Building strong relationships and learning to collaborate effectively with others is an essential skill to develop during your time at university. This skill is valuable not only for your studies but also for life outside of formal education helping you achieve success in your future career.
While collaboration and teamwork can be challenging, they can also be rewarding. Building relationships with your peers and navigating boundaries and obstacles often lead to more successful achievement of collective goals.
Developing your relationship building and collaboration skill enable you to navigate teamwork and foster partnerships that are key to professional growth and success. You can learn more about applying your employability skills through accessing the Careers & Employability Service.
Moreover, building relationships and effective collaboration are also foundational to fostering enterprising skills. Enterprising involves creating and applying ideas within practical situations, and using your adaptability and communication skills, of which are best cultivated in collaborative environments. Strong relationship skills empower you to exchange ideas, challenge perspectives and work towards shared goals, improving your creative problem-solving abilities.
At the University of Derby, you also have access to Enterprise Support, that can help your to boost your entrepreneurial skills and bring your business ideas to life.
Statistics show that individuals in collaborative workspaces are 50% more effective at completing tasks than those working independently (Boskamp, 2022).
Boskamp, E. (2022). 37 Detailed Workplace Collaboration Statistics [2021] - Zippia. [online] Zippia. Available at: https://www.zippia.com/advice/workplace-collaboration-statistics/.
Larson, A. (1991). Partner networks: Leveraging External Ties to Improve Entrepreneurial Performance. Journal of Business Venturing, 6(3), pp.173–188. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/0883-9026(91)90008-2.
Open University (2025). Collaboration Skills for the Workplace | Open University | BGXS005. [online] The Open University. Available at: https://www.open.ac.uk/courses/short-courses/bgxs005?_gl=1
Tencati, A. and Zsolnai, L. (2008). The Collaborative Enterprise. Journal of Business Ethics, 85(3), pp.367–376. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9775-3.
