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The Open University

Working in diverse teams

The Open University via OpenLearn

Overview

Employers have long identified team work as one of the key competencies that they want from employees and team building exercises are nothing new. Why then are employers still citing this as one of the skills most job applicants lack? Being able to understand and articulate your experience of working in teams is crucial in terms of job seeking and job progression. We all know this, yet many of us are guilty of being able to say little more than ‘I work well as part of a team or can motivate to work alone’ when applying for jobs. Does this sound like you?This course will help you consider your experience of working in teams and the different roles you play in them. It will increase your confidence in marketing this key skill to employers as well improve your ability to perform well in teams you are currently part of. The world we live and work in continues to change at a great rate and this impacts on the teams we work in today. In this course you will consider why diversity has increased and consider both the benefits and difficulties of working in teams of an increasingly diverse character and teams that operate at a distance.TranscriptEnrolling on this course will give you the opportunity to earn an Open University digital badge. Badges are not accredited by The Open University but they are a great way to demonstrate your interest in the subject and commitment to your career, and to provide evidence of continuing professional development.Once you are signed in, you can manage your digital badges online from My OpenLearn. In addition, you can download and print your OpenLearn Statement of Participation - which also displays your Open University badge.The Open Universitywould really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourselfand your expectations for the course before you begin, in our optional start-of-coursesurvey. Once you complete the course we would also value your feedback andsuggestions for future improvement, in our optional end-of-course survey.Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on yourdetails to others.This course is accredited by the CPD Standards Office. It can be used to provide evidence of continuing professional development and on successful completion of the course you will be awarded 24 CPD points. Evidence of your CPD achievement is provided on the free Statement of Participation awarded on completion.Anyone wishing to provide evidence of their enrolment on this course is able to do so by sharing their Activity Record on their OpenLearn Profile, which is available before completion of the course and earning of the Statement of Participation.

Syllabus

  • Introduction and guidance
  • Introduction and guidance
  • What is a badged course?
  • How to get a badge
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week1Week 1: Why employers value teamwork
  • Introduction
  • 1 Why are we still talking about teamwork?
  • 2 A key employability skill
  • 3 What is a ‘soft skill’?
  • 4 Group or team?
  • 4.1 Are all groups teams?
  • 4.2 Team or working group?
  • 5 ‘Two heads are better than one’ or ‘Too many chefs spoil the broth’?
  • 5.1 Advantages of teamwork
  • 6 Different types of team
  • 7 Ways to increase your team experience
  • 7.1 Ways to get team experience
  • 8 This week’s quiz
  • 9 Summary
  • References
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week2Week 2: Identifying team roles
  • Introduction
  • 1 The roles we play
  • 2 Functional team roles
  • 2.1 Key functional roles
  • 3 Behavioural roles in teams
  • 3.1 Belbin’s team roles
  • 4 Identifying roles in team tasks
  • 5 This week’s quiz
  • 6 Summary
  • References
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week3Week 3: Stages of team development
  • Introduction
  • 1 Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning
  • 1.1 Tuckman’s model of team formation
  • 2 The S-curve of team performance
  • 3 Consequences of Tuckman’s model
  • 4 Forming
  • 5 Storming
  • 6 Norming
  • 7 Performing
  • 8 Adjourning
  • 9 This week’s quiz
  • 10 Summary
  • References
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week4Week 4: Effective communication skills for team performance
  • Introduction
  • 1 How effective is your team?
  • 2 Giving and receiving feedback
  • 2.1 Sorting good feedback from bad
  • 3 Dealing with conflict
  • 3.1 Useful tips for dealing with conflict
  • 4 Decision making
  • 4.1 Tools for reaching a consensus
  • 4.2 Stepladder technique
  • 4.3 Charrette technique
  • 5 This week’s quiz
  • 6 Summary
  • References
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week5Week 5: Increased diversity in teams
  • Introduction
  • 1 Understanding ‘diversity’
  • 2 The changing workplace
  • 3 Factors leading to increased workplace diversity
  • 4 Why we want more diversity
  • 5 Categories of diversity
  • 6 What organisations are doing to increase diversity?
  • 7 This week’s quiz
  • 8 Summary
  • References
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week6Week 6: Social identity and cultural norms
  • Introduction
  • 1 Tajfel and Turner’s social identity theory
  • 2 Stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination
  • 3 Case study: team-teaching in Japan
  • 4 Hofstede’s dimensions of culture
  • 4.1 Power distance index
  • 4.2 Individualism versus collectivism
  • 4.3 Masculinity versus femininity
  • 4.4 Uncertainty avoidance index
  • 4.5 Your cultural dimension score
  • 5 Tips for improving communication between different cultural norms
  • 6 This week’s quiz
  • 7 Summary
  • References
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week7Week 7: Virtual teams
  • Introduction
  • 1 What is a virtual team?
  • 2 Case study: virtual team-working
  • 3 Issues with working in virtual teams
  • 4 Key challenges of working in virtual teams
  • 4.1 The effects of distance on communication
  • 4.2 Developing trust in virtual teams
  • 4.3 The importance of clear communication
  • 5 Appropriate use of technology
  • 5.1 What technology should be used and how?
  • 6 This week’s quiz
  • 7 Summary
  • References
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week8Week 8: Marketing teamwork experience to employers
  • Introduction
  • 1 Assessing for teamwork skills
  • 2 Competency-based interview questions
  • 3 Using STAR
  • 3.1 Bad examples of using STAR
  • 4 Group exercises at assessment centres
  • 4.1 Further examples of assessment centre activities
  • 5 This week’s quiz
  • 6 Summary
  • Where next?
  • Tell us what you think
  • References
  • Acknowledgements

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