Cross Functional Team - Meaning and Importance | HRMantra HR Software

Cross Functional Team - What Is the Meaning of Cross Functional Team and Its Importance | HRMantra HR Software - Digital HR Transformation

 5-7 minutes

What is a Cross-Functional Team?

A cross-functional team is a group of employees forming teams or departments within an organization from different functional areas and working together for common objectives.

The concept of a cross-functional team empowers one to achieve strategic objectives. Each of them desperately craves maximum collaboration to enhance productivity and efficiencies to meet their vision and mission.

A cross-functional team means the treasure of diversified skills, a huge knowledge reservoir, expertise with deep understanding, and the nexus of people working for shared goals.

Examples of Cross-Functional Teams

Some common examples of cross-functional teams include:

• Marketing Team: Nowadays, a marketing team includes cross-functional teams such as content writing, creative designing, SEO implementation, PPC management, brand positioning, etc.—all working toward the common goal of promoting, engaging, and converting a target group into loyal customers.
• Product Team: Employees working together in the cross-functional product team research on the needs, introduce features, create stories, develop code, troubleshoot, engineer and more to finally make their product stand out.

What are Key Characteristics of Cross-Functional Teams?

''Unity in diversity'' is what we can say about cross-functional teams. Let''s understand the key characteristics of cross-functional teams in detail:

• Diversity: From varied skill sets to knowledge base, cross-functional teams create a rich pool of expertise to achieve the common goal.
• Collaboration: Collaboration is the glue that holds cross-functional teams together and helps them execute projects without any friction as one strong team.
• Objective: Shared objectives or goals boost the mindset of collective success rather than individual achievement in cross-functional teams among employees.
• Flexibility: Cross-functional teams work with an agile mindset and always stay ready to change as per project requirements.
• Communication: Open, transparent, and the right communication channels are necessary to avoid any misunderstanding among the team members.
• Focus: The focus lies in achieving the common target with individual efforts for the designated objectives.

Why are Cross-Functional Teams Important in Organizations?

Cross-functional teams are important in organizations because they ensure:

• Greater and better decision-making
• Enhanced collaboration skills
• Spontaneous innovation
• Collective intelligence
• Holistic understanding
• Enhances one''s ability to stretch beyond known skills
• Flexibility of the evolving requirements for a project
• Culture of openness
• To ensure a diversified workforce

How Do Cross-Functional Teams Work?

While every organization works its way, there are a few procedures that most cross-functional teams follow:

• Formation: Cross-functional teams work together in collaboration according to the project or company''s specific requirements. So, depending on the needs and skills of the teams, cross-functional teams operate.
• Setting up Specific Goals: After cross-functional teams are nominated, they jointly specify their roles and responsibilities according to skills and expertise to achieve specific goals.
• Communication Channels: Channels, flows of communication, and everything else are decided before work begins as part of the coordination between team members.
• Meeting Schedule: For the working of cross-functional teams, it is necessary that the members pre-decide their meeting schedules, frequency, agendas, and other details that require discussion.
• Cross Training/Discussion: Quite often, members in cross-functional teams feel the need to upskill and understand the processes of what other members are up to, so they mutually decide to go for training and discussion sessions.
• Feedback Mechanism: For hassle-free and streamlined working, sharing feedback is very necessary among the team members of cross-functional teams.

Why Do Cross-Functional Teams Fail?

Problems arise when cross-functional teams fail to work in tandem and fail to accomplish the set goals. There are a few common reasons that could hamper their progress:

• Unclear common objectives
• Lack of transparent and clear communication
• Resistance to change or absence of agility
• Confusion in roles and responsibilities
• Inadequate resources—time, budget, or human
• Unavailability of authentic leadership
• No feedback mechanism

How to Motivate a Cross-Functional Team?

In life, everybody needs motivation to work harder and keep moving, so do cross-functional teams. Some approaches to keep them motivated include:

• Reward and recognition
• Stressing the importance of the area of responsibilities rather than micromanaging
• Provide opportunities to grow as a team and as individuals
• Maintain clear communication channels; leave no room for miscommunication
• Empower the team by eliciting POVs and taking suggestions
• Authentic leadership in managing and bridging gaps in the execution
• Understanding of individuals'' needs to work in a cross-functional setup

Cross-functional teams can turn your organization around with their collective forces. You need to navigate the challenges that come their way and handle execution gaps with care.

Nurture a culture of collaboration!

Leverage the power of collectiveness.

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