Teamwork Makes Dream Work - Team Collaboration Tips from Boosters

1. Improve the overall performance by up to 35%
2. Reduce the level of stress and sense of isolation 
3. Peer-to-peer recognition brings out the best in each member of the team
4. Employees are more likely to stay loyal to the organization

Many business managers are fully aware that teamwork is a key factor. However, if you are taking care of a remote team, this aspect should be your top priority. A high level of productivity, better flexibility, or work-life balance is what we mention about working remotely. However, employees can easily get detached and even unaware of the objectives you try to meet. So let’s take a deeper look inside our company to see what we have for you as a 100% remote team.

Boost Commerce - where a story of a remote team begins  

Led by the idea that our chances to develop and contribute should not be limited by geography, Boost Founders are fervent believers in remote working culture. Each staff member is their self-manager and has the right to choose their preferred workplace. Thus, from 3 members at the beginning, Boost is continuously growing with 60 members, spreading across 6 countries and 56 cities.

Boosters have embraced this working culture 100% with 3 qualities that differentiate us from others: Trust - Efficiency - Sympathy. 

1. Trust means to stay responsible, honest, and open with each other, customers, as well as partners
2. Efficiency encourages the whole team to work their hearts out and always follow the solution-oriented principle
3. Sympathy makes us become great listeners and develop empathy between individuals. 

5 ways to improve team collaboration

To get everyone connected, Boosters strictly stick to the workflow system along with virtual activities, and company outings. Also, we have interesting insights from Mr Howard (Product Technical Lead) and Rosa Lozano (Customer Success Executive from Argentina) about our working environment. 

Tip 1: Establish clear goals & objectives

A study showed that setting a specific goal could enhance employees’ performance. Understanding that, we have applied both the Agile Methodology and OKRs (Objectives & Key Results) system to formulate major objectives and track progress. 

The Agile Methodology is our means of managing projects by splitting them into several phases. It involves ongoing collaboration with the whole team and continuous improvement at each step. Once the work begins, the team carries out a process of planning, implementation, and evaluation. Continued collaboration is critical, both with members and project leaders. Developed by Google, OKRs is different from others as it aims to set highly ambitious goals and objectives that will enable us to work beyond our limits. 

Without face-to-face interaction, it is challenging to make messages clear.  To help the team get closer and strengthen collaboration, Boosters have been using some great tools for work and entertainment also.

1. Jira Software - As an Agile team, we found that Jira is a great project management tool. It offers everyone full visibility into what we have done, where we are now, what we need to do next in minimal cycle time. 
2. Slack - Our all-in-one place for communication where we create various channels with different topics, so Boosters can get more work done quickly as everything is well-organized. For example, #work-daily_report, #work_collaboration, #news_announcement, #culture_learning or #culture-book_lovers. Furthermore, Slack connects with over 2,000 integrations and apps, like Google Calendar, which boosts productivity. 
3. Notion - An e-library for the whole company where we can visually navigate documents relating to company structure, training materials, plans, and so on. Apart from that, it is super easy for us to edit and customize every piece of content. 

Tip 2: Support others like Boosters

To develop a stronger team, helping others beyond your responsibilities is a must. That team spirit will not only strengthen mutual relationships, but also take the team to higher levels. 

Let’s hear a very inspiring thought at work from Rosa Lozano, our Customer Success Executive (Argentina):

"Whenever you don't have the energy to do your work, think that the little effort you are putting in will make your colleague's work a bit nicer. What I am doing is not for myself, but to make someone a little less in trouble. We're helping each other."

Tip 3: Build trust

Research has shown that this is positively related to team attitudes, information processing, and team performance. We understand that trust will encourage questioning, create goodwill and minimize miscommunication. Importantly, trust will stimulate innovation, or risk-taking as you often call. Here at Boost, the team knows that growth comes from changes not standing still!

Mr Howard recently celebrated his third anniversary as a Booster. He said:

"As the team grows, my work has been transitioned to the position of technical leader, which I’m barely a novice! Until now, it has been challenging and I have learned a lot about leading & management. Along the way, I have made mistakes and probably would make more in the future. The great thing is that Tonys understand it and so do my team members."

Tip 4: Sharing of knowledge

Knowledge sharing is vital for organizational learning and brings real gains for a firm. Every time we are about to launch a new feature of the app or when someone just completed a special course, an internal workshop will be organized to make sure that all members are well-educated. For us, this activity works as a team-building session that boosts cross-team collaboration. Besides, we have challenges like ‘Boost Reading Month’ to encourage others to develop reading habits by writing detailed reviews about their favorite books. 

Interestingly, Rosa made a very cute confession to our Tony - Mr Tuan Nguyen:

"I usually share my expressions a lot. But if you ever ask, I would like to say something to @Tuan Nguyen, who shows up at our daily meetings, brings the Vietnam team closer to us and it is very inspiring for his way of working and living, which is always calm and kind. I like his healthy meditation hobby and he even did a workshop on meditation to share with us."

Tip 5: Work hard, play harder

We do love reading, traveling, playing musical instruments and we spend time on our interests after work. However, as a team, the Boosters have chances to take part in special events to get us feeling connected and happier. Friday Happy Hour (a virtual meeting where we can talk about a daily life topic) and monthly meetups are the ones to be welcomed most by both Vietnam and Latam team.

Final thoughts

Regardless of the group type you are working with, this guide shows team collaboration is the bridge that helps people understand and appreciate the commitment of others, cements relationships, and directs the whole team toward meaningful outcomes. In March, we are really proud of some notable achievements:

1. 9,000+ online stores are growing sales with Boost Product Filter and Search App, including a big brand - Audi (Australia and New Zealand) 
2. New features have been released - Swatch settings, review rating filter option from app integration, and translation of default theme labels
3. Boost has gone into partnership with Langify, Langshop, and GemPages
4. The Growth Team has doubled their size welcoming 3 new members.

We are adjusting to the New Normal brought on by the pandemic, but the Boost team will thrive to provide Boosters with a friendly environment and serve customers with our heart.