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Using Technology to make the Workplace More Productive

productivity-tools-for-business

Almost everyone can agree that productivity at the workplace can be traced to an organization’s ability to successfully execute its strategy. But what else ensures business success?

Organizations need highly engaged and productive employees achieving goals that are aligned with the organization’s strategic objectives.

If achieving goals is the key to a successful business- what are the steps to increasing your business productivity for greater execution on your strategic goals? How do you know your business alignment and people performance are working at optimal levels to maximize business productivity resulting in the best possible results?

Using technology to maximize your business productivity creates a platform to achieve true business success. Organizations can use productivity software to overcome the challenges of executing on strategy every day. Increase in productivity can be traced to automating processes to allow for faster communication, increased time spent on priority areas and greater project completion rates.

The following are 7 digital tools that drive business processes more efficiently to gain maximum results:

Slack

Slack is basically a messaging app meant for teams and workplaces. It can be used across multiple devices and platforms, and is equipped with robust features that allow you to not only chat one-on-one with associates but also in groups. You are able to upload and share files with them too, as well as integrate with other apps and services, such as Skype for video calls, and you can control almost every setting, including the ability to create custom emoji.And the cost? Free! Well, mostly free. You’ll be able to able to browse and search your team’s 10,000 most recent messages, and you’ll be limited to 5GB of file storage and 10 apps or custom integration.

Get Slack Here!

Trello

Trello is an awesome project management tool that makes collaboration easy and, dare I say, even fun. But this visual list tool can do so much more, whether you’re organizing work projects, family chores, travel plans, or just about anything else. It organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in a process. Items within the lists, called cards, can be dragged and dropped onto other lists or reordered within lists. Individual cards themselves can contain checklists, images, attachments, deadline dates, colored labels, and discussion notes from others who share the board. You can have as many boards as you want—one for “House Stuff,” for example, one for “Content Strategy” and so on.

Get Trello Here!

 

Google Drive

No, Google Drive isn’t Google’s self-driving car. Essentially, it’s an online and offline storage system with word processing power. You get both the online word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation tools and the convenience of a virtual folder on your computers that you can simply drag and drop files to sync between laptops, tablets, and mobile phones.

You’re currently limited to 15 gigs (as of this writing), or you can pay a monthly fee to add to that storage space.  If you’re over your limit, you can still access your files, but you won’t be able to add any more of them until you’re back under the limit. Syncing stops, too, so you’ll need to sort out storage issues quickly!

Get Google Drive Here!

 

Evernote

Evernote is a handy and versatile app that can save notes (audio and text), organize photos, set reminders, and upload attachments, all synced across your various desktop and mobile devices. Plus, Evernote’s bookmarklet makes it easy to clip web articles and store them for later reading. If you’re constantly jumping devices, this one is for you. With support for almost every imaginable platform out there, Evernote is a great place to jot down and share ideas. It doesn’t have collaboration but does provide a chat feature and offline syncing.

Evernote also provides unlimited storage, though there is an upload limit of 25MB for basic accounts.

Get Evernote Here!

 

Hootsuite

HootSuite is a social media management tool that allows users to schedule and post updates to any pages or profiles for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, WordPress and others from one place – the HootSuite dashboard. When you sign up, you are essentially given a dashboard with tabs organizing all the social profiles you connect to HootSuite. Although HootSuite is largely known as a business tool, a lot of individuals use it for personal purposes too.

If you spend a lot of time on social media and have a lot of profiles to take care of, streamlining all of those profiles into one simple system can help save you a lot of time. And if you’re posting the same thing across five profiles, you can post it once through HootSuite and select the profiles where you want it published, and it will publish it on all five profiles at once.

Using HootSuite takes a bit of time to get familiar with, but in the end it improves productivity and leaves with more time for more important things.

Get Hootsuite Here!

 

Pocket

Pocket is an app that stores things from the Internet that you want to read later. It offers a bunch of features to help you when you want to get back and actually read what you stored.

Essentially Pocket works very similar to your browser bookmarks. If you want to save a website, article, blog post for later, you simply put it in your pocket for review later on. You can then “tag” the website, so when you have a look at your Pocket it’s all divided up into different sections.

Get Pocket Here!

 

Generally, every employee wants to be appreciated for their hard work and business productivity softwares can certainly bridge the gaps in communication and convey to each member of your team that they are valued. With your people working at their highest capabilities and your business aligned from top-to-bottom, you will be creating a workforce that is engaged, productive and loyal.