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NEWPORT BEACH, CA—Productivity increases can be hard to force. In many real estate companies, team members don't have the chance to collaborate with others in the firm, and as a result, productivity can suffer.

At Voit, we have found new ways to increase productivity that are anything but forced, and we recommend the three strategies below as a start:

Get Your People Together

Finding ways to gather your team in-person can be a tremendous boost to your company's operations. For example, at Voit, we don't just say we put our people first; we actually spend time and money to ensure that the people in the San Diego office know the people in the Sacramento office, despite the geographic barriers.

To do this, we recommend investing in opportunities throughout the year that bring your whole team—or specialty groups—together. When people meet in person and get to know each other, it creates a venue to build a trusting relationship—these types of connections are much more apt to recommend and refer business to one another . 

In addition, company-paid events are the perfect time share best practices. 

For example, when we fly everyone in for our annual holiday party, or pay for our team members to attend industry events, we schedule morning meetings with our specialty groups.  These in-person meetings have resulted in tremendous growth in collaboration and productivity. 

This growth is especially evident in our retail group, which has been meeting together in person at two to three ICSC conferences throughout the year, two to three company-sponsored events throughout the year, and via monthly conference calls in an effort to share best practices and offer the best services to shared clients. By virtue of this effort, each of our retail brokers and managers are getting to know each of their counterparts in all of our offices throughout the Southwestern US.

The result? In 2013, we doubled our retail business year-over-year. 

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Create An Open Physical Environment

One of the best ways to open up internal communication is by opening up your office space. The collaboration of your team will be physically enhanced by the open space, giving team members the ability to easily share information.

At Voit, we have been re-investing in our physical environment in each market at the request of our brokers, who are seeking increased opportunities to share information and deals. In our Phoenix office, for example, we created an office environment with no individual offices at all, giving the entire team a modern, open space in which to work and share ideas.

This open concept translates into our other offices as well, where we have glass walls for any individual office spaces or conference rooms, making collaboration part of the daily routine. 

These design elements deliver more than just an image of the firm being transparent. From a practical standpoint, it's easy to tell if someone is on the phone or in a meeting, or is available to talk.

Overall, the openness of our offices is having the desired effect on the company's productivity: we've seen an increase in internal communication and referral business.

Encourage Entrepreneurialism

Many firms have specific boundaries on geographies and product types with which their team can work.  The fact is these might be detrimental to your company's productivity.

At Voit, we've learned that giving brokers the ability to be more entrepreneurial is good for our business, and for theirs. 

For example, if a deal is in another market, or involves a product type the broker doesn't know, unlike the bigger firms, at Voit he or she can take the deal to the best person in that market, regardless of which company that person may be affiliated with.  Our brokers have the freedom to do what is in the client's best interest – which a lot of times means teaming up with one of the Voit professionals they have a trusted relationship with from years of networking opportunities.

The point is to be client-focused, and by encouraging entrepreneurialism, it's more likely that your team will be able to build the best relationships in the business.

Using these differentiators, it is absolutely possible for a firm to create higher efficiencies and productivity.  By getting people together, giving them an open environment and encouraging them to be entrepreneurial, we have found that we have increased productivity, while delivering better opportunities for individual brokers to grow their book of business.

Barb Rea is executive director of corporate resources in Voit Real Estate Services' Newport Beach office. The views expressed in this column are the author's own.