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3 Collaboration strategies to strengthen teamwork in a hybrid workplace

In finding the right way forward, leaders in various industries carefully consider remote and onsite work to weigh their pros and cons, and ensure that they are able to feed the right energy, inspiration, and coordination needed for their teams to remain engaged and productive.

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The changes brought about by the pandemic have resulted in companies designing and implementing hybrid ways of working within various teams. At TELUS International Philippines (TIP), collaboration and spirited teamwork are essential in providing a caring, inclusive, and engaging work environment where ideas and innovations can flourish. 

In finding the right way forward, leaders in various industries carefully consider remote and onsite work to weigh their pros and cons, and ensure that they are able to feed the right energy, inspiration, and coordination needed for their teams to remain engaged and productive. As a leading provider of digital solutions and customer experience, TELUS International Philippines Senior Operations Director and Site Lead for TELUS House Araneta, Discovery and McKinley Exchange, Anne Muñoz, outlines different strategies the company employs to engage their team members and reinforce the value of teamwork.

1. Utilizing innovation to support your collaborative company culture

Although they have been around for years, online communication and collaboration tools have also gained further traction over the past year, and have enabled the workforce to conveniently work together regardless if they are working from home, onsite, in different time zones, and from anywhere in the world. 

“As companies’ digital transformation journeys evolve, they’ll find that having the best collaboration tools is not enough if you didn’t pave the way by educating your team members on how to effectively utilize them. More importantly, they need to surround them with a company culture that promotes open communication and collaboration.

As a company, we must provide the means to be able to communicate with our team members in channels that are best suited to our team dynamics. Our recent #StrongerTogether employee engagement campaign has helped add perspective on how we’ve evolved as a team that collaborates together, and how we can make sure our caring culture is felt by every team member as we continue to serve our clients,” said Muñoz. 

2. Clarity in expectations and recalibrating ways of working

Achieving spirited teamwork is not an easy feat. Having team members working in different locations with varied capacities can lead to uncertainty about what’s expected of them, resulting in individuals working disjointedly from the rest, tasks not being completed at an ideal pace, or team members being left unsure of next steps. It is important for leaders to clearly recalibrate ideal ways of working and collaborating with each other, and be able to set expectations to empower team members to better manage their time and workload. 

Regular coaching also makes a huge difference because it help     s everyone feel that support is readily available, and they have the right tools, guidance and leadership support to maintain their performance. At a time when team members aren’t able to feed off each other’s energies or presence, this conveys that they still have a team they can rely on and learn from.

3. Team up virtually 

Doing things together as a team outside of work has the advantage of not only improving the morale and spirits of the team members but also helps boost the team’s health. Find activities that benefit the team or are aligned with the team’s interests. 

TELUS International Philippines continues to focus on diversity, inclusiveness and belonging, and these have been ingrained in the DNA of the company culture. Spectrum Philippines and Connections Women’s Network, the company’s employee resource groups for their LGBTQIA+ and female team members respectively, actively organize year-round activities, virtual events and learning sessions for the team members. The company also has a number of special interest groups that promote inclusivity, camaraderie and individual empowerment by hosting fun events and employee engagement programs set to keep everyone inspired, supported, and recognized for the part they play. 

For instance, the photography club at TELUS International Philippines called Lente organized several well-attended virtual workshops and contests during the pandemic, including a toy photography virtual contest and a food photography webinar. Their Warriors of Wealth special interest group hosted several webinars on financial education and smart wealth-building management, including educational sessions on cryptocurrency and the basics of technical analysis in trading. While the TIP biking club conducted several timely webinars on defensive cycling, road sharing, and basics of bike commuting. These activities brought team members with shared interests together and created a sense of community despite the distance.

In addition, sometimes, people need the reassurance that they are doing their jobs well. Rewarding successful collaboration further encourages team members to find creative ways of working together towards shared goals. Collaboration is vital for those who work onsite and those reporting from home who might feel the void and distance because of the pandemic. 

At TELUS International Philippines, team members are recognized for the hard work they put in month after      month. They have an expansive array of recognition programs that celebrate top performers and outstanding collaborations within individual teams, accounts, departments, sites and across the entire global organization.

Alice Montejo, Operations Manager at TELUS Market! Market!, was one of the awardees for #HappyHere engagement prime of the year in 2020. “Being an engagement prime and collaborating with my peers across the organization is very rewarding in itself. We get to organize activities and events that give our team members, wherever they are, a sense of belonging and fun. And, being recognized for the collaborative work that I do also inspires me to give my best every day,” said Montejo. 

“Our team members are the backbone of our company, and great teamwork starts with all of us doing the best we can to ensure a safe, inclusive, and inspiring work environment to keep productivity high. We will continue to create programs that champion their interests and needs, as well as make it as conducive and fun for all despite our hybrid workplace setup,” shared Muñoz. 

Strategies

Visual design of product can hold symbolic meanings to consumers – study

Simplicity of the product package aligns with consumers’ default assumption that store brands invest less in product quality. Thus, the simplicity of store brand packaging likely signals a lack of investment in the product rather than few ingredients and product purity.

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Researchers from Texas Christian University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and University of Georgia published a new Journal of Marketing article that examines the consumer trend towards minimalist packaging in consumable products.

The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Symbolically Simple: How Simple Packaging Design Influences Willingness to Pay for Consumable Products” and is authored by Lan Anh N. Ton, Rosanna K. Smith, and Julio Sevilla.

Designing products is both an art and a science. Companies have found that bringing together many visual elements in product design—with multiple colors, text, and illustrations incorporated in the packaging—can lead to enhanced brand engagement. However, in the last few years, consumers have increasingly desired more minimalist aesthetics.

The new Journal of Marketing study examines this consumer trend toward minimalist packaging in consumable products. The research team theorizes that consumers tend to assume that the simplicity of the product package suggests that the product contains few ingredients, which in turn increases perceived product purity, defined as the belief that the essential ingredients of the product are undiluted. With customers increasingly seeking product purity, there is an increase in a willingness to pay for consumable products with simple packaging.

The study defines simple packaging design as the extent to which a product package contains few design elements, which lack detail, are similar to one another, and are arranged in regular ways. Complex packaging design refers to the extent to which a product package contains many design elements that are highly detailed, different from one another, and arranged in irregular ways.

The researchers examined over 1,000 consumable product packages from the largest supermarket chain in the U.S. and find that the simplicity of the packaging design is positively associated with price. As Ton explains, “in a series of experiments, we show that the visual design of a product can hold symbolic meanings to consumers. Specifically, although there is no information about the product’s composition on the package, we find that consumers assume that the simplicity of the product package signals that there are few ingredients within, which enhances perceived product purity.”

However, simple packaging does not always enhance consumers’ willingness to pay. Smith says, “we find that store-brand products are not likely to experience the same benefits of simple packaging as non-store brand products. This is likely because the simplicity of the product package aligns with consumers’ default assumption that store brands invest less in product quality. Thus, the simplicity of store brand packaging likely signals a lack of investment in the product rather than few ingredients and product purity.”

Sevilla adds that “we also find the preference for simple packaging depends on consumers’ goals. When consumers have a health goal, they are more likely to pay for a product with simple packaging. This is because simple packaging conveys that the product contains few ingredients and high product purity, attributes that tend to be associated with healthy products. By contrast, when consumers seek to indulge, they are less willing to pay for products with simple packaging. This is because complex packaging signals many ingredients and low product purity, attributes that tend to be associated with unhealthy and, by extension, tasty products.”

This research extends the understanding of consumer interest in minimalist aesthetics by showing conditions under which design simplicity can be less desirable. Visual simplicity often conveys the idea of “less is more,” but there are situations when it can simply signal “less is less.” It also broadens the understanding of the concept of purity in the context of consumer research. While explicit illustrations, such as a drawing of a mountain spring, can enhance consumer judgments of product purity, product purity can be inferred from more subtle visual cues (or even the lack of visual design elements). Relatedly, the study digs into the concept of product purity, which can hold a variety of meanings, and differentiates purity from its related construct of naturalness, which typically refers to products that are not man-made.

This research provides several insights for chief marketing officers:

  • Simplifying package design can be an effective way for brands to visually (and nonverbally) communicate key product information to consumers. Simple packaging can lead consumers to infer that the product has fewer ingredients and is purer—thereby enhancing their willingness to pay.
  • Aligning the visual design of the product package with ingredient information is essential to make a positive impact on consumers.
  • Managers may consider the specific brand when using simple packaging because positive inferences are less likely to occur for store-brand products.
  • When managers want to signal that their products are indulgent, opting for more complex designs could be more effective.

This work could be extended to durable goods such as technology products. For instance, Apple products are well-known for their simple packaging and are often seen as easier to use than their competitors. It may be fruitful to explore how inferences derived from simple packaging of technology products align or differ from those of consumable goods.

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Strategies

Pictograms sometimes have an additional benefit: Inducing optimism

If the same icons are grouped together in the pictogram, a consumer will feel more favorably and exhibit an optimism bias about their own chances.

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Sometimes, how the information is presented is as important as the information itself. Graphics, icons, and pictograms are increasingly popular methods of presenting information to consumers in direct, memorable, and easily understandable ways.

A team of researchers led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Gaurav Jain, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing in the Lally School of Management, found that pictograms sometimes have an additional benefit: inducing optimism.

In research recently published, Jain and his colleagues found that frequency pictograms, which convey proportions and probabilities, induce optimism in consumers when they are presented in a sorted way. In other words, if the same icons are grouped together in the pictogram, a consumer will feel more favorably and exhibit an optimism bias about their own chances.

The findings contribute to the field of attribute framing, which refers to highlighting characteristics in a positive or negative light. For example, a consumer may be more inclined to purchase an item marked as $10 off of $30 rather than one marked as $20. Previous research has focused on textual rather than pictorial attribute framing. Since frequency pictograms are “the most common graphical representations of quantitative information,” Jain’s research has potentially wide applications.

“Sorted verses unsorted pictograms should be used strategically, depending on whether the messaging is promotional or prohibitive. If eight out of 10 dentists endorse a toothpaste, for example, a sorted pictogram would make consumers feel favorably about the toothpaste. However, when depicting that 8% of children alive today will die if current smoking trends continue, an unsorted pictogram would be appropriate,” Jain said.

“Dr. Jain’s research provides valuable insights for communicators,” said Chanaka Edirisinghe, Ph.D., acting dean of Rensselaer’s Lally School of Management. “It also opens the door to explore further possibilities. How does more than two categories represented in the pictogram affect the findings? What role does the number of icons, their size, or using multiple colors within one icon to show fractional proportions play? With this research, Dr. Jain adds to our understanding of people’s perceptions according to how information is presented.”

Jain was joined in research by Sunaina Shrivastava of Manhattan College and Zeynep Ece Tolun of Rensselaer.

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Strategies

5 Ways to support underappreciated professionals

You can show your appreciation for deserving workers such as your favorite school custodians or office maintenance staff members in numerous ways, including these suggestions.

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Unsung heroes make everyday living possible. They work behind the scenes and tackle some of the most demanding work imaginable, such as maintaining facilities and keeping them in tip-top condition.

You can show your appreciation for deserving workers such as your favorite school custodians or office maintenance staff members in numerous ways, including these suggestions from Rubbermaid Commercial Products, supporters of cleaning and maintenance professionals nationwide.

Write Thank You Notes

In today’s digital world, handwritten notes are a novelty. The times may be changing, but the impression a thoughtful handwritten message leaves behind hasn’t changed at all. Keep a supply of blank notecards so you can offer notes to those who make a difference in your life. The sentiments don’t need to be long; a simple expression of gratitude is enough to brighten someone’s day.

Participate in Appreciation Events

You might receive information from local schools or businesses about opportunities to support maintenance staff, such as hosting meals or helping with cleanup in classrooms or offices. Finding opportunities to support underappreciated custodial staff can allow community members to show thanks in meaningful ways.

For example, Rubbermaid Commercial Products is hosting a Behind the Scenes of Clean Campaign this fall to elevate, recognize and thank cleaning and facility maintenance professionals who are among the first to arrive for work each day. The campaign includes more than 40 events globally where community members can engage with and personally thank custodians who are making an everyday difference behind the scenes.

Recognize Milestones

Often, those in custodial roles blend into the fabric of everyday life. They’re rarely the focal point of celebrations, but often make it possible for others to honor special occasions. Make a point to know about the underappreciated professionals in your life, so you can recognize events like birthdays, work anniversaries and other dates that hold special personal meaning.

Do Your Part

Think about what small steps you can take to make unsung heroes’ jobs easier. That might mean picking up after yourself or cleaning up a mess in your workspace. It could involve wiping down your table after lunch. Little gestures can add up to a big difference.

Lead By Example

You don’t need to wait for others to join you in recognizing workers whose impacts are made behind the scenes. Speaking up and taking action can serve as a positive example for those around you. You can even take the lead and organize an effort to recognize individuals who rarely receive thanks, such as the custodian at your office or the janitorial team at your favorite retailer.

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