Abstract:
In today’s corporate world, there has been so much emphasis on pride and personal achievement at the work place thus the concept of teamwork seems to be overlooked by managers and employees. In view of this management sees less essence of teamwork as a major tool of performance which has led to poor performance and productivity in the industry market. This study therefore seeks to identify the impact teamwork has on organizational performance. The objective of this study is to identify factors associated with teamwork, identify the positive or negative effects of teamwork on employees and to examine the impact of teamwork on the overall organizational performance. Guided by the quantitative research methodology, convenience sampling technique was used to select lower level employees whiles purposive sampling technique was used to select managers (higher level employees) of MTN Ghana. A self-structured questionnaire was employed in the data collection.
The findings reveal that the factors that are associated with teamwork are trust, preparedness to engage in debate around ideas, team members being viewed as unique people, effective leadership, members support, acceptance of vision and mission, team diversity in culture, talent and personalities, clear and open communication, shared experiences and practices. Also, the findings show that the positive effects of teamwork are: encourages employees to broaden their skills and knowledge, makes managers recognize and reward employees, increases employee efficiency, offers employees equal opportunity for participation to develop confidence and skills and ensures that work pressure is evenly distributed. Lastly, the findings reveal that teamwork at the workplace play a major role in ensuring that work is being accomplished within the shortest period of time in teams, ensures improvement of skills among employees, improves the quality of service provided to customers, ensures effective utilization of organizational resources, brings various specializations within the organization together and directly influences organizational performance. The study recommends that management of all organizations that have discounted teamwork must start employing it by constantly organizing training and development programs for employees of the organization on how to form and work in teams before its implementation to improve organizational performance.
