This week, we’re thrilled to be welcoming Chloe Mitchell, Client Services Manager at Tao Digital Marketing to guest write on our blog! In this post, Chloe will be discussing how their agency maintained productivity while working from home and how this has evolved over the last 18 months during the pandemic, including the tools and techniques that helped along the way.
Like many other businesses throughout the past 18 months, we have had to adapt our way of working in line with numerous restrictions and lockdowns. Keeping communication open and maintaining productivity while working from home has been vital.
As an agency working with over 20 different businesses, our team can be working on numerous clients per day, so it’s important to keep a fine balance between making the most of the working day and being over capacity. Being overworked leads to stress and client work not being done to the best of our ability, which is absolutely not the outcome we want.
For the past couple of years, we have been using a time management software named ClickUp, which has proven to be extremely useful during lockdowns. This has streamlined efficiencies and made productivity soar. We are able to set up projects, set deadlines, track time worked each day and per client, and have a ‘workspace’ where we are able to see our tasks for the day.
Another feature that we make use of is the ability to post comments within tasks to either ask further questions or update the progress of the task. This cuts down time that would have been spent emailing back and forth within the team as we receive comment notifications within ClickUp. It allowed us to continue being collaborative on key projects, sharing ideas, analysis and feedback.
We also have access to a ‘ClickUp calendar’, which allows us to see the current capacity of our team. If the bar is on green for the day, a good amount of work is booked in that will mean work is completed on deadline, but also leaves time for important spontaneous tasks that may pop up, as well as time for if other tasks take longer than expected.
Although we do track time daily when working, it is less about monitoring the team working exact hours on the dot and more about matching the hours per month that our clients pay for. We understand the importance of those spontaneous conversations and tasks that can come up, especially on those days working in the office, that can actually lead to brainstorming fantastic ideas that can generate even further results for our clients.
What’s equally important for motivation and productivity is team building and keeping the team happy, whether that’s through going for team lunches together, attending awards ceremonies to celebrate everybody’s hard work, team building days, or getting involved with fun activities such as charity challenges. This, in turn, makes them feel appreciated, which is absolutely key to motivation.
We also find providing regular positive feedback can really help with this – in an industry as fast-paced as ours, it can be easy to forget to stop and reflect on what the team has actually achieved, but it’s one of the most important factors to make the team feel valued.

Chloe Mitchell, Client Services Manager at Tao Digital Marketing
Chloe works directly with clients, ensuring they receive the most exceptional service. She first joined Tao’s internal team as a Senior Marketing Strategist, and is now developing business-wide strategies for improving client services, maintaining business relationships with existing clients, and bringing new clients on board. Tao Digital Marketing is a digital marketing consultancy based in Bolton, specialising in SEO, Marketing Automation and Digital PR.