5 powerful WFH apps to boost productivity in 2021

By Sofiah Shariman

Working from home is becoming an increasingly popular arrangement. If you’re struggling to make work from home work for your team, look no further! Here are 5 apps to help manage your team as you continue to work remotely in 2021.

For Communication

Slack

Capterra: 4.7, Google Play: 4.3

IMAGE: Slack

Slack is a channel-based messaging platform that allows real-time conversations to happen in a more organised and effective manner. Team members can send messages or share files in private or public channels within your organisation. Key files, messages, channels and people are also easily searchable throughout your team’s Slack workplace.

So, Why Should You Use Slack?

Remember the times when you would be able to nudge a colleague at the desk right next to yours and ask them a question or engage in office banter? Slack allows you to send them a DM and talk privately. Face-to-face communication is also possible, albeit virtually with the use of video calls!

More importantly, Slack can serve as your virtual workspace. You can create dedicated workspaces, called channels, allowing each team to work closely together. Here at Jibble, we use different Slack channels for most of our day-to-day communication such as #my-sales for the Malaysian sales team and #random for company-wide non-work related chatter.

Available on: iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and Linux. 

Pricing: FREE. Paid subscriptions start at $6.67 USD/employee per month.

Check it out here! 

For Project Management

Trello

Capterra: 4.5, Google Play: 4.4

IMAGE: Trello

Trello is a productivity app to help manage your projects and day-to-day tasks. It allows you to create a board for each project and then add lists and cards to help you keep track of the progress and workflow of each project. 

So, Why Should You Use Trello?

Need to see the progress of all your ongoing projects at a glance? Trello provides a fun, simple and user-friendly app to work collaboratively with your team. It’s completely customisable to your organisation’s needs – be it a sales pipeline, marketing calendar or project management. 

You can assign team members to their respective cards and create checklists for them to complete before they can move the task to the next stage in the board. Not only that, you can even set a deadline for each card so it’s easier for you to see which task is overdue and which team member is in charge of getting it done. Now, there’s more transparency within the team as everyone can see what the rest of the team is working on that day or week.

Available on: Web, iOS and Android. 

Pricing: FREE. Paid subscriptions start at $10 USD/employee per month.

Find out more here!

Asana

Capterra: 4.5, Google Play: 4.5

IMAGE: Asana

Asana is a task management app to help improve the productivity within your team and ensure a smooth and systematic workflow for all your projects. It helps team members work more collaboratively by having all your tasks organised in one place. You can leave feedback and comments, and even share files on Asana. This makes it easier for everyone to plan out their time and use their WFH hours more effectively to meet deadlines.

So, Why Should You Use Asana?

One key feature is that they are integrated with 100+ of your favorite WFH apps such as Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Office 365, Google Calendar, and Google Drive. 

Not only that, you can also manage your projects and monitor your team’s progress by generating real-time charts and other visuals. This way, you can easily spot any bottlenecks, and ensure the whole team is on track and meeting their targets. You can track everything the team is working on all in one place!

Available on: Web, iOS, Android, Chrome, Firefox.

Pricing: FREE. Paid plans start at $10.99/employee per month.

Find out more here!

For Time-tracking

Jibble

Capterra: 4.8, Google Play: 4.4

IMAGE: Jibble

Jibble is a free time clock app that uses real time attendance to help businesses track when their staff are working. 

With most industries making the necessary arrangements for their staff to work from home during the pandemic, Jibble also helps employers provide a structure to the work day and monitor when employees start and end work for the day.

So, Why Should You Use Jibble?

Jibble allows your staff to be accountable for their time without the need for any spying or micromanagement. They can clock in as if they’ve walked into the office and clock out at the end of the work day once they’re done. They can do so from anywhere including web browser, mobile, MS Teams or Slack.

This way, your employees are held accountable for their time and productivity while they are clocked in. Not only that, they are answerable to the important calls and discussions that are being held while they are working. You can easily monitor who is working, and on what project and for how long. 

Available on: iOS, Android, Mac and Windows. 

Pricing: FREE. Paid plans start at $2 USD/employee per month.

Sign up today!

For File-sharing

Microsoft OneDrive

Capterra: 4.4, Google Play: 4.5

IMAGE: Microsoft 

OneDrive is Microsoft’s answer to Google Drive. It is a cloud-based storage app that allows you to store documents, folders and photos and share them with the rest of your team. You can easily have access to all your files wherever and whenever, across all your devices.

So, Why Should You Use OneDrive?

Collaboration is made easy with OneDrive. It offers seamless, real-time collaboration across all Office apps such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint when you store your files on OneDrive. It even allows you to choose and limit the people within your organisation who have access to certain files, and prevent edits and downloads from the people you are sharing these documents with. 

The best thing yet, with a cloud-based document storage and file-sharing app like this, you can access your files across web, mobile and desktop. You can even view files offline. 

Available on: iOS, Android, Mac and Windows. 

Pricing: FREE 5gb storage. 

OneDrive Business plans start at $5 USD/user per month.

Try it now!

There you have it, these are some of our recommendations of the top 5 apps you need to manage your WFH team in 2021. For more of our favorite remote working tools, click here!

Cover image sourced from master1305 on Freepik.