No matter the industry or the size of the company, when employees come to work, they want to feel valued. The deep-seated desire to have a seat at the table indicates companies that often have the most success–and the happiest employees–promote a collaborative culture. Throughout the past 29 years, Ketner Group has learned a thing or two about how to encourage collaboration among coworkers. And it takes more than just team lunches and company outings. Although those team bonding moments are important (check out pictures from our recent axe-throwing outing), building genuine collaboration happens daily. Here at KG, we take specific actions to maintain a collaborative culture in our workplace. Read on to discover our tactics.
Create A Welcoming Environment
Driving effective collaboration starts with an inviting attitude. Employees should feel comfortable when talking to one another. To encourage a steady flow of communication throughout the day, the Ketner Group team tends to leave our office doors open. With this practice in place, face-to-face interactions happen more frequently. In addition to keeping our doors open, we use Slack. The team collaboration software helps us communicate with each other via channels designated for specific accounts and internal teams.
As a result, we’ve found transparency is a key to effective communication. Keeping each other updated on our schedules and priorities is a cornerstone of our business. Every Monday we kick off the week with a short staff meeting. During the meeting, every team member gives updates on what they plan to work on that week. When we’re all in the know, collaboration becomes more feasible.
Even though we are dispersed among various accounts, we encourage cross team collaboration. One way we do this is through Friday brainstorm sessions where we choose one topic to discuss. All employees are encouraged to share their input and anyone can pitch ideas for the topic each week. Whether it’s asking for help with a client project or ideas around how to promote our own agency, brainstorms reflect our collaborative culture. Two minds are better than one, but putting 12 heads together has proved to be even better. Since we started meeting for hour-long brainstorms each week, our shared ideas have generated success for our clients and our agency as a whole. For example, one brainstorm session focused on our client Adlucent, which recently garnered high-profile media attention after we coordinated with them in releasing a whitepaper.
Provide Leadership Opportunities For All Employees
At Ketner Group, leadership roles aren’t only for senior level employees. Every team member, junior staff included, owns a specific part of the agency. Whether it’s keeping the blog up and running or creating and distributing the monthly newsletter, we all have a chance to improve individually and hone our own skills. However, these activities aren’t possible without coordination. While employees have the autonomy to take the lead role in a specific part of the agency, we can all work together and play off of each other’s strengths. Subsequently, we value each other’s thoughts and the agency is better for it.
Additionally, finding new business opportunities isn’t limited to senior staff. We all pitch in to find opportunities for the agency and have allotted hours to conduct research toward this every month. Instead of everything coming from the top down, Ketner Group has made the business an inclusive one. Through giving everyone opportunities for leadership, the end result is a collaborative culture.
Support Each Other In Ways Big And Small
A supportive team fuels our collaboration and results in effective teamwork. If a team member is facing a challenging task or is unsure of how to handle a situation, we know we have each other to turn to. We also encourage peer reviews on our work, which helps us improve both our writing and editing skills. Each client team also conducts internal meetings to coordinate work and keep each other up to date before presenting ideas to the client.
Outside of the office, the support continues. From going on walks together to internal reviews and check-ins, we are more than just an office of coworkers, but consider each other our “work family.” Collaboration has quickly turned into genuine care, which carries over into all aspects of our work and life.
Above all, our close-knit team makes it simple for us to collaborate. Whether it’s asking each other for advice, collecting thoughts in an email brainstorm or even reaching out for help when we need it, our teamwork is the foundation for much of our success. Our Founder and President Jeff Ketner expands on how our agency culture has evolved into what it is today in his recent blog post. If you’re interested in learning more about Ketner Group, send us a message.
Austin
