The Five Software Solutions You Need to Measure Projects & Productivity
Far too many businesses are relying on legacy software solutions. After all, those solutions did the trick for so many years, why change now? Aside from enabling companies to seamlessly do things like transition to work from home models, modern cloud-based solutions allow your workforce to collaborate and communicate together in real-time, no matter where people are working from or what devices they’re using.
They also enable employers and managers to accurately measure things like employee productivity, performance, engagement levels, and more. When things don’t seem to be working, cloud-based solutions help you to identify what they are and why, then quickly arrive at a solution to improve and refine processes. This would never have been possible using legacy solutions.
In order to succeed in the modern working world, your tech stack needs to allow management to accurately and meaningfully measure employee productivity, project management, customer relations, and more. If you’re looking to beef up your company’s tech stack, it’s highly recommended that, at minimum, you have the following tools in your arsenal.
1. Productivity intelligence to gain visibility into how your employees are working
Perhaps the most important tool you’ll use, a productivity intelligence solution makes use of AI and machine learning technology to measure employee engagement across a wide range of cloud-based business applications necessary to thrive in today’s business world.
These measurements are then used to generate contextualized data which can be used by management to gauge employee contributions over time, identify drops and rises in performance, spot burnout and attrition before they become a major problem, and view trends in how your employees work on a day-to-day basis. These trends include things like when they’re most productive, which managers they work best under, and which technology solutions they’re making use of. Productivity intelligence gives your business a defined set of “check engine” indicators so you know when there are problems - and if some employees are delivering stellar results and being unrecognized for it.
Data around productivity helps build confidence and gives managers the opportunity to make decisions based on fact, rather than relying on their gut feelings. In order to work efficiently and effectively measure productivity with Prodoscore, it’s critical that your tech stack also includes some of the following apps and tools.
2. CRM tools help you create and maintain meaningful customer relationships
Healthy and prosperous client relationships are necessary to the long-term survival of any business, and modern CRM tools make it easier than ever before to create and maintain these critical relationships. Tools like Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Copper, and SugarCRM can be used to better understand your customers, allowing you to segment them for more effective reach, quickly log information, access historical data and previous interactions, automate time consuming tasks, and focus on improving customer service.
Cloud-based CRM solutions are an amazing resource for any sales and support teams, making it easier than ever for multiple teams and departments to simultaneously access up-to-date and consistent customer data which can be used for smarter selling, better account management, accurate reporting, and identifying major opportunities. For sales teams, cloud-based CRM tools provide a measure of activity when reps generate new leads and opportunities, log calls and SMS, or use features like live chat. And, CRM applications can be easily integrated with Prodoscore to surface valuable metrics around usage.
3. Project management tools enable your team to run projects confidently
The ability to better plan, manage and track the status of projects lets your teams hit even the tightest deadlines and complete complex projects. Project management tools like monday.com, Asana, and Trello make it easier for businesses to stay on top of every aspect of ongoing projects, plan for upcoming ones, and stay on an even keel in the ocean of multiple tasks.
Employees can track communications related to certain projects, view and work towards completing daily tasks to have a better understanding of what’s expected of them, use graphical elements to easily manage even the most creative or complex projects, and stay on top of things like time and expenses. Modern project management tools are built with collaboration in mind, making it easier for your entire team to redefine the way they manage projects, no matter where they’re working from.
Project management tools like monday.com can be integrated with Prodoscore, allowing managers to measure activity in these apps to ensure that project managers and other critical employees are making appropriate use of the resources available to them.
Collaborate and communicate anytime, anywhere with cloud-based productivity suites
Office suites like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 are essential to every business, replacing legacy office solutions by allowing employees to seamlessly collaborate and communicate from anywhere. Both suites feature industry-leading email platforms, text documents, spreadsheets, slideshows, video conferencing apps, cloud calendars, and more, all of which offer the ability to simultaneously work with colleagues and partners to improve quality of work and increase productivity.
Without cloud-based office suites, employees would still be stuck emailing each other the latest versions of spreadsheets and documents, using inefficient and obsolete methods of collaborating. Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 can both be integrated with Prodoscore, allowing managers to easily measure activities completed in apps like Google Drive, OneDrive, Gmail, Outlook, Google Docs, and other essential apps, offering contextualized data about things like meeting duration, file uploads, inbox engagement, work timelines, and so much more.
4. Workplace communication tools allow everybody to stay in the loop
Unified communications solutions offered by industry leaders like RingCentral, Vonage, Dialpad, Cisco and Zoom have replaced the traditional telephone, integrating with CRM solutions to make staying in touch with clients, partners and colleagues easier than ever before. Employees can instantly launch high quality calls from the comfort of their CRM or email, logging calls and customer data in real-time.
Lines can be routed to employee mobile devices, allowing employees to take their work on-the-go with the device of their choosing, even offering the ability to use texting to interface with colleagues, clients, leads. Unified communications platforms can be integrated with your productivity intelligence tool, allowing management to measure calls, texts, meetings, and more so you can develop a better understanding of how your employees are staying in touch internally and with customers and partners.
5. Slack gets rid of short emails and enables better real-time communication
Finally, no workplace tech stack should be without an easy-to-use internal communication tool like Slack, which can be used by organizations to split up company communications into projects, activities, and departments so that everything is perfectly organized and streamlined. These workplace communication tools make it easy for employees to stay on top of ongoing projects, brainstorming sessions and plans for future work, bringing teams closer by keeping conversations relevant and making it quick and painless to find exactly what you’re looking for when you need it.
Slack also doubles as a team-building tool, being used frequently to share memes, pictures of pets, and celebrate wins together in a virtual environment. While many have tried to become the work socializing tool of choice, Slack has blown them all out of the water with its ease of use.
Prodoscore can be seamlessly integrated with tools like Slack to make measuring activity in Slack channels easy, allowing you to identify which employees are engaged and in regular communication with colleagues.
In order for your tech stack to be properly optimized for employee productivity, it must include at least these tools as the baseline. While they can be useful when used on their own, bringing together cloud-based CRM tools, project management solutions, office suites, and communication tools seamlessly, integrated with a productivity intelligence app like Prodoscore gives your business an undeniable competitive advantage. You’ll be able to manage employees with complete confidence, having increased visibility into how they’re working on a day-to-day basis regardless of whether they’re in the office or working from home.
When the essential tools in your business are optimized for productivity, your business can effectively identify when employees experience a decrease or increase in productivity and engagement, when members of your team at risk of burnout, which managers work best with certain employees, when members of your team are most effective, and what workplace apps and tools are most likely to lead to an increase in productivity and quality of work. When your workplace tech stack is focused on measuring projects and productivity, you’ll be left wondering why it took you so long to optimize your company’s software arsenal.
To learn how contextualized productivity intelligence data offered by Prodoscore can revolutionize the way your business operates, get in touch with us today.
