Time management is an essential skill of any small business owner and finding the right productivity tools to help you manage your time can be a challenge. If you own a small construction company, lawn care service, or a janitorial business you don’t have a large team that can help you run your business.
In most cases you or your office manager are doing the hiring, employee time tracking, payroll, and customer service all at the same time so every minute counts.
With the latest technological advancements in the past decade, there is no reason not to use technology to help you with your goal of being more productive with your time.
Here is a list of the best productivity tools to help you and your employees do more:
1. Slack for Team Communication
Slack is the most popular team communication app out on the market. It allows you to create groups (they call them channels) where you can message anyone in that channel or send a private message to one person. You can also upload pictures/documents and send them to your team. What Slack has done is allow users to eliminate emails and run all of their business communication in one place. You can also use the remind tool in Slack to set reminders for the team instead of using a calendar with email reminders, you can use reminders for meetings or submitting paperwork.
2. ezClocker for Time Tracking
If you are frustrated with your employees turning in their timesheets late or can’t read their handwriting then you need to use ezClocker.
ezClocker is one of the best time clock apps out on the market that will save you money and time by allowing you to view your employees’ timesheets in real-time. Ideal for employers with remote employees or if you are always on the go and need to monitor your business away from the office.
Employees can use their own mobile device as a time card and it has GPS support where employee’s GPS location is captured when they clock in/out so the employer can verify their location. Employees can also view their schedules in real-time and find the location of a job site. It has support for iPhone, Android and iPad devices.
3. Flamingo for Managing Employee Leave
Flamingo is a simple and efficient app that makes it easy for modern startups to manage paid time off. It offers a streamlined way for employees to request time off and managers to review and respond to leave requests, which are then automatically logged in your team’s time off calendar.
Many businesses spend hours on data entry when it comes to managing leave, which saps energy and productivity, and leads to errors that disrupt the business. Flamingo automates all this, avoiding disruptions when your team members take time off and empowering employees to be happier and more engaged in their job.
4. RecurPost for Social Media Automation
If you are like most small business owners you probably hired an intern or asked your niece/nephew to handle your social media accounts because let’s face it who has time, right? This is where RecurPost comes in handy.
RecurPost is a productivity tool that allows you to automatically share your updates at perfectly timed intervals to save you hours and increase your engagement every week.
You can schedule all your posts in one day to go out over a week and let RecurPost decide when is the best time to post them. Also, if you have a blog you can recycle your posts using their content library and calendar schedule and RecurPost will recycle through your posts until you cancel it.
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5. Upwork for outsourcing work
If you’ve heard anything about innovative businesses, it’s that outsourcing is much cheaper and convenient than going on a hiring spree. Outsourcing allows you to bring on a contract or freelance worker – something Upwork specializes in.
Upwork is one of the best productivity tools you can have. With its easily navigable and accessible interface, its website allows you to search for various workers – ranging from freelance writers, designers, web and mobile developers, as well as accountants and customer service agents!
All you have to do is sign up, post your job, and you can use the website to share files and other pieces of business with potential workers!
This could help you write a new press release, innovate your website, design a mobile app for your company, or curate blog posts for your website!
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6. Grasshopper Virtual Phone
Founded by two entrepreneurs, Grasshopper has been making it easier to start and grow a small business since 2003. Grasshopper allows you to Create & customize extensions to forward calls anywhere: home, office or cell. You can instantly create 1 digit department extensions and 3 digit employee extensions. Grasshopper works with your existing mobile and home/office phones so you never have to purchase, install, or maintain expensive phone hardware.
When you want to call a client, you can use the Grasshopper mobile app to make calls showing your Grasshopper caller ID (instead of your iPhone’s). Callers will never know you’re calling from your mobile phone.
7. nTask for Project Management
nTask is an easy to use project management tool used by smart teams to get work done on time. From project planning, task execution, work assignment, budget tracking, to celebrating project success, all is done in one centralized workspace of nTask. You can add up to 5 members for free in each workspace.
You will not get bored while using this app to manage your work. Visualize your tasks with the help of interactive Gantt charts with drag and drop functionality, set milestones, and create task dependencies in just a few clicks. It also offers an Android and iOS application to manage your work from everywhere.
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