Team productivity tools are software applications designed to enhance efficiency and collaboration among team members by simplifying workflows, communication, and project management.
At its most fundamental level, you can determine team productivity by the number of assigned tasks or projects a team can complete within a specific period without sacrificing quality.
In some departments, like customer support or sales, team productivity is based on the number of conversations, tickets, and calls handled successfully within a given time.
Shortcuts:
If the departments within a company are productive, the small business will achieve its goals in very little time — as opposed to a company with unproductive teams.
However, team productivity depends on many factors, including company culture, communication, and collaboration — which some companies lack.
In this piece, you’ll learn what slows down team productivity, the tools you can use to boost productivity in the workplace, and some measures you can take to ensure that your business’ productivity is optimal.
Team productivity is crucial because it directly impacts the success and efficiency of an organization.
When teams work productively, they achieve their goals faster, reduce project costs, and maintain high morale. Here are a few key reasons why team productivity matters:
Not only does this reduce employee/customer churn and save the business money, but it also encourages high-quality job seekers to apply for positions within the business.
As a business owner, you naturally want to create a work environment that encourages optimal team productivity. However, some factors slow your team down and lower productivity on a large scale.
Here are five of them:
Ineffective communication is a major obstacle to team productivity. For instance, when team members fail to share updates on their progress, it can lead to misunderstandings, delays, and wasted resources.
To address this issue, teams should establish clear communication channels and encourage regular check-ins." Here are some additional factors you might want to consider discussing:
Silos form when different teams in an organization don't effectively communicate, collaborate, and share data.
Working in silos means that employees or entire departments are entirely isolated from the rest of the business.
It is detrimental to team productivity because one department's work often influences a different department's work.
Real-World Example:
Negative Consequences:
Strategies for Breaking Down Silos:
While meetings allow team members to catch up with one another and discuss the progress of projects, too many meetings can be counterproductive.
71% of senior managers feel that meetings could be more productive. And for good reason, too.
Using meeting apps can save significant time, as with each passing hour in traditional meetings, the attention and interest of attendees tend to wane.
Quantifying Time Wasted:
Guidelines for Effective Meetings:
Alternatives to Traditional Meetings:
To address this issue, organizations can leverage AI meeting assistants. These tools can help optimize meeting schedules, automate routine tasks, and even provide intelligent summaries, ultimately freeing up employees' time and allowing them to concentrate on more impactful work.
In organizations where managers and team leaders have a lackadaisical attitude or micromanage their employees, there's often low team productivity.
Poor management frustrates employees and demotivates them from putting their all into their work.
Being a good team leader is something that everyone has to learn. Anyone can do it well provided that understand the basics which can be learned in one day. There are lots of workshop providers who run courses, for example, this workshop in London.
Defining Specific Behaviors:
Impact on Employees:
Best Practices for Effective Leadership:
While working on multiple tasks at once is a good way to get things done faster, it can reduce productivity in the workplace.
Doing too many things simultaneously causes employees to split their attention and focus, so they cannot complete tasks to the best of their ability.
Real-World Example:
Negative Consequences:
Strategies for Effective Time Management:
Organizations, especially fast-growing ones, often need more work and time to accomplish things.
It creates a stressful work environment as employees must devote more time and resources to completing work while neglecting their personal, educational, and familial concerns.
When things come to a head, employees experience burnout, which reduces concentration, efficacy, focus, and team productivity.
Real-World Example:
Negative Consequences:
Strategies for Managing Stress and Preventing Burnout:
In a fast-growing organization, employees must manage their time well to maintain productivity, which is why time management is important.
Unfortunately, many employees struggle to manage their time well, prioritize tasks, and balance their work and personal lives.
It can lead to missed deadlines, increased stress, and decreased productivity.
Real-World Example:
Negative Consequences:
Strategies for Effective Time Management:
Productivity tools are a great way to help business teams manage projects more efficiently, streamline their workflows, and get more work done in less time.
These tools can help teams in different ways — from taking down notes and organizing a daily to-do list to automating repetitive tasks and optimizing time management.
Below are 10 of the best productivity apps that teams can use to make their processes more efficient and productive.
Sunsama is a digital daily planner that helps you manage time and achieve work-life balance by planning your day with a step-by-step routine.
In Sunsama's intuitive user interface, you can create a unified daily view by pulling tasks from project management tools like Asana and Trello.
You can also collect emails from Gmail and Outlook and organize meetings from your calendar. You can decide how long you want to work on each task and schedule future tasks on your calendar.
Pricing: 14-day free trial. Paid plans start at $16/month, billed annually.
Slack is a communication and collaboration tool that makes it easy for team members to connect and work efficiently.
The app has a centralized system that allows for instant messaging, file sharing, voice and video calls, and integration with several third-party tools.
Slack has a channel-based structure allows you to categorize your team's communication or specific projects/topics into different channels.
This way, people can easily find what they're working on and which interactions they're a part of.
Employees will also be able to see what each team is working on without jumping through hoops or reading countless emails.
On the integration side, Slack seamlessly integrates with countless tools that businesses use in their processes, including Google Workspace, Zoom, Zapier, Salesforce, and even Twitter.
It allows teams to create custom workflows, automate their processes, and centralize files, data, and notifications from other tools in their tech stack.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $7.25/month. There's the custom Enterprise Grid plan for companies that need more powerful features than the regular plans offer.
Asana is a project management tool that helps teams of all sizes organize work, focus on their goals, and hit their deadlines without compromising quality.
With Asana, you can create tasks, assign them to the right team member, set due dates, and stipulate the steps to execute each task. You can also add attachments, descriptions, and subtasks to provide context for each task.
As an admin, Asana will send you notifications of any comments, task updates, and changes made by team members, which ensures that you're always aware of the progress of a project.
To streamline workflows, Asana seamlessly integrates with tools like Google Drive, Canva, Dropbox, and Slack, offering comprehensive Asana integrations.
Pricing: 30-day free trial. Paid plans start at $10.99 per user/month, billed annually.
ClickUp is a powerful task management tool with an intuitive user interface and easily navigable features.
This tool allows teams to create a visual canvas that displays all aspects of a project in one place; this helps them stay focused on their objectives.
If you're working on several projects, ClickUp allows you to customize task views and dependencies to organize and prioritize your work.
This platform supports Agile methodologies, including Kanban and Scrum, and has features like Agile dashboards, Burndown Charts, and Sprint Boards.
It also integrates with third-party MarTech tools like Slack, Figma, HubSpot, and Loom.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $7 per member/month. There's an Enterprise plan available for businesses who need a custom plan.
The days of sticking Post-its to a mirror or computer screen are over. Now, teams can take and organize notes digitally and sync them across all devices through Evernote.
This tool allows team members to access, edit, upload, and share notes and files from any device.
They can also create to-do lists, scan documents, add images, clip web pages and articles, sync their calendars, and record voice messages when they get a great idea.
Evernote's visual bulletin board allows you to filter unnecessary information to focus on essential tasks.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $10.83/month, billed annually.
Notion is a comprehensive all-in-one productivity tool that allows you to take notes, organize work, collaborate with teams, and manage projects.
It is for individuals and teams of all sizes across various industries, including content creation, marketing, and software development.
Notion has a flexible and customizable workspace where you can create pages, boards, and databases to organize information that suits your processes and workflow.
You can create to-do lists, calendars, tasks, and notes and share them with other team members.
You can also work on documents and projects with your team members simultaneously, facilitating seamless collaboration and improving productivity.
Notion integrates with other business tools, including Asana, Canva, ClickUp, Figma, and GitHub.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $8 per user/month, billed annually.
Zapier is a web-based automation tool that helps business professionals automate repetitive tasks and acts as a bridge between apps.
This tool integrates with thousands of apps, including Airtable, Calendly, Gmail, Mailchimp, HubSpot, and Notion — and can be used by marketers, project managers, salespeople, developers, and the like.
Zapier allows users to create "zaps" — automated actions triggered by specific events — without needing previous coding experience.
For example, you could set up a zap that sends a tweet whenever you publish a new blog post on your website.
Or you can automatically add new leads you collect through landing pages and social media platforms to your email list. It frees up time so you can focus on more critical projects.
Zapier also allows developers to create custom applications based on a user's needs and connect them to your other software.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $19.99/month, billed annually. There's a Company plan for organizations who want automation with robust security features and oversight capabilities.
Grammarly is an AI-based writing assistant that helps people improve their spelling, grammar, and writing style.
This tool uses complex algorithms to analyze written content and provide real-time feedback, including pointing out spelling and grammatical errors and suggesting better sentence structure.
In the realm of the best writing apps, Grammarly's premium plan offers valuable insights into writing clarity, tone of voice, and engagement, which are helpful to users who aren't native English speakers.
This tool integrates with Google Docs, Gmail, and Slack, among other tools, and various platforms, including web browsers, desktop applications, and mobile devices.
Pricing: Free plan available for individuals. 7-day free trial for Grammarly Business. The paid plans start at $15 per user/month, billed annually.
Calendly is a scheduling tool that businesses of all sizes can use to automate scheduling meetings with clients, customers, and team members.
This tool syncs with your calendar and allows you to set up events and block out the times you're busy.
When someone wants to book an appointment or meeting with you, they can pick an available time in Calendly without having to go back and forth with you or submit a calendar request via email.
It frees up time for you to focus on other tasks.
A great feature Calendly has is the buffering functionality.
It allows you to set up buffer times between meetings, like a 15-minute break to regroup or stretch or a barrier for last-minute meetings. It stops people from adding too many appointments to your schedule on short notice.
Calendly integrates with several third-party productivity tools on this list, including ClickUp, HubSpot, Notion, and Slack.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $8 per seat/month.
HubSpot is an all-in-one customer relationship marketing (CRM) platform that comprises inbound marketing, customer service, sales, CMS, operations, and commerce tools that help businesses attract, engage, and satisfy customers.
All these tools within one platform help businesses streamline their processes, workflows, campaigns, and communication.
HubSpot CRM organizes client/customer profiles and interactions in one repository where all team members can see what's happening.
It also gives a detailed overview of a business's operational activities through custom dashboards and metrics, which makes it easier to sync different teams and prevent the formation of data silos.
Pricing: HubSpot's pricing depends on the tool(s) you want to use. Each tool, or “Hub,” has a basic free plan available. The paid plans are as follows (billed annually):
Marketing Hub
Sales Hub
Customer Service Hub
CMS Hub
Operations Hub
Artwork Flow is a comprehensive label management software made for branding, design, regulatory affairs, and packaging teams.
It streamlines the review and feedback process for artwork, ensuring all stakeholders can provide input and approve creative assets seamlessly.
With real-time collaboration features, version control, and automated workflows, Artwork Flow is ideal for marketing and creative teams looking to boost productivity and meet deadlines faster.
Artwork Flow is an excellent tool for maintaining creative consistency, reducing bottlenecks in the design process, and ensuring your team’s creative projects stay on track.
Pricing: Artwork Flow offers a free plan for individuals and small teams. The professional plan starts at $39 per user per month. They also offer a custom enterprise plan that you can use to suit your needs.
Feeling overwhelmed by your daily tasks and team productivity? Planwiz is your ultimate solution for conquering your to-do list and enhancing productivity.
With its weekly schedule template, Planwiz ensures time-saving convenience for every employee.
It’s perfect for project managers looking to organize timelines, allocate resources, and keep everyone on track. With features like visual timeline planning and team collaboration, Planwiz ensures that everyone stays aligned on deadlines and project milestones.
Planwiz is ideal for maintaining clear project timelines and improving productivity through better resource allocation and planning.
Pricing: Starts at $3.99 per user/week, with a one-time purchase option available for just $49.99.
ProofHub is an all-in-one project management and collaboration tool designed to help teams stay productive. It offers task management, team discussions, file sharing, and proofing tools all in one platform. With its centralized workspaces, ProofHub makes it easy for teams to track projects, communicate, and stay organized.
ProofHub is a versatile tool for teams looking to streamline workflows, improve communication, and manage projects effectively from start to finish.
Pricing: 14-day free trial. Paid plans start from $45 per month for unlimited users.
Workstatus is a workforce management and productivity tracking tool that helps teams stay accountable and efficient. It offers time tracking, productivity monitoring, and automated reports, making it a great choice for remote teams or businesses looking to enhance employee productivity.
Workstatus is ideal for remote teams and managers who want to keep track of work progress, ensure accountability, and boost overall team productivity.
Perhaps the most striking feature of Workstatus is the availability of integrations with the most popular project management tools, including Trello, Asana, and Jira.
This integration ensures that your team can continue working in different platforms in an orderly and with fewer chances of error due to data repetition.
Productivity is not just about the tools; it's also about the method of working.
One of the most important aspects is ‘responsibility in terms of reporting’. Workstatus uniquely addresses this issue with its reporting tools. These tools allow you to report the load, challenges, and team conditions for every team member to the team leaders.
Pricing: Workstatus offers a 14-day free trial, and the paid plans start at $7 per user per month, billed annually.
Softr is a no-code app builder designed to help teams enhance productivity by converting your spreadsheets or databases into fully functional business apps without technical expertise.
Used by over 500,000 teams, from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies, Softr helps streamline workflows effectively.
Softr enables teams to streamline their workflows by connecting existing data sources like Airtable and Google Sheets, providing flexibility for different departments to organize their tasks and projects.
Teams can build apps for project management, client portals, and other custom tools tailored to their unique needs—all within a user-friendly interface.
Key Features:
By giving teams control over how their workflows and tools are built, Softr eliminates the need for external developers. This flexibility allows teams to automate routine tasks, improve collaboration, and focus on high-value work.
Pricing: Softr has a free forever plan, 4 paid plans, staring from $49/mo and a 14 day free trial.
Apart from using productivity tools, there are other measures you can take to increase team productivity. Here are four of them:
Holding multiple meetings every week takes up all your employees’ time and isn’t conducive to team productivity.
Thankfully, communication tools like Loom and Slack and availability checking tools like WhenAvailable have enabled teams, especially remote ones, to communicate asynchronously.
While these tools eliminate unnecessary meetings, team members have to hold meetings at least once a month to connect with each other and discuss what they’re working on.
That’s where standing, or stand-up, meetings come in.
In these short meetings, different team members give an update on the work they’ve completed, the work they’re still doing, and the work they’ve yet to begin.
These meetings allow people to get different perspectives, opinions, and feedback on their work. Here are some tips on how to properly hold standing meetings:
There’s no better feeling than recognition after putting your all into a task or project.
A good team leader or manager should take the time to acknowledge and reward the effort and hard work their team members put in.
This recognition can happen during standing meetings or annual events at the company.
One thing to remember is that you should reward quality first, not quantity.
For example, say customer rep A answers 100 tickets in a month but has a 62% customer satisfaction (CSAT) score, and customer rep B answers 45 tickets in a month with a 96% CSAT score.
In this scenario, you should praise/reward customer rep B for their higher-quality work.
Not only does this highlight the importance of quality, but it also incentivizes your other employees to perform tasks with customer satisfaction in mind.
To create a conducive work environment, encourage your employees to talk to one another about their work.
This way, they can get the diverse opinions, feedback, and support they need to create and execute high-quality campaigns and projects.
That said, communication shouldn’t only happen among team members but across departments.
Members of cross-functional teams, like marketing, product, sales, and customer success teams, need to be able to communicate with one another and know what’s going on in other departments at all times.
Not only does this reduce the chances of silo formation, but it also enhances team productivity.
Employees don’t just live to fatten your company’s bottom line.
Outside the office, they are people with real lives and responsibilities, and you should create a work environment that prioritizes their well-being.
To know which approach to take, speak to your employees and have them share their personal wellness goals.
These goals will help you determine if they’d prefer fewer meetings, longer lunch breaks, meditation/yoga sessions, paid time off, or something else entirely.
When your employees share the best ways to maintain their wellness, try to do regular check-ins to help them prioritize those goals and keep them on track.
It builds accountability and team support and encourages the formation of healthy habits — all of which contribute to team productivity.
Team productivity tools are software applications designed to help teams work more efficiently by streamlining communication, task management, and collaboration.
They are essential for maintaining effective communication, managing tasks efficiently, and ensuring every team member is aligned with project goals.
Tools like Slack, Zoom, and Asana are particularly effective for remote teams because they facilitate communication and project tracking.
These tools provide shared platforms where team members can communicate, track project progress, and share files, ensuring everyone stays on the same page.
Yes, small businesses can greatly benefit by using these tools to optimize workflows, reduce miscommunication, and save time on project management.
Trello and Slack both offer free versions that are highly effective for improving team productivity and collaboration.
When trying to boost your team’s productivity, take things slowly.
First, identify the negative factors deterring productivity and brainstorm ways to fix them.
Be careful not to execute all your ideas simultaneously, or you’ll risk confusing and burning out your employees. Instead, execute ideas individually and involve all your employees in the process.
With time, you’ll be able to create a work environment where employees communicate with one another, prioritize essential tasks, manage time effectively, and execute projects on time without compromising on quality.
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