in brainstorming sessions. For example, open-ended questions like “What’s your reaction to this proposal?” or “Does anyone have an alternative idea to this one?” are both open-ended questions and invite discussion. Now, consider the following questions: “That’s a great proposal, don’t you think?” and “Can we all agree that this must be done?” These questions put too much emphasis on your own opinion. While they might be effective for ending a discussion, they do not generate discussion nor encourage input from your team.
• Ask for input consistently. Asking team members for input and discussing this input, takes time. For this reason, many managers do not allow team members to contribute consistently. However, if a manager consistently seeks input from team members and incorporates this input into decision making, the time invested will result in valuable contributions from team members over time.
• Do not request issues raised to come with a solution. A good leader or manager should not require their team members to already come up with a solution proposal when raising an issue or concern. Not every team member is a problem-solver and bringing the issue or concern to light is much useful rather than the member not saying anything due to not having a solution. Further, discussing it amongst the team may generate more creative or simpler solutions.
• Take action on team members input consistently. A manager will not be able to implement every suggestion made by team members. However, it is important that if managers ask for input, they then make an attempt to incorporate the input into decision making wherever possible. Sometimes, bringing up the issue raised into discussion during the meeting can be helpful to generate new ideas or to improve current ones.
• Provide feedback after the discussion. It is important for managers to provide feedback to team members on the outcomes of these discussions. Team members must be informed about which of their ideas were used and why. If suggestions were not implemented managers should explain why. There could be many reasons why suggestions are not implemented including budget, strategy, resources, or even organisational politics. By explaining these reasons, the manager can help team members understand the bigger picture of the environment in which the organisation is operating.

Often, you may notice that some team members contribute more than the others by speaking up more. It is crucial you keep in mind this does is not directly proportional to their engagement in the problem-solving process. Some team members may not be keen to speak up as much as other team members due to various reasons. Some may be timid to speak up while others may feel usure of their input or simply just needed more time to listen and formulate their thoughts. To help with this, you could ask a team member for their input on an issue relevant to their expertise or role. You could also give the group a few moments to think silently before asking for input.

On the other hand, you may have team members who are more talkative than others. While team members contributing ideas can be a positive thing, it may become a problem if they start to dominate the discussion and others do not get an opportunity to contribute. Other team members might feel discouraged to speak up or provide any input. As a result, the discussion may not be as productive or fruitful as intended and making decisions as a team may be challenging. To handle situations like this, the leader could implement some ground rules prior to the meeting, such as raising hands before speaking, or putting a time limit on each member’s comment on each issue.

The following extract outlines how a manager might obtain valuable feedback from quieter team members:

Ideally, managers should implement a range of strategies to ensure that their team members are able to provide input on all relevant planning, decision making, and operational aspects of their work, not just during meeting or discussion. This will help ensure that the team runs smoothly and that work is completed in an efficient and effective manner.

Accountability is an important element for a workplace to remain effective. Accountability is more than just being able to own up and admit to your own mistakes – it is to follow through one’s commitment and be responsible about putting out high quality work. Of course, this does not always happen in the workplace. This may occur for many reasons ranging from laziness, to fear of failure, to personal issues, to feeling overwhelmed by the scale of a problem or situation. Whatever the reason for this behaviour, if people fail to take responsibility for their role, they will fail at doing their job effectively. As such, it is very important to address this issue and for the team member to be accountable for their actions.

The first step in managing this is, of course, identifying it. Managers need to know what signs to watch for. Team members are not engaged or lack accountability often displays behaviours or signs such as the following:

• Missing deadlines
• Lacking trust in members and leaders
• Poor quality of work
• Blames others and makes excuses for their own mistakes
• Reluctant to help other team members
• Avoids taking initiative
• Lacking interest in their work
• Being dependent on other team members for advice and work

In many cases, managers either decide to remove people from their teams if they are not taking responsibility or simply ignore the problem. However, neither of these options is ideal. Left alone the problem will likely get worse and firing a person from the team should be a last resort. Therefore, it is important for managers to have policies and procedures in place to ensure team members are held accountable for their work. These procedures should be aimed at providing team members with the necessary skills and resources that they require to do their jobs effectively. Below we outline a number of steps that managers should take when they identify a team member who is not taking responsibility for their own work.

• Step 1: Talk to the team members.
  The first step is to talk to the individual concerned privately. It is important to find out whether there are any circumstances that are contributing to the situation. For example, an employee may be experiencing problems at home, and this could be impacting their work. Alternatively, they may be experiencing a problem in the workplace that you, as a manager, may be able to assist them with. It is important at this stage that the team member is provided with feedback, so they know that their behaviour needs to be changed. It is also important that, when providing this feedback, the manager provides the team member with clear, accurate examples of where their behaviour has not been to the required standard. If the manager doesn’t do this the team member may feel victimised instead of acknowledging that their behaviour needs to change. Your organisation should have an employee handbook or policy that outlines the expected behaviour from employees.

• Step 2: Ensure team members have adequate resources.
  Before proceeding any further it is important to ensure that the team member has necessary resources they need to do their job. These resources may include training, equipment, or access to mentors and coaches. Further, recall that we mentioned it is also good practice to make sure your team members are aware that help and assistance is available when required.

• Step 3: Communicate roles, responsibilities, and objectives.
  It is essential that your team members know exactly what their job roles and responsibilities are. Ensure all team member’s job descriptions are up-to-date and are as detailed as possible about the employee’s responsibilities. Consult the team charter and ensure the employee understands their responsibilities in relation to the charter that they have signed. It may be useful to develop a responsibility assignment matrix (RAM). This is a tool which helps to communicate to team members what they are responsible for. It also shows who else on the team is responsible for, accountable, consulted, and informed about individual team member’s progress and the team’s progress. An example of a responsibility assignment matrix is included on the following page. Each team member has a letter corresponding to each duty. These letters refer to: -

  • Responsible. This means the team member is responsible for completing the task.

  • Accountable. The accountable team member is responsible for ensuring that the person responsible for the task completes it to a high-quality standard. Often this will be a supervisor or the team manager. This person is also usually in charge of ensuring the project is delivered on time.

  • Consulted. Sometimes, a team member might have to speak to an expert to complete a task. The team member should ensure that the expert analysis they convey to the team are accurate.

  • Informed. This classification is for team members responsible for planning and costing the tasks performed by the group, so they must be kept informed of the tasks progress.

^{(Adapted from Morris, 2022)}

• Step 4: Help the team members re-engage with their roles.
  The problem may stem from the team member feeling apathetic about their role. In this case, make sure the employee understands the overall goals of the organisation and how their role ties in with the bigger picture of the organisation. Emphasise the importance of their role in relation to the organisation achieving their goals. Helping the team member understand the importance of their role in relation to organisational goals will hopefully help them to re-engage. If the employee cares about their role they will be happier while working. This will lead to a deeper sense of pride and ownership and result in them taking responsibility.

• Step 5: Help team members take control.
  If you suspect that a team member is feeling overwhelmed with their role, you might want to break up any large tasks into smaller goals or steps. If an employee feels overwhelmed, they are more likely to shun their responsibilities. However, if they can accomplish some smaller goals relatively quickly this can help to restore their confidence and increase their motivation to continue working on more tasks.

• Step 6: Provide plenty of positive feedback.
  When team members do take responsibility and perform well, a manager should recognise this by providing them with consistent, effective, and fair feedback. Positive feedback will allow the team member to feel more motivated to continue performing.

Depending on your organisations, you may come across a set of policies and procedures to make sure that the staff or team members have accountability for their work. If so, the team members will already have a good idea of what is expected from them and should be acting in accordance with these guidelines. With that said, at times, specific procedure or policy within the guidelines may seem unreasonable or not appropriate for a specific team project or a team. In this case, you can hold an open discussion with your team member to work out what are some reasonable and appropriate guidelines. You can then bring it up to your supervisor to discuss further before modifying any current policies or procedures.

Encourage team members to support each other

All work teams are working toward a common goal. However, each individual team member’s roles, deadlines, and experience may vary significantly. It is therefore important for team managers to encourage team members to su1pport each other. For example, more experienced team members can assist in training those with less experience. This might involve a ‘mentor’ or ‘buddy’ system where experienced team members are assigned to work closely with employees who are new to the team. Alternatively, if a team member is completing their own tasks ahead of schedule, then they may be assigned to assist other team members to complete tasks that are running behind schedule. Other ways to prompt your team members to support each other includes:

• Providing timely encouragement/motivation
• Be approachable
• Be respectful of others
• Be open to team members’ ideas, especially when they do not align exactly as yours
• Share information readily
• If problems arise, deal with it assertively rather than blaming each other
• Communicate often and regularly

By ensuring that every individual team member takes responsibility for their own actions and assists other team members wherever possible, you will help ensure a cohesive team environment.

Providing positive feedback is an essential aspect of maintaining an employee’s engagement in their role. It is an element of management that is often underutilised because of a perceived lack of time or because the manager is uncomfortable with, or perhaps does not know how to provide feedback effectively. Positive feedback identifies and recognises specific good work and high levels of achievement and can be a very powerful motivational tool. It is especially effective when it is well-timed and provided genuinely and sincerely. To be most effective, positive feedback should be provided with reference to the team or team member’s performance expectations contained in the performance plans. Being specific and descriptive with positive feedback provides teams with a clear idea of what the behaviour or achievement is that is being promoted. It also helps to communicate the sincerity of your appreciation.

The simplest and most cost-effective way to provide positive feedback to employees is to compliment them on their work or to say thank you. A study indicated that when their team leader or supervisor shows appreciation for their work, 81% of workers are motivated to work harder, while more than half of respondents would remain longer at their organisation (Glassdoor, 2013). Consider the amount of money a company invests in hiring and training new employees. Lowering staff turnover will save an organisation a considerable amount of money which is why managers should always think of providing positive feedback as being cost-effective. Therefore, a manager who avoids giving feedback because of a ‘lack of time’ is likely costing the organisation a lot of money due to increased employee turnover and decrease in work productivity.

It is understandable that providing effective feedback may not come easily or as naturally for everyone, and it can take time to deliver positive feedback. However, this should not hinder you from providing feedback to your team members. Instead, use this as a learning opportunity to delivery good feedback such to enhance team performance and productivity. Read the extract below for some pointers to strengthen your feedback skills.

Providing rewards

One common way that organisations provide positive feedback to employees is to provide rewards. However, it is important that you give some careful consideration before providing the rewards. If careful thought was not given to the style of reward provided, managers may upset the people they are trying to thank. More importantly, a reward is meant to encourage staff to achieve set performance standards and not just a random encouragement. If they are not interested in receiving the reward, it will simply not be effective. Therefore, it is good practice to involve team members in the choice of rewards to be given. For example, some may prefer their reward in the form of a day off to spend with their family rather than a financial bonus. Some staff may enjoy receiving public recognition during a company conference, while others may feel uncomfortable in such a situation. Of course, not everyone’s idea of the perfect reward is going to be met. When considering what reward to provide, you can keep the following in mind when consulting team members::

• Which team achievement would people like to be rewarded for?
• What kind of reward would they like, both as individuals and as a team?
• Would the team prefer to celebrate several milestones along the way of would they prefer one big celebration when a major goal is achieved?

Types of employee rewards

While there are countless types of employee rewards, some of the more commonly used ones include (Davoren, 2019):

• Performance-based incentives. A common way to increase employee motivation is to attach compensation-based rewards to the attainment of set levels of performance. A prime example of this is a yearly bonus system. For example, employees involved in sales may be offered a percentage of the sales they have achieved over a period of time. Employees working in other roles may receive output-related bonuses where they get paid extra for being more productive.
• Employee recognition schemes. Employees can also be rewarded in non-monetary ways. Providing recognition of an employee’s achievements can fulfil the psychological needs of employees. Recognition and the feeling of being appreciated are fundamental human needs. Employees therefore respond well to appreciation expressed through recognition of their good work because it confirms that their contributions are being valued. When an employee’s work is valued, their level of job satisfaction, morale, and engagement in their job increases. This leads to higher productivity.
• Ownership options. Ownership options are most often used as a means to align the goals of senior management to organisational goals. However, this is not always the case – employees working in customer service roles at companies like Bunnings have also been offered this type of incentive for the same reason. Employees who are closely aligned to organisational goals in this way may become more efficient and productive because they can see the direct link between the company’s success and their own.

Team rewards vs individual rewards

Traditionally, organisations have focused employee rewards on individuals reaching or exceeding high levels of performance. However, this may lead to an unhealthy competition between team members as they are focusing on individual rewards and their own gains instead of working towards the common goal. Therefore, you can consider providing team rewards, i.e., rewarding the team as one. When teams are rewarded, this can encourage bonding between team members and build team cohesion. However, if organisations focus too heavily on rewarding teams rather than the individual it can result in top performers feeling undervalued and underperformers being overvalued. Therefore, it is crucial for organisations to seek a balance between rewarding high individual performance as well as effective team output. By including rewards for individuals, businesses can ensure that their top performers are receiving the recognition they deserve, and underperformers do not get a free ride through the work of other employees (i.e., social loafing). A well thought-out strategic rewards program focusing on all levels of the organisation will ensure that employees are linked to the success of their teams as well as the success of the organisation. This type of incentive program will reduce internal competition and motivate staff to do their best for the organisation. The following outlines some techniques that a team leader can use to enhance team cohesion (Herrity, 2022):

• Encourage communication. Good communication via the appropriate channels can promote team engagement and cohesiveness. It encourages team members to voice any concerns or ideas they have and can help to resolve conflict quickly and efficiently.
• Provide training and development. When team members are confident about their skills and abilities, they are more likely to have a positive and efficient interaction with their team members.
• Focus on building trust. Trust is a crucial element in a team’s ability to work in a cohesive manner. One way to build trust as a team leader is to have an open communication with your team members. This means that you do not hide secrets or agendas from your team members but be open in communicating ideas, successes, and issues with the team.
• Empower team members. As outlined in the team charter and performance plan, each member has their own roles and responsibilities. When these are enforced, team members will feel empowered as they have ownership over these activities and tasks of the group. Thus, they are more likely to work together toward the common team goal.

Obviously, the exact type of rewards that you choose to implement will vary depending on the organisation for which you work. It will also depend on the team members of the team you are working with. Regardless of how you choose to provide feedback and reward performance, the key point is that you must do it!

In the first section of this module, we discussed team dynamics and the ways in which bringing people together to work in a team can result in higher productivity for an organisation. However, this process can also mean that team members will experience problems which they need to communicate to management. This is a normal aspect of working in a team environment and any healthy productive team may run into problems in any of the following areas:

• Conflict within the team
• Conflict with stakeholders external to the team
• A lack of skills or knowledge required to perform their role
• Problems with organisational processes and expectations
• Budgetary constraints that are placed on the team

It is important that team members feel comfortable to raise issues they may face in any of these areas with their team manager. This is of course important for the team member’s wellbeing; however, it also provides an opportunity for the team manager to keep abreast of how well the team is working together and the effectiveness of the processes and policies within which the team is operating. In an environment where team members do not feel comfortable raising concerns, there is a danger of problems in any of these areas not being noticed. Therefore, management needs to ensure that the team operates in an environment of trust and cooperation, where they will not be afraid to raise issues, concerns, and problems. There are a variety of policies, processes, and methods that managers can use to help create this environment. Some examples of these processes are outlined below:

• An open-door policy. As the name suggests, this refers to a policy where the manager and leader leaves their office door ‘open,’ leaving themselves available for team members to discuss problems and issues at any time.
• Suggestion boxes. This method can be used to ensure issues or concerns can be communicated privately without the team member having to talk about the problem in front of either their team manager or other team members.
• Team meetings/toolbox meetings. This is the most common way for organisations to provide a venue for team members to discuss any issues they may be having in the workplace.
• Formal reporting processes. This is usually used for reporting more serious problems team members may have with other team members or their manager. It is important that when designing a formal reporting process that team members have the opportunity to report issues to someone external to the team.

It is also important to determine who is responsible for acting on suggestions made by team members. A process should be in place to ensure that if a team manager is unable to act on an issue or problem raised, that the matter is referred to someone with the skills or authority to address the problem. Team managers should consider the following steps when attempting to resolve issues raised by team members:

1. Record and assess the issue or concern. When a manager receives a suggestion or issue from an employee, they must first make a record of the interaction. The manager should then assess the importance of the suggestion and how it relates to the organisation. Does it relate to a potential change in processes? Does it concern a matter relating to workplace health and safety? Or is it simply a suggestion about how to make work more enjoyable for team members?
2. Attempt to resolve the issue. The majority of issues raised by employees can be resolved by team managers. If the manager can address it then it should be addressed as soon as possible. The employee should then be given feedback to let them know that their issue or concern has been taken on-board and what action will be taken to address it.
3. Refer the issue to senior management. Not all issues raised by employees will be able to be resolved by their team manager. The issue may be unresolvable due to time and financial constraints or because it has serious legal implications. If a manager is unable to resolve a problem raised by a team member, they must report this to either senior management or the human resources department. Senior management or the human resources department will then decide whether the issue can be resolved internally or needs to be referred to an external authority.

By establishing and following such processes, managers can ensure that any feedback is actioned appropriately, which will, in turn, result in team members feeling more confident raising issues, concerns, or suggestions in the future. In line with being a leader with open communication, you should also follow up with team members regarding the actions taken (or to be taken) to resolve the issue. In some cases, you can also welcome your team members to provide feedback on this process and whether any modifications are required.

In this section of the Study Guide you learned about a number of specific policies, procedures, and practices that managers use to ensure that their team runs effectively. These include strategies to ensure team members have input into planning and decision making, processes to ensure team members take responsibility for their work, procedures that can be used to provide effective feedback and reward to team members, and processes to ensure issues, concerns, and problems identified by team members are effectively addressed.