CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents the review of related literature

and studies which have similar bearings to the present

investigation. The information established herein could give

ideas to the readers about the importance in conducting this

study.

RELATED LITERATURE

Why is teamwork in the workplace important?

According to Milton Herman, posted in the website,

https://www.lumapps.com/employee-experience/improve-teamwork-in-

the-workplace/, Without effective teamwork, productivity and

quality of work will likely suffer, even with a group composed of

multiple brilliant individuals. Likewise, without effective

teams, companies will struggle to keep pace with competitors who

do have effective teams.

Multiple studies have shown that promoting good teamwork in the

workplace will have positive effects on productivity, quality of

work, creativity, innovation and job satisfaction, all of which

benefit the company itself.

In a recent study by Stanford, participants who were working on a

team as opposed to working alone persevered longer on difficult

tasks, showed more interest and enjoyment in working on the

tasks, required less self-regulatory effort to complete tasks,

and generally performed better on the tasks. The participants who

were part of a team even decided to do more tasks related to

those performed in the study in a personal setting 1-2 weeks

after the study.

How can we improve teamwork in the workplace?

Now that we’ve established the importance of teamwork in the

workplace, let’s talk about how we can improve. Here are 8 tips

on how to improve teamwork within any organization.

1. Build diverse and inclusive teams.

First and foremost, it is important that we focus on creating

diverse teams rather than teams of all like-minded people. A

group of people with different backgrounds are more likely to

bring diverse perspectives and ideas to the table. With more

perspectives, comes more thorough decision making. We often tend

to want to surround ourselves with people who think and act in

ways that reflect our own thoughts and actions.

While a group of like-minded individuals with similar backgrounds

may get along great, we have to think about the bigger picture –

Will they bring fresh ideas to the table? Will the team members

challenge each other to tackle a project from all angles? Or,

will the team members be so agreeable that they come up with

ideas that don’t get questioned or elaborated upon? If all team

members think the same way, come from similar backgrounds, and

have the same beliefs and opinions, the work that the team

produces will likely be one-sided and less creative. Whereas if

each team member has unique opinions, beliefs, background, etc.

they will likely produce work that reflects more creativity and

innovation.

2. Clearly define roles and responsibilities for every team

member.

When team members are unsure of their own tasks and

responsibilities, it often creates tension within a team. It is

important for each team member to know exactly what he or she is

responsible for so that there is no overlap in projects. If

multiple employees are working on the same task due to confusion

in responsibility, invaluable time and team effort spent on the

task are wasted. Each individual should have responsibility in

reaching the team goals as well as the tools and mutual support

to obtain good results. Setting clear goals for each team member

will help keep people aligned on their assigned tasks and

responsibilities.

3. Build trust within the team.

It’s difficult to work productively with somebody that you don’t

trust. For this reason, trust is a dire need if you want to lead
a successful team. Trust between team members can flourish by

doing something as simple as attending a happy hour together,

participating in simple team-building activities, or simply

eating lunch together. It’s important to encourage team members

to interact with each other outside of their work together. Not

only will this build trust, but it will also likely increase

employee morale and job satisfaction – work is more enjoyable

when you enjoy the people you work with.

4. Encourage clear, frequent communication.

As the saying goes, communication is key! Though this sounds like

basic knowledge, it’s often passed over when analyzing how to

improve teamwork in the workplace. We know that maintaining

clear, frequent communication – especially with large and/or

remote teams – is easier said than done. Clear and frequent

communication will ensure that all team members are on the same

page, leading to more accurate work being completed on a shorter

timeline. Strong communication also helps to build trust between

team members, thus improving the overall performance of the team.

5. Give teams autonomy in decision-making.

Trusting your team members with making their own decisions is

important in building trust and improving teamwork. Oftentimes,

if people don’t have the autonomy and power to make decisions

regarding their own work, they will begin to resent their work,

thus hindering the work of the entire team. In order to keep team
members engaged and working hard, it’s important to provide all

members with the freedom to make their own decisions.

6. Manage team meetings wisely

Team meetings, however, often they happen, should be used to

plan, brainstorm, reflect, and share ideas. It’s important to

keep team meetings focused and useful, in order to drive

productivity. No matter how often teams meet, they should have a

structured plan for each meeting. This will help to keep meetings

organized and productive, thus driving team performance. Meetings

are a time for team collaboration, brainstorming, and creating a

plan to move forward with projects.

7. Don’t be afraid to reorganize team dynamics

If certain roles and/or responsibilities aren’t working out for

some team members, it’s important to make some changes. You

cannot be afraid to regroup and reassign tasks as necessary to

improve the team dynamic and productivity. If team members are in

roles in which they are not succeeding, this will negatively

impact the entire team – in most teams, each person’s work is

dependent on the work of one or more other team members’ work.

Therefore, it’s important to ensure that all team members are in

fitting roles that will allow them to use the skills they have

and unlock potential for themselves and all team members.

8. Provide the team with learning opportunities.

How can we expect everyone to be perfect team players if they’ve

never actually learned how to work on a team project? How to work

on a team may sound obvious to some people, but it does not come

naturally for everyone. To maximize the benefits of teamwork in

the workplace, it is important to provide your team with proper

training and guidance. Providing learning opportunities will not

only enhance teamwork skills but will also increase employees’

engagement and job satisfaction. Workshops and qualified guest

speakers from outside of the organization are a great way to

ensure that all team members understand the importance of

teamwork in the workplace as well as how to be an effective team

member.

Evidence has shown that strong teamwork has the potential to

increase employee satisfaction and productivity, while decreasing

turnover and absenteeism, ultimately assisting the company in

reaching higher profit margins. Promoting successful teamwork in

the workplace will benefit your company in numerous ways.

However, strong teams are not thrown together overnight.

To see the benefits of having a successful team dynamic, it’s

important to focus on the basics; build diverse and inclusive

teams, define roles and responsibilities within the team, build

trust between team members before demanding outputs, drive clear

communication, allow team members to work autonomously,

productively manage team meetings, restructure the group

responsibilities as needed, and provide learning opportunities

for the team.

Excellent Ways to Improve Work Performance

According to Vartika Kashyap, as posted in the website,

https://www.proofhub.com/articles/tips-to-improve-work-

performance, It’s likely that you think that the only time you

think about working on your performance is before the annual

performance evaluation, you are not alone. Most of us today

prefer to stay quiet and let someone else point out possible

improvements in our work. The reason? Well, it’s a simpler

choice.

However, let’s think about this carefully – you’re talented,

you’re productive, and you’re good at your job, but how will you

grow into it if you are not focusing on improving yourself?

No matter how skilled or productive you are, there’s always a

possibility to do a job better than before. Keeping an eye on

enhancing your skill set and exploring ways to learn something

new is the initial step towards becoming a better version of

yourself. It not only helps to increase your work performance but

also creates potential opportunities for your professional

development.
Considering the importance of constant and never-ending self-

improvement, we’ve gathered a few work management tips to improve

work performance that will surely go a long way towards boosting

your performance and value in the workplace.

1. Limit distractions

Do you know that interruptions cause employees to take 27% more

time to complete a task, commit twice as many errors, and

experience twice the anxiety?

Chatty colleagues, email notifications, noisy kids, domestic

obligations, social media browsing, pointless limits, and

internet surfing are some common workplace distractions. Whether

you’re working remotely or from an office space, there are

certain distractions that sabotage your efforts to improve work

performance.

It’s important to keep such distractions at bay as these directly

affect your productivity and focus, which in turn leads to

delayed tasks and projects.

2. Use the right tools.

86% of employees cite a lack of collaboration or poor

communication for workplace failures. This is where using

powerful online collaboration software to improve the work

performance of your employees can play a decisive role. Now that

a huge number of working professionals are working remotely, the

majority of organizations are embracing cloud-based tools and

technology to streamline work processes and achieve more

productivity.

3. Plan and prioritize.

Planning and prioritizing work is probably the most important way

to improve work performance amid tight deadlines. There are

chances that many people spend a significant amount of their time

on low-priority or irrelevant tasks. As a result, they’re left

with little time to work on urgent or high-priority tasks, which

further delays task completion and project delivery. These are

some simple workplace habits and time management tips that help

you get things done in time and improve your overall work

performance.

4. Delegate tasks whenever possible

For individuals holding senior positions in the organization,

task delegation is a proven method of improving work performance

while trusting their subordinates to competently perform

delegated work. Smart delegation is also counted among the most

important managerial skills that help manners alleviate their

workload and focus on other more important activities within a

project.

Not sure how to delegate tasks effectively to peers? Read on to

have your questions answered.

5. Communicate better.

Alright, this one’s a brainer. Communication can make or break

your work performance. Maintaining swift, timely communication is

all the more important as it brings clarity regarding things to

be done, and how to do them, and keeps everyone updated on all

activities within the project. It is particularly important when

you have to collaborate within the workplace. Good communication

avoids important information falling through the cracks and

ensures that tasks and projects are completed on time, as per set

quality standards.

6. Improve your time management.

Do you find yourself chasing deadlines more often than not? Are

you carrying your work home just to avoid project delivery

delays? If yes then you need to improve your time management

skills to accomplish daily, weekly and monthly responsibilities

quickly and effectively. Also, you need to make sure that you are
investing your valuable work time on the right tasks instead of

wasting it on non-work-related activities such as gossiping,

procrastination, mobile usage, etc.

7. Set clear milestones.

Setting clear milestones is important in both personal and

professional life. As human beings, we have a habit of shooting

for the stars and the same reflects in the goals we set. Now,

it’s ok to be a little bold but when it comes to “goals”, it’s

much better to think clearly and be realistic.

8. Set clear and achievable goals.

When it comes to goal setting to improve work performance, it

needs to be realistic. It means you should set clear and

achievable goals after analyzing your capabilities and

limitations at work. You might want to be a productivity king,

but not without considering how much you can accomplish in a

single workday. It’s better to set small goals to stay on track.

For example, instead of setting a goal of completing 10 tasks in

6 days, you can set yourself a target of completing one task

efficiently in a day.

9. Stop multitasking, prioritize your work.

Stop multitasking and start prioritizing your work

Multitasking doesn’t make you productive, and only 2.5% of people

are able to multitask effectively. It’s easy to take on multiple

tasks at once, but what it does is distract your focus as you

switch between tasks. There are tasks that are complex and call

for our undivided attention, but multitasking makes our work

prone to mistakes and disrupts our plan to improve work

performance.

10. Conquer difficult tasks first.

Ever heard about the idea of “eat that frog?” The idea is to work

on the most challenging and important task first as you start

your day at work. You should begin immediately on such a task

because if you don’t do anything about it, it’s likely to get

delayed, which will further add more pressure on you to perform

it as you struggle to meet its deadline. Implementing this idea

will help you get high-priority work done on time and you can

utilize your remaining time on other things.

11. Finish what you start.

Another thing that is likely to affect your productivity and

performance at work is leaving things unfinished. Do you remember

how many times you’ve started working on something and then

abandoned it shortly after? If this often happens to you, then

it’s time to change. Don’t make it a habit to leave things in

between. If you’ve started a project or task, make sure that it

reaches the last, final stage with the utmost quality.

12. Plan your meetings well.

Do you know that US businesses waste $37 billion on unproductive

meetings? Meetings are powerful, but they should be meticulously

planned to get the most out of it. Since planning and scheduling

meetings is a common practice in almost every workplace, it’s

time you take steps to ensure that unnecessary meetings do not

cut into your employees’ productivity time.

13. Ask for constructive feedback.

One sure shot way to improve work performance is to ask for

constructive feedback. You should always try to seek ways in

which you can improve your performance at work and seeking

feedback from your reporting manager is a great starting point.

Even if you’re best at what you do, there’s always room for

improvement. It’s surprising how we might not be aware of a few

shortcomings, but others are. It also demonstrates your ability

to learn and grow your skills while contributing to the

organization’s progress at every stage.

14. Minimize stress.

How can you expect to improve work performance when you’re under

a lot of stress? 41% of workers said stress made them less

productive and you certainly shouldn’t be one of them. Agreed,

some stress is always part of our job, but you should not let it

build on and affect all aspects of your life. You can minimize

stress at work by following some smart tips to achieve fine work-

life balance.

15. Clear your workspace.

You might not even realize how a clean and tidy workspace can do

a world of good to your work performance. Clutter is your

formidable foe at work and having a bundle of paper files,

documents, leftover food, and other waste materials in your

workspace distracts you and causes uneasiness and anxiety. Clean

workspaces not only help you feel composed at work but also

display a sense of high professionalism.

16. Stay away from office gossip and drama.

Office gossip and drama are BIG productivity killers. You need to

stay away from all this by maintaining professional conduct when

talking to coworkers. Even if a couple of coworkers happen to be

your best friends, some topics should not be discussed at work.

Office gossiping leads to circulated rumors, which can create

rifts between employees and lead to a toxic work environment.

17. Stay healthy.

You cannot improve work performance if you do not have a sound

physical and mental health. You are not supposed to work

continuously for eight hours at work and your body is not built

for that either. The key to staying healthy is to not let work

overwhelm you and give yourself adequate rest not just on off

days but while at work too.

18. Acknowledge weak spots and improve.

When it comes to individuals, perfection doesn’t exist. We all

are a work-in-progress, learning new things daily. We have our

strengths and weaknesses too. The key is to acknowledge

weaknesses and make efforts to improve them. In this competitive

age, you have to try your best to be a nearly complete package

for progressive organizations.

19. Ask questions.

Whether you’re a newbie or a season pro, it’s likely that your

mind conjures up a lot of questions about a particular task or

project. Many people don’t ask questions to their colleagues and

their doubts or issues remain unsolved. However, you should feel

confident in asking questions and clearing your doubts the moment

you feel uncertain. This approach will help you get much needed

clarity and reduce any chances of misunderstanding or conflicts

with your peers or seniors at the workplace.

20. Take part in regular training sessions.

Participating in skills development training sessions is counted

among the best ways to improve work performance. Many

organizations organize regular training sessions for employee’s

professional and personal development. You should utilize this

opportunity to hone your current skills as well as learn and add

new competencies to your arsenal.

21. Build working relationships and connections.

Cultivating strong working relationships with your colleagues at

work is important when it comes to team collaboration on tasks

and projects. When you have cordial relationships with peers, it

creates a positive impact on your confidence and there are better

chances of improving work performance. Try to have frequent

conversations with colleagues not just regarding work but

personal interests too, which will help you understand them

better.
 22. Learn to say “no”.

Feeling obliged to your peers at work is a common scenario. They

ask you to work on some tasks and you nod in approval simply

because saying “no” might make them feel offended. However, when

you take on more work than what you already have in your hands,

it’s likely to hamper your efficiency and productivity. You

should realize that saying yes to everything is not always in

your best interest.

23. Acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses.

There’s no way for you to be perfect in everything. We all have

weak spots and it’s important to acknowledge them in order to

identify improvement opportunities. Additionally, every

individual has his/her own strengths i.e something that they are

exceptionally good at. Now, in order to bring improvement to your

everyday work performance, you need to cherish your strengths and

overcome your weaknesses at the same time.

24. Be aware of your limitations.

While it’s certainly important to constantly find a way to polish

the areas you are not doing so well, it is also important to be

aware of your own limitations. Never fall victim to habits like

multitasking or procrastination. Work on one task at a time and

do everything to keep it less stressed and less prone to mistakes

or rework. Keep things clear in your head and you will be able to

accomplish much more than expected, much faster.

The Importance of a Positive Learning Environment

According to Geeta Verma an Educationist as posted in the

website,https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/importance-positive-

learning-environment-geeta-verma, Classroom environment is one of

the most important factors that affect student learning. An ideal

learning classroom is when students view their classrooms as

positive and supportive. It is a space where they feel safe and

secure.

A positive nurturing environment is an indispensable part of

learning. It is in a positive environment that a student feels

comfortable; a place where healthy relationships with peers and

teachers flourish. In a positive environment, the process of

learning becomes something that students easily adapt to and look

forward to. To achieve this environment, young students need to

be nurtured with love, care, and support. As we all know, today,

learning in a school involves more than just being exposed to

information and set content. Research has established that

children absorb all that they observe around them and that they

learn best when they feel comfortable enough to explore their

environment. In a positive and nurturing environment, students

show their authentic curious self and paint the world with their

unique and individual brush strokes.

Simply put, a positive classroom environment is essential as it

enables students to be inquirers and explorers and true leaders

of their own learning, A positive environment is where children

are able to work as a team, celebrate each other’s achievements

and learn from mistakes. It enhances students’ ability to learn

and to be productive in the rue sense of learning things on their

own.

A few factors that contribute to creating a positive learning

environment are establishing a supportive learning culture,

addressing a learner’s needs and encouraging a student’s

involvement in all activities. Also, classrooms can be made

visually appealing by using bright colors on the walls, filling

up bulletin boards with students’ work and thematic learning

posters. Additionally, classroom seating needs to be arranged

such that students can learn individually as well as participate

in a group activity.

Teachers should keep in mind that the classroom is a child’s

second home and therefore, they should make efforts to make

students feel as comfortable as possible. Teachers should strive

to create an environment that is more conducive to engagement and

learning. A classroom environment that is not positive and full

of restrictions and rigid rules impairs learning by narrowing a

student’s focus and inhibiting his/her ability to explore

multiple viewpoints and solve problems. A positive classroom

environment helps improve attention, reduce anxiety, and supports

emotional and behavioral regulation of students.

When educators foster a positive learning culture; learners are

more likely to acquire higher motivation that leads to wonderful

learning outcomes. Schools can potentially lift student

achievement by improving their learning environments.