4 Tips to Unify the Teams in Your Department

Having teams unified throughout the department is crucial for productivity and ensuring that everyone is doing their job to their full ability. But work can be an incredibly stressful environment sometimes, and some professionals just clash. This means it can be difficult to ensure things run smoothly at all times.

So how can you unify all the teams when a department has become fractured?

1. Make the overall goal clear

As a department, you should all be aligned around the same goal. However, this can often be forgotten as day-to-day stresses take priority. Ensure that all teams have regular meetings to not only communicate the goal but monitor and reward progress towards it. This will help band people together and encourage them to work with each other to achieve their common objective.

It's also important that the KPIs and metrics have been identified for the objective. Doing so will clarify what success is to employees, while also motivating them to make meaningful progress together.

2. Encourage trust

Trust can be a difficult thing in the workplace but it's important that everyone works to create an environment that supports each other. Trust is a major part of this, whether it's allowing someone the autonomy to complete their job, or knowing they've tried their best even if the evidence suggests different. Creating this relationship between employees is likely to develop a camaraderie across your department, rather than everyone being out for themselves.

When trying to foster this type of environment, it's important to remember that it must be reciprocal. Bosses have to trust their employees and vice versa. This is the best way to create a harmonious workplace, where professionals can easily work together.

3. Outline responsibilities and boundaries

Ensuring everyone on the team has a firm idea of what their own responsibilities are, as well as those of the people they work closely with, will help to foster a better trusting relationship throughout the department.

This should be complemented by clear boundaries. It's important that every employee knows - without any doubt - what is acceptable and what is required of them in the workplace. Ensure everyone is held to the same standard, regardless of their pay grade, to create a positive working environment where no one feels badly treated.

4. Over-communicate

Communication is the basis for any strong working relationship and it shouldn't be neglected just because people get busy or stressed. Not doing so can create fractures in an otherwise-smooth-running department and encourage hostility between teams. Make sure everyone is aware of what needs to be communicated and how to do so.

Over-communicating means reiterating messages or intentions to ensure ultimate clarity for everyone in the department. Often people can tune out in a meeting or be more focused on what they want to reply, so over-communicating in this way can remove any confusion or doubt, making sure every professional is working towards the same goal.