Contrary to Popular Belief, Working on a Team CAN Be Easier

How much time do you spend emailing coworkers, trying to get one point across? Does it take an unnecessary amount of time to brief the team, get feedback, or make progress on a project?

We all know that collaboration and communication are two of the most challenging (and important) aspects of working professionally. Especially when working from home, communication is an incredibly important part of day to day work. Nobody wants to spend their day fighting with technology, complicated apps, or impossible communication practices.

With team collaboration software becoming more popular, Office Upgraded has a number of options that will make your work life easier.

One popular app, Slack, offers instant messaging, file transfers, and a powerful message search. With a number of integration features, with tools like Trello and Google Drive available to combine, this app allows for quick organization and communication.

With separate channels and communities, you can organize by team, department, or private message. Organized by hashtags, these channels allow you to send important messages to the right people. Slack brings your whole team together, and there is a space for every project. And, you can chat face to face via video or phone with just a click of a button.

Similarly, Troop Messenger allows you to connect teams. However, it has been specifically designed to connect across organizations. This app allows you to share ideas via one-on-one messaging, group chats, voice and video calls, and Burnout, allowing team members to chat privately within a stipulated time period.

With a whole list of features, Troop provides a user-friendly office chat app with other features to meet your business needs.

Troop provides a place to discuss and share work, get things done, manage daily projects, and collaborate with vendors and other organizations. Teamwork doesn’t have to be confined to the people in your office!

Trello allows you to collaborate, manage projects, and reach new productivity peaks. With boards, lists, and cards Trello maximizes productivity and organization, all while building a team-spirit and great work ethic.

From meetings to projects to goal setting, Trello allows teams to quickly set up and customize workflows, with task assignments, timelines, productivity metrics, calendars and more. Cards allow every task to be managed, tracked, and shared with teammates, while automation takes care of tedious tasks to save time.

Like Slack, you can integrate top work tools, like Google Drive, DropBox, and Microsoft Teams.

If you need an all-in-one employee app to facilitate productivity, engagement, and efficiency, check out Blink. Blink allows you to digitize and cut costs with custom-built apps, protect and safeguard your business with security and compliance features, accelerate skill-building and communication, and empower employees.

Offering a feed of photos, videos, and updates, Blink supports your company’s mission while providing a location for all the information that matters. With a separate messaging section, it is easy to contact team members, and removes the challenge of communicating. By targeting posts and content to employees, and providing a simple, single sign-on, Blink is perfect for workers in any environment.

To continue creating together, there are a number of different options, including:

• Microsoft 365

With varying subscription options, Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams help improve workflow and productivity. The Premium Office apps subscription includes Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Access, and OneDrive, a secure cloud service that allows you to share and work on files from anywhere. Other secure cloud services include Teams, Exchange, SharePoint, Intune, and Azure Information Protection.

Teams, one of the best platforms for video conferencing, chatting, calling, and sharing information provides a secure location to communicate with team members. Like Slack and Trello, this allows you to set separate groups and conversations, keeping your work life organized.

• Google Drive

Google Drive, another collaborative platform of apps for connectivity and workplace connection includes access to Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides. An alternative to Microsoft apps, this offers an easy way to stay connected regardless of your workplace device and allows employees to collaborate on documents at the same time.

One of the main benefits of Google – it is accessible, easily, from Apple products. With Microsoft, accessing Excel features and other products can sometimes be challenging.

When choosing a workplace app for your company, or home office, Google Drive offers collaboration with teammates or individuals outside your company, the ability to make comments and give feedback directly on shared documents, and integration with existing tools.

• Quip

Quip is Salesforce’s productivity platform, aiming to transform the way that businesses work together, delivering collaboration securely and simply across any device. With a focus on security and trust, Quip allows you to stay connected with your team members and gives you data protection, privacy, and control.

With a virtual private cloud, it is easy to set up a network and communicate with others at your place of work. Communicate via slides that drive engagement and feedback, chat, documents that fuel action, and spreadsheets.

And, for some video calling and internal communication assistance, check out Skype, one of the favorite tools for company audio and video calls. As one of the simplest, and most familiar, apps, Skype allows easy office integration.

Another Microsoft product, Skype allows you to create calls with no sign ups or downloads required. Easy video conferencing, with no subscription or payment is a must-have for every business and office employee.

While there are many great internal communication apps available, this list offers a few of the best. These have been proven to help with communication, improve teamwork, and benefit workplace collaboration, whether working in-office or at-home.

Check these out at the links below:

1. Slack
2. Troop Messenger
3. Trello
4. Blink
5. Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams
6. Google Drive
7. Skype