Workgroup vs Team
Workgroup and Team are two terms that are used in the field of organizational behavior. They are often confused due to the similarity in their meanings. Strictly speaking there is difference in their concepts and connotations.
Workgroup consists in the combination of people organized to do a kind of work. A team on the other hand is a group of people working together to reach a goal. This is the main difference between workgroup and team.
In other words it can be said that a workgroup constitutes just a number of people together in work. On the other hand a team refers to people that work together for a goal. A team is necessarily a group of people with similar skills. On the other hand a workgroup has two or more people in it that do not necessarily show similar skills.
One of the common factors in workgroup and team is that both of them comprise of members or individuals. One of the primary differences between workgroup and team is that every member of a workgroup has an identity in a workgroup. This means that every member has a separate task to perform in a workgroup.
On the other hand the members working in a team do not have separate identity. In other words it can be said that the effort put by them is what is called team effort. The team itself takes the total identity. Individual identity is not important in a team. On the other hand a workgroup is all about individual identity.
Both workgroup and team differ in terms of performance too. It is but natural that the team in whole is credited for the performance. On the other hand individual achievements are lauded in a workgroup. The best example of a workgroup is the group of people working as agents or insurance consultants of an insurance company.