7 Tips for Building a Highly Effective Agency Content Collaboration & Productivity

Whether you’re new to your industry, or a hardened veteran, you’ll probably admit that your job isn’t always a walk in the park. There might be ways that you wish you can improve your workflow, even if it’s just a little. For that reason, we’ve put together a simple list of 7 tips for building a highly effective agency. Some of them might seem a little obvious, but there’s always room for improvement. Without further ado, let’s get this party started:

1. File Share And Access Permissions

Sharing information regarding a project is essential for progression. Fortunately, we don’t have to rely on emails and face-to-face interactions anymore. Now, we have helpful tools like Dropbox for file permissions and shared links which are available to Dropbox Professional and Business customers.

Dropbox allows everyone on your team to share and receive information faster than you can blink. The tool offers tons of online features to make sure your information is safe, and that it gets to where it needs to go quickly. Dropbox destroys the competition with their speed and service.

2. Track your time

If you aren’t already time tracking, you should stop what you’re doing now and look into it. There are a few reasons why time tracking is so important for everyone on your team:

• For team members paid hourly, it ensures an accurate paycheck
• It helps you better calculate time estimates for future clients
• It helps you organize your day by keeping track of how long daily tasks take to complete

Keeping track of your time ensures that you’re not wasting time, therefore being as productive as possible.

3. Communicate

You know what they say, communication is the key to any relationship. The same can be said for team collaboration and productivity. You and your team should be communicating regularly and keeping each other in the loop. It can be so easy to lose track of a project if everyone isn’t caught up to speed.

From the start, your team should know exactly how to get into contact with each other. You should establish what channels everyone should use, and give them a specific purpose. You might have one line of communication open for quick comments, and another for emergencies only.

4. Know your team

Whether you’re remote or in a physical office, it’s important that you know exactly who you’re working with. You should take the time to get to know each and every one of your colleagues as best as you can. Learn their preferences, how they organize their desk, what their favorite sports teams are, and their birthdays. Being familiar with each other helps productivity levels simply because you’re not just working with a stranger anymore.

Because the methods for knowing your team vary wildly depending on whether you’re remote or on-site, we’ll split them up accordingly. Let’s start with remote team building ideas:

• Video chat coffee break You don’t have to meet in person to enjoy a nice coffee and a friendly chat. Pull up a chair, and pretend that you’re both in the same coffee shop.
• Virtual office tour A virtual office tour helps people understand how you organize your work day. It may not seem like much, and you may feel obliged to clean a little before the grand tour, but recording a quick little 5 minute walk around of your office is a very easy way for your colleagues to feel connected.

Now, let’s name off a few ideas that can help on-site teams get to know each other a little more:

• Organize office birthday parties Throwing a simple birthday party for a colleague is an easy way to get everyone chatting. It’s a great excuse to order pizza, too.
• Facts about yourself Listing some facts about yourself, interesting or not, is a great way for both remote teams and on-site teams to connect and learn a lot about each other.

The great thing about team building is that you can be as simple or creative as you want. There are tons of great team building exercises out there to try. The real idea is to get your colleagues familiar with the way they all function.

5. Make sure you hire the right people for the job

Let’s be honest, the market can be flooded with candidates for a job you’re trying to fill. The best tip anyone can give you as far as this topic goes is to take your time. It may seem like it’s taking forever to find the right fit, but I can assure you that the time spent finding the perfect employee will be more than made up for if they do their job correctly.

6. Encourage feedback

Nobody will learn anything if problems are ignored. You and your team should be open to giving and receiving feedback on everything. You have to remember that you have a specifically assembled team of experts in front of you, their opinions should matter just as much as yours.

7. Be ready for change

Ask anyone in any industry and they’ll tell you that plans change… a lot. You should welcome change by embracing it, not running from it. As much as you’d like to be perfect, the reality is that there will be some times where you aren’t, and that’s okay. The best thing to do is to prepare yourself in advance. Take some time to look for faults in your plan and adjust it accordingly.

Change should never be avoided. If a project is going in a certain direction, you should be capable enough to handle it. Just take a breather, and charge full steam ahead.

The end, or is it?

There are essentially a limitless amount of tips anyone can give you to help you build your agency effectively. What works for some might not work for others. Do your research and find the perfect fit for you and your team. It might involve a little trial and error, but you’ll get it in the end, and you’ll be so much better off for it.

This is a sponsored post for Dropbox. All opinions are my own. Dropbox is not affiliated with nor endorses any other products or services mentioned.