If you ask a charity professional what their biggest work gripe is, the chances are that ‘teams working in silo’ will be high on the list. A boom in hybrid working (an increase of 900% in the voluntary sector since the pandemic*) is likely have exacerbated what is an issue for organisations across sectors. A recent survey from Charity Comms revealed that just over half of charity professionals felt cross-team communication was effective within their charity**. So why are siloes an issue and how can we dismantle them?

Patrick Lencioni, author of Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars describes a silo as ‘nothing more than the barriers that exist between departments within an organisation, causing people who are supposed to be on the same team to work against one another.’ In some cases, silo working can be positive, helping establish boundaries, maintain order and allowing professional teams to operate in a focused, specialized way. But it can also result in duplicated efforts, hampering productivity and demotivating staff. Here, experts in the third sector, provide their top tips on how to break down silos.

1. Create a collaborative culture

Remote working means we don’t have the same opportunities for ‘watercooler conversations’ where colleagues can build rapport and identify opportunities for collaboration. Charities need to be more intentional about creating those moments. Mary’s Meals UK, which forms part of the global schools feeding charity and has a remote-first workplace, has engineered a range of opportunities for staff to come together in a professional and social capacity, from monthly gatherings, book clubs, quizzes, family picnics and diarised cross-team tea breaks. They’ve also introduced a fundraising initiative for individuals and teams which brings people together through clothes swaps and sharing lunches.

Naturally, at these events, talk turns to work, meaning people are more aware of what colleagues are doing and how their work might fit together. Getting to know colleagues can also reduce conflict and misunderstanding.

Annette Reid, head of people at the charity is proud that in a recent staff survey 95% of staff said they had good working relationships with colleagues. She said: “Having a strong culture, celebrating success and praising often is the key to people genuinely feeling like they are all part of one team. We take any opportunity to get together and collaborate and we ensure our values and mission are front of mind for everything we do.”

2. Improve staff communication

It’s not enough to bring colleagues together. They need to have an awareness of what is happening. They need to know what’s going on in the charity to know if it is relevant to their work and to understand colleagues’ motivations.

As Janis McCulloch, head of campaigns at Myeloma UK explains: “People feel transparency is key. If you aren’t working on a big project, you can feel siloed if you don’t know what is going on. You feel comforted knowing why people are doing something and understanding where they are coming from.” She quotes a colleague who said: “I don’t mind the silos if it’s a goldfish tank. You can look in, see what’s going on and understand the decisions."

Myeloma UK has tackled teams working in silo through monthly speaker events bringing colleagues together, business planning that focuses on shared goals and identifies interdependencies across teams early on, and encouraging staff to communicate with each other through a blog on its internal channels. Anyone can write a blog, whether it’s sharing a personal interest or updating on a project that they are working on, taking the hierarchy out of sharing information. The blogs people up-to-date on projects which might spark an idea for collaboration.

3. Join up systems as well as people

Centralising your charity’s information within a digital platform can go a long way to breaking down silos. Asthma + Lung UK reaped the benefits when it integrated its CRM into its Engaging Networks platform, used to reach campaigners and other supporters. Instead of the fundraising team approaching supporters with a pure fundraising ‘ask’ in mind or the Campaigns team approaching campaigners to sign a petition, both teams were able to view supporters ‘in the round’ leading to a more collaborative approach. In a ‘cost of giving crisis’, this means supporters who may not be able to give financially, may be able to give in a different way such as being a campaigner or volunteer.

Rachel Egan, marketing manager of the charity says: “We have been able to develop a much clearer picture of our supporters and this has helped inform strategic work across the charity. It has also helped us identify the needs of our audiences and tailor supporter journeys to benefit teams across the organisation. This has generated income and mobilised our supporters to take action on key issues.”

4. Ensure your strategy, mission and values are clear

Leaders play a pivotal role in breaking down silos by role-modelling collaborative behaviour and being clear with staff about what the organisation’s strategy and values are. Katie Abbotts, founder of Sonder Coaching who has worked with a range of global NGOs, health and environmental charities, says objectives done in the right way can unify staff.

“Organisations often have team objectives and individual objectives and there is a focus on achieving those but it shouldn’t just be about what you do but how you do it.”

She also advises that when there is tension, in-person workshops focused on respecting each others’ skills and motivations, and understand their workloads can make a huge difference. She says a “good quality meaningful few hours together can fast-track understanding of what is needed, driving better collaboration.”

“You need to make space to have tricky conversations and look at workloads and expectation. Establishing common goals and using positive future-focused coaching language means people will approach the session without it being a threat and take the ‘personal’ out of it.’

5. Encourage skill-sharing across teams

A report examining silos in the private sector by management consultancy Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), said people teams have a pivotal role to play in reducing siloed working. In many cases, those with specialist skills rise through a vertical career path and this gives little opportunity for people to share knowledge from one area to another.

It sparks the question about whether charities should move away from recruiting those with specialist skills in favour of generalists. Another option is for charities to focus on knowledge-sharing across teams or arrange for colleagues in different teams to shadow each other.
Aimee Aldersley, a senior communications professional at University Hospitals Dorset NHS Charity, says she has seen the benefits of work shadowing in two organisations. At Macmillan Cancer Support she shadowed the information, volunteering and corporate partnership teams while working in marketing for the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning fundraiser and Lung Cancer Awareness Month, saying it helped her understand the needs of those teams.

She says shadowing can also be beneficial for forging relationships with external teams too. At the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Aimee shadowed the team at Sky, a corporate partner, saying: “I understood where they were coming from so much better which meant we were able to agree design concepts, work at pace and which also reassured Sky that we were aligned.”

Cat Jones is a PR and communications specialist with over a decade of experience in the charity sector. Find her on LinkedIn

---