Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Matt Cowell – Marketing Director at CircleLoop. His opinions are his own.
As businesses undergo a digital transformation, it’s no surprise that newer tools and apps are constantly being created to streamline work and keep everyone in the organisation productive.
That doesn’t mean you should head to the App or Play Store to download every app you can find though, as a report from RingCentral found that users switching between apps wasted as much as an hour per day. That’s around 32 wasted days each year.
Apps should be about helping your employees maintain productivity, not switch between 10 or more every hour. So, here’s our selection of the most useful apps that can boost employee productivity.
We’ll look at:
- Slack
- Zoom
- Accelo
- G Suite
- CircleLoop
Slack
When you consider that NASA used Slack for their Mars Curiosity Rover Project, it should be enough to tell you that this communication app is worth adding to your stack to keep everyone productive. Every business owner will know how much time can be wasted with regular face-to-face meetings, such as when employees who won’t even benefit from being there are present. Their time can be used elsewhere.
The same can apply for the number of email chains that can take up a lot of time when going back and forth. A Slack study states that their users see over 48 percent reduction in email usage which saves your employees time to sift through endless chains trying to find the one email out of hundreds which is most relevant to them.
Plus, Slack also said that 80 percent of respondents claimed that it improved transparency. It dropped the number of meetings by 24 percent and helped increase overall productivity by over 32 percent.
Reducing intercompany emails and having the ability to instantly send messages to other employees directly, private groups or even the entire team is quick and effortless which all contributes towards increased productivity.
Share projects, use ‘do not disturb mode,’ set reminders, mention people directly, create channels, use the plethora of hacks and install plenty of integrations from the Slack catalog to keep the entire team focused and productive. Slack is an app that you can’t afford to miss out on when it comes to boosting employee productivity and having eight million daily active users just shows that.
Zoom
We’re all well aware of how frustrating it can be to have too many meetings. It’s even worse when most of them get cancelled at the last minute. Video conferencing apps are on the rise and they can do a lot more than act as a virtual face-to-face meeting. An app like Zoom provides remote conferencing services using cloud computing where you can accommodate up to 500 people at once.
It helps to collaborate seamlessly and with HD video and high-quality audio, it’s not seen as a backup option but a preferred way to host meetings and collaborate. It eliminates travelling halfway across the country to meet a client for 20 minutes because you can set up recurring meetings with saved settings and just one URL.
Video calls can be recorded and the collaborative sessions can be annotated so work is actually done in the video meetings and your employees can achieve a lot more in these sessions. It means that time is saved if meetings are cancelled as they can be rearranged instantly and they’ll actually gain value from each video conference with minimal downtime.
Accelo
Every business should have a project management system in place and Accelo is a popular choice for boosting employee productivity. It helps to solve all the problems growing teams face because it’s a hub for all of the business projects and tasks that your employees need to work on.
Accelo is a platform that brings down project delivery time, gives you better control over projects and time collaboration while achieving better work satisfaction. For your employees, however, it means that they’re not sitting around waiting for the next task or randomly picking which task to begin next.
It works through triggers, so tasks are assigned to your employees on the dates selected and employees know exactly what they’re doing each day. It keeps their daily plan more organised and as their tasks are outlined, it keeps the entire process flowing much better with fewer hours lost every week.
G Suite
We’re cheating slightly here because there are so many apps within Google’s G Suite, but the apps within have been specifically designed to help keep employees more productive.
Some of the features include:
- Google Calendar
- Google Docs
- Google Slides
- Google Sheets
- Google Forms
- Gmail
- Google Hangouts
- Google Drive
G Suite builds on user familiarity with Google’s products so there’s less of a learning curve for your employees. That means they can spend more time ‘doing.’ With improved communication and the ability to work more effectively, it keeps your employees more productive because it eliminates inefficiencies.
For example, your employees can all jump in to edit files and collaborate in real-time to improve workplace productivity. They can do this even at home because they’ll have a unified account throughout each app to prevent logging in and out each time.
Plus, they can keep going even if there’s a drop-off in internet connection because everything is saved offline so they don’t need to worry about losing progress or becoming less efficient.
Saving time and money, cutting down on meetings, eliminating travel costs, a massive boost to collaboration and employees having more time to spend on critical tasks means G Suite is something you should look into. A bonus feature is that G Suite apps can be downloaded on mobile applications, so they can remain even more productive when on-the-go, wherever they are.
CircleLoop
A commonly overlooked app when it comes to boosting employer productivity is the right business cloud phone system, such as CircleLoop. The benefit of CircleLoop in regards to productivity is that it brings your entire phone system together, both internally and externally in the form of powerful mobile and desktop apps.
That means it doesn’t matter where employees are working as its mobility allows your employees to make and receive calls through the business numbers wherever they are and can manage features and settings in real-time regardless of location.
The collaborative platform that CircleLoop brings means that the team numbers don’t let calls from through the cracks. If your employees aren’t at their desk or have no internet connection, they can receive notifications through CircleLoop through the right means so they can stay productive when on the move.
Plus, if you want to double down on productivity, then CircleLoop is an app which can be integrated with Slack so you don’t need to unsubscribe or get rid of other tools. You can consolidate communications instead.
CircleLoop is a completely app-based cloud phone system packed with powerful features ranging from call recording to transcriptions. Find out more about what CircleLoop has to offer and look to implement all of the productivity apps we’ve mentioned above to keep your employees going.
Author
Guest blogger
