There have been many revelations for people that the 2020 pandemic has brought forth. One such revelation that businesses have experienced is how aware they are of how everyone treats one another. Businesses have recently faced failure or have been losing out on valuable opportunities as a result of this.
And these aspects sting even more now that resources are tighter and it’s important for people to retain and make use of these resources as much as they can.
While I won’t go into detail about how to improve the cooperation of your team – as each situation is different – I can share with you some tools to help ease that. Furthermore, these tools are helpful in improving productivity for any remote worker. As such these are absolutely vital whether you’re flying solo or have a team.
Try these apps out when you get the chance. You won’t be disappointed.
Slack
Being able to speak with your team and to do so quickly are two major factors that contribute to success when you’re working remotely. If something urgent happens, you don’t want to be forced to wait until the next team meeting to discuss it or call up one person at a time.
You need a central place to communicate anything and be noticed.
Slack is helpful in this as it’s a essentially a more professional instant messaging platform. The beauty of the platform is you can break discussions into various groups. This gives you an opportunity to discuss work-related discussions, coordinate with your team on what projects to work on moving forward, and even sharing a few chuckles and memes.
Today, Slack has over 10 million users on the platform making it a large contributor to facilitating remote workspaces.
Beyond that, Slack offers a plethora of other useful features including:
Different channels for each business unit, team, or project. People can freely jump in into the loop of any conversation without any issues.
Direct messaging which allows you to still have those one on one conversations.
Compatibility with a whole host of other tools to create a “hub” for your team communication. Tools that Slack can work with are platforms like Google Drive, Dropbox, Salesforce, Zendesk, Jira, and many more.
Zapier
Zapier is another helpful productivity tool to consider. You get to create what the platform calls “Zaps” which essentially connect apps to other apps. This process allows you to create easier workflows. Especially if you are repeating a number of tasks. For example, if you work as the teams social media marketer, you can make your life easier by posting on Facebook and automatically share that post on Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and more. It doesn’t sound like much but it saves you the process of having to post on those four platforms every single time you have an announcement to make or a new article published.
There are other huge time savers as well but they all end in the same result: your team will be more efficient and happier.
The only snag is that Zapier isn’t a free platform but does have reasonable monthly plans. I know another alternative that is free called If This Then That (IFTTT) which serves the same purpose.
Zoom
Since the pandemic started, the number of people using video conferences and web communications has spiked. Some of the popular brands have seen a massive influx in usage such as Skype and Google Hangouts. Another one that also saw this spike is Zoom.
Zoom works on any device making it a versatile and helpful platform for all kinds of people. Though of course, with everyone stuck at home, many of these platforms are going to run into more frequent technical issues and glitches.
So despite the rise of negative reviews that Zoom is getting – as well as other platforms no doubt – realize it’s due to these circumstances rather than the fault of the company releasing a poor platform.
Dropbox
Dropbox is another fan favourite and is one of the strongest platforms to be sharing files and videos alike. There are naturally many other alternatives that can provide a similar service, but Dropbox is an easier platform and is the first one that comes to mind for cloud storage services.
Some other alternatives are Google Drive and WeTransfer and they follow a similar model to Dropbox. They offer limited space for free and have paid plans.
All in all, these platforms provide the ability to share digital files, and keep projects on track while working remotely. Best of all this can be accessed anywhere with no issues.
Evernote
If you’re the type to be jotting down notes on a regular basis and struggle to find them when they matter most, my suggestion is getting yourself this app: Evernote. For those who love taking notes, this is arguably the most useful tool for them to have.
Through this app, not only can you have a central space to write all of your notes, you can write anything that comes to mind, share it, and have quick and easy access to it anytime you like.
Furthermore, this app can sync with other apps. Most importantly is Google Docs. So if you like the feel of Google Docs rather than Evernote’s pad, you can jot down notes on Google Docs and have it sync to Evernote in real time. You’ve also got this syncing on the Evernote app on your phone with the Evernote on your computer.
This is great for collab projects as well due to that share feature that I mentioned earlier too. Don’t be quick to dismiss this platform as it comes in handy in many situations.
Quotes Cover
Quotes Cover is another social media tool for those who are looking to make social media posts in a rush. Quotes on social media are great and Quotes Cover offers a quick solution for you. You can seamlessly create quotes in an instant, or take the quotes from the various users that use the platform and share them.
Beyond that, Quotes Cover also offers various formats for these posts so you can use these quotes for other purposes. From greeting cards to wall posters or desktop and phone wallpaper, you can use them for these purposes as well.
The other thing to note is you don’t need to create an account in order to use this platform. It’s entirely free to use and you remain anonymous while using this platform.
Better Apps To Make Your Team Better
Your team is important now more than ever before and thankfully there are a plethora of apps to make everything run smoother and better. Don’t be afraid to go out there and explore the various apps that are available. New ones are being created and developed every day so go out and find the ones that’ll help your team out the most.