The COVID-19 pandemic forever disrupted the way we work together. Although many companies have returned to a WFO (Work from Office) solution, many others have adopted some sort of WFH (Work from Home) option. Dropbox, Airbnb, Atlassian, Blackbaud, Coinbase, GoToTechnologies, HubSpot, Meta, Reddit, 3M, and many other companies have
allowed permanent WFH scenarios. And Microsoft, Cisco, Target, and Nike have all switched to a
hybrid mode.
In both cases, CIOs and executives must deal with distributed teams, raising challenges on how to keep the team members informed of team activities. And how to keep them productive.
Let’s take a look at some of the tools that can help solve the challenges of keeping teams productive in the New Normal:
Top productivity tools in the New Normal
CoAction gets to see a lot of teams in action. This helps us recognize what works across sectors and what doesn’t.
The following is a list of tools we have found most effective (and commonly used) across all businesses sizes and types:
Microsoft Teams plus integrations (tasks, bookings, call, stack)
Microsoft Teams is an excellent collaboration tool that allows teams to work together seamlessly from anywhere. Teams comes with several features that help boost productivity. It also integrates easily with other software and platforms, such as:
Microsoft Teams makes team collaboration much easier when working with remote team members.
Zoom
Zoom has become the go-to tool for remote meetings. The question will always remain: Would Zoom have grown so exponentially if it had not been for the pandemic?
But the answer doesn’t matter. With
300 million users, Zoom is the world’s most widely used video conferencing software. If you don’t need all of MS Teams’s additional features, you could simply use Zoom.
Even if you use Teams, you might have to resort to using Zoom with customers because they are more familiar with it.
Slack
Slack is an excellent team collaboration tool and MS Teams’s primary challenger.
Both tools offer team communication features, although MS Teams integrates better with MS Office apps. But slack offers more integration possibilities.
Spending time ensuring the company is set up properly is essential to making the best use of Slack.
Salesforce CRM
Salesforce is the great granddaddy of SaaS. The company rocked the waters when it first opened its doors,
declaring an end to proprietary software. Anyone who thumbed their noses at the developing company’s bold claims has had to eat quite a few servings of humble pie since then.
Salesforce
dominates the market of Customer Relationship Management tools. Its flexibility and wide set of features make it a customer favorite.
Calendly
Trying to schedule meetings without a tool like
Calendly is enough to drive any CIO to hair-loss from all the frustrated hair-pulling, especially when there are more than two people involved.
Calendly lets people schedule themselves in for meetings according to slots that you define as available on your calendar. You can define different meeting types and set limits on bookings per day.
Calendly’s top-tier plan can also request payment from schedulers, which is perfect for consultants.
Trello
Trello is a cloud-based project management tool that keeps remote teams organized when working on a project. Project managers can customize this flexible tool to virtually any specific project’s requirements.
You can create a board per project and set up “cards” to organize tasks. Users know precisely when they are required on a task, and can tag other users to collaborate. Because Trello is an Atlassian tool, it has a lot of native Enterprise integrations such as with Jira ITSM (IT Service Management) and Confluence (Content Collaboration).
Availability and Automation of Help Desk Functions
Companies can reduce the resources they need by automating help desk functions as much as possible. Various tools exist to make this possible, such as
ZenDesk and
HelpDesk.
Help desk automation helps reduce response times, and so improves customer satisfaction.
A help desk strategy needs to be responsive and also built to integrate with your business model.
Enterprise Security Apps like a Security Service Edge (SSE) Platform
An SSE
is “a convergence of network security services delivered from a purpose-built cloud platform,” as defined on ZScaler, a cybersecurity solutions provider.
The pandemic caused cybersecurity incidents to skyrocket, and the need for a comprehensive security solution has never been higher.
The sophistication of attacks has also risen, forcing security solutions to be developed that can deal with complex attack vectors.
Although the exact details of what comprises an SSE are beyond the scope of this article, this comprehensive security solution resolves many of the problems related to having data distributed across different locations.
Nothing nukes high productivity like a security incident. SSE’s help keep your security posture strong so these don’t occur.
Bonus Tip: Good Working Gear
Many executives fail to recognize the need for good gear for all employees. No tool will improve productivity if it runs on a subpar machine.
Because of cheap hardware, field workers with poor data connectivity are less able to do their jobs or solve problems.
Workers in rugged industries such as construction need devices that can stand the inevitable beatings they take from being on a site all day.
So be sure to invest in great gear for your team in addition to just software.
How to implement all your tools easily
Installing all these tools on different devices can be a small nightmare, made worse by the need to keep them updated.
That’s where a Managed Service Provider (MSP) — a team that manages your IT for you — like CoAction comes in handy.
MSPs are profitable when their customers have few problems, so the business model is one of ensuring everything
works.
CoAction lives and breathes to ensure your company is operating at full efficiency and capacity, and we will help you install and integrate the tools necessary to do that.
CoAction can offer your company consolidated billing for all the above products.
To learn more about how CoAction can help you with your IT needs, contact us today.
