Collaboration can help to:

• Promote self-reflection
• Encourage problem-solving
• Facilitate growth and learning
• Pool together strengths and talents
• Develop skills
• Improve employee retention
• Speed up working processes

While autonomy and independent working have excellent value, there is no substitute for making collaboration a possibility for your team. There are fantastic online systems such as Slack, Google Hangouts and Skype that can help to close the gap for your team and facilitate teamwork, but physically getting your team together absolutely is the best option.

If you want your employees to have a healthy attitude to their work and feel like a real part of the team, then you must proactively create the opportunity for collaborative working. Not only can this inspire increased productivity and creativity, but it will also give your employees the chance to get to know each other better and learn from each other’s strengths.

For businesses in large offices, this can be relatively easy to organise on a weekly or even daily basis, but the problems arise when your small business doesn’t have sufficient space for the whole team to get together, or when you are running a remote team.

For start-ups or small businesses that don’t have frequent opportunities to network or collaborate then it’s essential to find a way to let this happen as often as realistically possible. Renting a full-time office might not be within your budget or locational needs, but hiring some space for your team to meet together regularly or even sporadically can be an ideal solution.

For self-employed entrepreneurs that work on their own for their business, having somewhere to get out of the house and network can really boost productivity too – even if you aren’t directly working and collaborating with your own colleagues, it can make a real difference just to work in a buzzing, productive atmosphere with like-minded individuals for the day.