Skills for Success: Collaboration

The Government of Canada’s Skills for Success model defines collaboration as “your ability to contribute and support others to achieve a common goal.”

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Core Skills Exercise

Knowing which of the 9 core skills you are best at will help you plan a career you'll enjoy and excel in.

In the today’s workplace, you’ll often work in teams with people who have different backgrounds, personalities, and skill sets. The better you can work and communicate with others, the easier it is to achieve common goals—and the stronger the results.

Collaboration is 1 of the 9 skills identified in the Government of Canada’s Skills for Success model. Launched in 2021, this model updates the original Essential Skills framework to reflect changes in the Canadian labour market and the modern workplace.

Whether you’re working on a school project, leading a project at work, or interacting with friends and family, collaboration skills are key to getting things done and building win-win relationships.

What does collaboration include?

The Skills for Success model divides collaboration into 6 components:

1. Work well with other people. Build trust. Follow social and organizational rules Be on time. Encourage supportive and cooperative behaviours, language, and attitudes.
2. Value diversity and inclusivity. People with different cultures, backgrounds, and abilities can have different customs, values, and ways of thinking and acting. Let fresh perspectives open up new possibilities.
3. Manage difficult interactions with other people. Look out for and address sources of disagreement. Discuss, negotiate, and resolve difficult interactions in a sensitive and helpful way.
4. Contribute to an environment where you can collaborate with others. Understand and adapt to the needs, strengths, and weaknesses of others. Support others through coaching, mentoring, and motivating.
5. Achieve a common goal. Take responsibility for your input, completing tasks, and managing risks and resources. Consult and share with others, giving them opportunities to contribute.
6. Reflect and improve on teamwork. Evaluate team performance, make constructive suggestions for improvement, and act on feedback you receive.

Measuring collaboration

Your proficiency level is your ability to work with others in different situations. As you build your collaboration skills, you’ll be able to:

• Work with larger, more diverse groups of people
• Work with a group to reach more complex goals
• Be more responsible for motivating others, managing conflict, and improving teamwork

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Start Now to Build the Skills Employers Want

It’s a skills-based world out there, and many employers are specific about the skills they want. Start building your skills when you’re still in high school—or even in junior high. You’ll soon be able to show employers you’ve got the skills you need for the job.

The Skills for Success model defines 3 levels of collaboration: entry, intermediate, and advanced. Here are examples of what your collaboration skills might look like at each level:

• Entry. At a weekly team meeting, you and your co-workers share progress updates on individual tasks. You help out with any issues that have come up.
• Intermediate level. A colleague at your workplace needs your help to write a product description. You must explain the product features clearly and provide feedback to make sure the final description is accurate.
• Advanced level. You are in charge of leading a complex project involving several different teams in your company. To keep the project on track, you need to coordinate, motivate, and evaluate the efforts of the diverse team members.

Collaboration skills in action

Consider some examples of how people in different occupations apply collaboration skills:

• Residential construction site managers coordinate the work of tradespeople and suppliers to construct homes and buildings.
• Special event coordinators collaborate with vendors, clients, sponsors, and other groups to plan and produce conferences, meetings, seminars, exhibitions, trade shows, festivals, fundraisers, and other special events.
• Software engineers collaborate with system users and testers, designers, technical writers, and product managers to build and maintain software applications.

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Look for Work

Know Your Core Skills and How to Sell Them

Employers look for a wide range of skills. Some skills relate to specific types of work. Others are core skills that you need for every job. If you know your core skills, you can use them to impress potential employers. This will help you land the job you want.

Collaboration strategies

Here are some strategies to keep in mind as you collaborate with others:

• Share knowledge and expertise freely. Do what you can to help others grow and succeed. Consider becoming a mentor to junior team members.
• Give constructive feedback and be open to receiving it from others. Use feedback to identify areas for improvement and work together to find solutions.
• Participate in team-building exercises. Many organizations offer activities that help build trust and cooperation between team members.
• Embrace diversity. Seek out opportunities to learn from people with different backgrounds. Actively seek to understand others, asking questions and showing empathy.
• Lead by example. Model positive behaviours, such as sharing credit, compromising, and being open to feedback.
• Be proactive in addressing conflict. Deal with issues as they happen, rather than avoiding the problem.
• Be generous with praise and gratitude. If someone is doing a great job—or makes your job easier—say so! Everybody likes to feel appreciated.

Helpful resources

Check out these resources to help you assess and build your collaboration skills:

• Download the Skills for Success Work Ready Youth Program collaboration workbook for a wide range of information, tips, and exercises.
• Try the Skills Canada essential skills test on working with others and the alis skills quiz.
• Work through the ABC Skills Hub online collaboration course, which covers building trust, resolving conflict, and working with remote teams. You can also download the Get Started collaboration workbook [pdf].
• Review alis articles to brush up on your conflict resolution.
• Search online for books, podcasts, and videos using keywords like “conflict resolution,” “leadership,” and “diversity.”

Explore the Skills for Success model

Although particular skills may be more important in some jobs than others, all 9 skills in the Skills for Success model are needed for most occupations. And these skills are not just about work—they come into play throughout our lives, forming a foundation for other technical and life skills, knowledge, and relationships.

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Plan Your Career

Develop Your Core Skills and Traits

Most jobs require specific skills that relate to the work being done. But employers also look for softer core skills and traits that help their business run smoothly. You’ve been learning these skills throughout your life. Here’s how you can develop them…

Learn about the other skills for success:

• Adaptability
• Communication
• Creativity and innovation
• Digital
• Numeracy
• Problem solving
• Reading
• Writing