Here are four benefits of teamwork:

1) Enhances people’s creativity and knowledge

Working as a group has been found to foster creativity. While working as a team, it is paramount to brainstorm to come up with solutions. The process of group brainstorming enables each member of the group to get a chance to air their ideas before the team makes a group decision.

Apart from making decisions, working as a team encourages peer learning among colleagues. Peer-learning in the office encourages autonomy among team members which encourages the development of innovative solutions. Learning in any group comes from the opportunities critical thinking that working as a team offers. Additionally, teamwork encourages the development of professional and communication skills.

2) Complements team member strength

Teamwork takes into account individual strengths in the form of talents and nurtures it. Given that people in a team and diverse, working together brings out these varied traits among people making people team players.

The advantage of having a team will ensure that they have all talents ranging from leadership skills, good communication skills, organisational as well as active listening skills, and a strong work ethic. Teamwork leverages these skills and talents to build a stronger and effective team.

3) Strengthens trust among people

Working as a team helps promote verbal and non-verbal relationships among employees. These relationships fostered because people must learn how to communicate and get along well with one another to come up with compelling ideas. Working together also encourages honesty and accountability across the team. As a result of improved trust, members developed:

• A profound respect for each other
• Reliance on each other to solve problems
• Openness across the team

4) Fosters the development of conflict resolution skills

In any society or workplace, conflicts will always come up as a result of numerous factors such as poor communication, inadequate training, and a deficit of equal opportunities as well as unclear job roles. Recognising that there is a likelihood of conflict to occur means that team members have to develop ways to tackle these challenges when they come up.

Because teams are composed of numerous people from various backgrounds, these groups quickly adopt skills of conflict resolution. When working as a team, people quickly become familiar with one another and tend to resolve their issues among themselves before running to their immediate supervisor. It is worth mentioning that employees in a team are often quick to forgive and find mutual ground.

Well, now that you know the importance of working as a team, it is essential to know that individual work is equally important and has its share of bests. In any organisation, remote workers are professionals who often work individually. It is important to note that if you manage a team of remote workers, you could hire call centre services to help manage the customer service roles in your organisation. That makes your management job a little easier.

So, what are the benefits of working individually?

1) Easy to manage time

Working as a 'lone wolf' enables you to manage your time because you can work at your preferred pace. You also do not waste a lot of time consulting with colleagues which makes it easy to make decisions.

2) You can avert work conflicts

Working in teams opens you up to the possibility of having misunderstandings with colleagues. When you work alone you can also avert conflicts that arise in a work environment with numerous people.

3) You are your boss

When you work individually, often, you do not answer to anyone. You get to plan your work and execute your duties according to how you see fit.

4) You get credit for work done

Working alone enables you to concentrate and produce better results. This makes it easier for your output to be measured and evaluated. In case you work for an organisation, you can be recognised for the work you have done because it can be traced back to you.

Conclusion

When you are in the corporate world, there are times when you will have to conform to working in a team and sometimes individually. Should you find yourself in such a case, you need to know how to leverage the benefits of working these scenarios to produce the best results.

For more startup news, check out the other articles on the website, and subscribe to the magazine for free. Listen to The Cereal Entrepreneur podcast for more interviews with entrepreneurs and big-hitters in the startup ecosystem.