We live in a digital world, and in this world, productivity and efficiency have become exponentially more accessible. We have a mountain of resources at our disposal to help companies of all sizes create the most effective teams, build great culture, and improve their bottom line.
There used to be a time when CRM’s, analytics, and fancy email marketing applications were designed purely as enterprise solutions for the large companies that could afford them. With the influx of software developers, we’re fortunate to now have all of these fancy tools now available even for individual entrepreneurs. In fact, most of them are completely free!
Here’s VibeCatch’s top 5 tools to improve productivity, efficiency, and ultimately build great company culture:
1: Slack
Pick up the slack, with Slack! This one of the greatest if not the greatest internal business communication tool. Use it to set up private channels or public channels within your company for various departments, managers, or employees to communicate and keep track of every conversation. The search function in Slack is amazing. If you ever need to locate something that you discussed with another team member, just type it in the search and Slack will locate every conversation you ever had about that topic. Our favorite thing about Slack is that it has hundreds if not thousands of integrations! Here’s a helpful hint: set up Giphy with Slack. Basically, this allows you to easily use animated GIFs in your conversations. Giphy in Slack makes everyone smile. Set it up, then type in “/giphy michael scott” and tell us what you see! Good company culture needs great communication, and Slack is your answer.
2: Kyber
This is the greatest to-do list application out there. In case you are wondering, it too integrates with Slack! Imagine you are having a conversation with a team member, an idea pops up, and you need to add it to your to-do list. Simply type in “/remember to _____” and it will automatically get added to your Kyber. You can access Kyber from the web, or it’s mobile app. You can even assign tasks to fellow team members. When tasks are completed, mark them as complete. Good company culture requires team members to be held accountable for their work, while holding others accountable too. When everyone is staying organized, putting in their share and getting things done, everyone is happy.
3: Trello
Trello is quite unique, and has a ton of benefits. When you first play around with it, you’ll notice that it’s a fantastic way to keep track of ideas. Consider Trello like your digital bulletin board. Create categories of lists, move items around from list to list, archive them, comment on them, manage access for users, and more. What many Trello newbies don’t realize is that it’s actually a great way to keep track of action items as well. For example, you can easily create a board called “Sales,” and within that board you can create three lists: To Do, In Progress, Complete. Simply add items to your To Do list, and when you start working on them, move them to In Progress, and when you are done with that task just move it to Complete! Trello is a dream come true for many creatives out there. Overall, Trello truly promotes teamwork, collaboration, and helps you build better company culture.
4: Evernote
If you take lots of notes, use Evernote. Hands down, the best note taking application out there. Their desktop app makes it incredibly easy to create multiple notebooks with hundreds of notes in each. Easily search through all your notes, share them with your peers, and more. They recently added a new feature called Web Clipper which allows you to snag pieces of information from websites and save them as notes. This way, you don’t have to go back to Google and try and find that website you were at four months ago, or worry about losing it if your search history gets wiped.
5: Join.me
Need to do a screen share or launch a video conference? Join.me! While there are many options out there for doing screen share presentations and demos or video conferencing in general, Join.me is probably the simplest solution. If you want to know why, then go to www.join.me and you’ll see instantly how easy it is to set up a video conference. On their homepage you’ll see a button right in front of your face that says “Start Meeting.” Boom. Thank us later.
BONUS
Did you really think we would create this list about helpful tools without tooting our own horn?
6: VibeCatch
VibeCatch is the perfect tool to help any company of any size build amazing company culture. We say this countless times, that communication is key. This includes transparency, consistent feedback, understanding, great leadership, and more. VibeCatch helps you turn your business into a powerhouse for productivity and efficiency, while ultimately improving your bottom line.
While typical employee surveys often only occur once a year, VibeCatch helps you easily get feedback in real-time throughout the entire year. Access to information this fast makes it possible for leaders to become great leaders by taking action sooner than later.
VibeCatch recently launched its Quality of Work Life Index (QWL) which takes things to a new level. This QWL Index was designed by academics in human resource management, which utilizes scientifically backed data to show any manager where there might be an issue with company culture, how it affects other departments, and exactly what to do next. Doesn’t get any better than that! Reach out to us and we would more than happy to help you in getting started.