A gallup revealed that an organization with active employee engagement can be 22% more profitable than others. This explains the paradigm shift in business strategies in contemporary times.

Speaking of driving forces behind high engagement, motivation takes the top spot. But what are the driving forces behind high motivation in the workplace? What makes employees feel motivated to display exorbitant commitment and diligence? Well, there could be different answers to these questions.

However, one determining factor that plays a vital role in driving motivation in the workplace is employee recognition. Appreciation from superiors, managers, and co-workers stimulates great zeal and motivation among employees.

In fact, as per HubSpot, 69 percent of employees assert that they will invest greater commitment in the workplace when they receive genuine appreciation. Besides,  a report by Randstad concluded that 27 percent of employees tend to quit in the absence of appreciation.

So, as you can see, from the motivation of employees to high engagement and retention among employees, employee appreciation is indispensable. In the absence of virtues of appreciation, recognition and other fringe benefits, employees can get demotivated and disengaged.

To help you find ideas, this article puts forth some unique and innovative ideas for employee appreciation. Without further ado, let’s jump in.

1. Award flexibility and autonomy

Speaking of employees’ expectations in this reinvented corporate space, flexibility is what they desire the most. Employees will be more than happy to continue remote work even after the pandemic is long gone. They are of the view that flexible working arrangements facilitate a better work-life balance. So why not make flexibility a reward they can win with exemplary performance?

As per CompareCamp, 73 percent of employees assert that flexible work arrangements are vital for greater job satisfaction. Having said that, they seek flexible working styles and flexible working hours. Moreover, they desire autonomy to work in their own way and on tools of their choice.

Therefore, offering greater flexibility and autonomy to your top performers can be a brilliant idea. When you recognize your employees by empowering them, it will set a performance benchmark for the entire workforce.

Everyone would love to work their way to winning more flexibility and autonomy, isn’t it? Let autonomy be a metaphor for employee appreciation and recognition.

 2. Cultivate a culture of gratitude

Appreciation and gratitude are quite complementary to each other, aren’t they? Given that, it is better if both appreciation and gratitude co-exist in the workplace.

Here is a fascinating insight on workplace gratitude! Research by Harvard University concluded that gratefulness in the workplace can amplify employee productivity by 50 percent. To add, 81 percent of employees opine that they would be happy to go the extra mile for a grateful boss. Are you a grateful boss who believes in the simple art of thankfulness?

When there is a natural culture of gratitude in the workplace, appreciation is facilitated better. A sense of thankfulness will further promote the need for appreciation. However, it starts with you and you need to lead by example. When you start thanking people and appreciating them for their contributions, it will become a natural virtue in the workplace.

Now it makes complete sense why you should be a thankful boss, isn’t it?

3. Offer personalized rewards

It is obvious that your employees will have varied interests and passions. Having said that, awarding fancy trophies to your employees may not be the most innovative idea.

Give them something valuable to them and they can use it to their advantage. That will be a much better reward than a trophy to keep in the cabinet or a framed certificate to be hung on the wall. Personalized rewards would be great as tokens of appreciation!

If someone is a fan of binge-watching, buy them a Netflix subscription instead of a trophy. Similarly, if someone is a fitness maniac, show appreciation by awarding them a gym membership. Also something for those that love to learn new things, like a new language, you can provide them with access to language learning resources.

On similar lines, you can take the help of the HR department to explore the interests of your employees and exhibit your appreciation via customized rewards. Your employees would absolutely love the idea! Besides, they feel far more motivated than receiving gift hampers or certificates of appreciation.

Besides, such personalization in rewards will further foster a sense of belonging in them. This feeling of belonging will have its own role to play in the motivation of employees. A study by BetterUp revealed that a strong sense of belonging can enhance job performance by 56 percent.

So, you better start working on promoting greater belonging in your employees! Personalized rewards based on their interests would be a great way of achieving that.

4. Leverage social media for employee appreciation

We all know how powerful and charming social media is in this era of overwhelming digitalization. Do you know that as per projections by Statista, the number of global social media users will reach 4.41 billion by 2025?

Given the colossal outreach of social media, you should look to leverage it for your business in all plausible ways. One of the greatest benefits social media offers is that it gives you a perfect platform to appreciate your employees.

Celebrate the persistent hard work and excellence of your employees through social media shoutouts. Post the pictures of your top performers on the social media handles of your business and express gratitude and appreciation through heart-warming captions. Let everyone connected to your social media profiles know who your top performers are.

Employees would find themselves brimming with confidence and motivation to be at the receiving end of such appreciation. Besides, it will also enable their peers and co-workers to congratulate them by posting comments. As a result, it can bring more likes and higher engagement rate that can help your business growth, too.

Needless to say, employees would love every bit of such special mentions on social media. They would want to win more social media mentions in the future and for that, they will keep their productivity upbeat. Quite a smart and social way of exhibiting employee recognition, isn’t it?

4. Feature appreciation in internal newsletters

If your company has gone completely remote, there may be a certain deficit in employees’ access to the latest company information and developments. This is where digital internal newsletters can be of great help.

Internal newsletters can serve multidimensional purposes in an organization. They can be used to keep employees in remote jobs updated with the latest events in the organization. Besides, you can also extend appreciation to your best performers by featuring them in the internal newsletters.

You can dedicate an entire column in the newsletter to employee recognition and appreciation. In this column, a detailed account of the achievements of the employees can be given. In this way, everyone in the organization will know who the top achievers of a specific month or quarter are.

Moreover, the top management of the company can also share their vision and strategic plans for the coming quarters through internal newsletters.

6. Create an exclusive achievers’ club

Let the highest form of recognition in the workplace be in terms of privileges offered by an exclusive league of achievers. An achiever’s club in the workplace should be about exclusive benefits for performers who settle for nothing less than excellence.

An achiever’s club can offer the following exquisite benefits to the top-performing employees as an expression of your appreciation for employees.

• Exclusive mentorship programs for career development
• Health and financial wellness programs
• Sponsored vacations
• Health insurance and telemedicine benefits
• Monetary incentives and attractive perks

The list is inexhaustible and you can add as many exclusive privileges as you may think of. Of course, they have to be in line with the budget you want to set for employee appreciation. In fact, an achievers’ club can be a fabulous idea for motivating employees.

Those who get an entry into this achiever’s club and get access to these privileges will be able to derive massive motivation. Besides, for others who see their co-workers being a part of this superlative league, they too would want to put in greater commitment and make their way to this club.

All in all, such a league of achievers will set a fine performance benchmark in the organization. It will act as a perfect motivation for employees who would then want to realign their goals with the objectives of the organization in a more worthwhile manner.

Besides, of course, it will also be a creative way of extending recognition and rewards to employees. The impact such a framework will have on employee engagement and retention will also be incredible.

7. Celebrate your people

The idea of employe appreciation should not be limited to celebrating achievements. You also need to appreciate the effort and the persistence invested by your employees in every task. Sometimes their efforts would translate into accomplishments and at times they might not.

This is where you have to be more flexible with your idea of appreciating your employees. To keep your team motivated, celebrate your people. Celebrate their contributions, accomplishment of small goals, and their allegiance to your organization.

Let them know that the celebration of diversity in the workplace, birthdays and even the smallest milestones are all part of an inclusive culture of appreciation. When you organize such celebrations in the workplace, be vocal about the idea behind it.

Tell your employees that these gestures are in lieu of their undying commitment and the value they add to the company. See how they would respond with enchanting smiles and greater motivation to keep the positivity going! Everyone deserves a nice break full of great things to stay motivated after all, isn’t it?

Always remember, celebrating your people and their little acts of goodwill is one of the best tactics for high employee engagement.

8. Give bonus paid leave

If you ask your employees to tell you their top three wishes, additional paid leaves would most certainly be one of them. Employees always find themselves in a crunch situation when it comes to paid leaves.

Most of them seek some extra time off from work to get a better work-life balance going. Moreover, they feel that some extra paid leaves would be great for their mental health and work motivation.

Hence, offering some bonus paid leave to employees for exemplary performances will be a good idea. Let’s say in the usual sense, your employees are entitled to two paid leavers per month.

However, if someone has performed well in the last month or quarter, you can offer them to avail a few additional paid leaves. When you do that, remember to tell them that it is a token of appreciation from the organization.

They would feel great to hear that and the feeling of appreciation behind this special entitlement will rejuvenate their motivation. In fact, additional paid leaves are among the best non-monetary rewards you can give to your employees.

9. Order surprise meals

Who does not like food? So, if you have to think of some nice gestures for appreciating your employees, order surprise meals for them. Even if your team members are working from home, you can have a surprise meal delivered to their doorstep with a small appreciation note.

Your employees would adore such sweet acts and the appreciation note would be the cherry on the cake. All you need to do is pick up your phone and place an order for the favorite meal of the employee you want to reward.

Quite a convenient and cost-effective way of appreciating someone, isn’t it?

10. Conduct virtual coffee breaks

As per Forbes, 70 percent of the global workforce will be in remote arrangements by 2025. We all know how remote and hybrid workplace cultures are becoming a hit in contemporary times.

Having said that, the bright future of remote work is well known to us. Telecommuting is the way forward and we need to adapt briskly.

What this means is that employers and managers need to find some unique ideas to appreciate employees virtually. Besides, it is a well-known fact that employees prefer recognition in front of their peers to receiving appreciation in private.

Hence, the need of the hour is to find some brilliant ideas for virtual appreciation. Well, virtual coffee breaks can be an amazing idea to serve this purpose. Whenever there is a need to extend recognition to employees, you can conduct a virtual coffee break using virtual escape rooms.

A virtual coffee break means that everyone breaks at the same time and connects through video conferencing software. The virtual coffee breaks can be about relaxing and candid conversations outside the ambit of work.

Moreover, during these breaks, you can take out a moment to appreciate your employees and let everyone know of their accomplishments. A lot can happen over a cup of coffee after all! Doesn’t it make a fabulous idea to recognize prodigious performance?

To conclude, it is interesting how the expression of appreciating employees is becoming a competitive advantage for organizations. Companies are now acknowledging the quintessential link between employee recognition and motivation. Better appreciation leads to greater motivation and engagement which are paramount to an organization’s success.

However, better employee appreciation in contemporary times is synonymous with unique ideas to reward employees. This blog for sure sets a perfect template of innovative and novel ideas for employee appreciation.

The post 10 Unique Employee Appreciation Ideas appeared first on Fleep Blog.

While starting a business can pay off, managing a remote team can be challenging for new business owners.

Every aspect of the traditional office environment changes when employees are spread over different cities, towns, and sometimes, even countries.

Here are 10 tips that will help you manage your newly assembled remote team.

1. Set the right foundation

A strong foundation is an indicator of a successful business, remote or not.

Entrepreneurs or small business owners need to conduct thorough research to formulate a remote business plan that includes:

• Business description
• Business goals
• Unique selling point (USP)
• Internal structure
• Work processes
• Financial projections

When all of these factors are planned comprehensively, starting a remote business becomes easier. A solid business plan helps founders secure funding since they can clearly explain what they’re going to do with an investor’s money or business loan.

2. Employee Management

From an employee perspective, a good business plan gives you a clear idea of the kind of remote team members you want to work with. Everything from the job description to the hiring process is efficiently crafted and executed.

However, before hiring team members, you need to decide how you will manage the back-end operations.

When starting a remote business, you often don’t have the time to individually manage all the paperwork, payroll, benefits, etc. In a traditional business, the HR department handles these tasks.

To reduce the burden on their shoulders, remote business owners should consider outsourcing their employee management.

When you don’t have administrative tasks to bog you down, you can focus on a potential employee’s skills, experience, and how they fit into your team rather than their paperwork.

3. The Right Software

Once you’ve got the best people working for and with you, the first step in ensuring they can do their job efficiently is providing the right software.

For general workflow management, you can choose a tool like Fleep that combines team communication, messenger apps, and video-calling platforms.

A dynamic tool like this helps streamline team communication, and gives everyone transparency regarding what’s going on in the company. It also enhances collaboration both within a team and between different teams.

PRO TIP: When you start a company room or workspace, create a channel for general conversation. This channel should ideally be for non-work chatter where people can connect.

You’ll also need to invest in a good CRM, spend management software, accounting software, project management software, an online course platform for training, mobile device management software for improved data security, and any other specific tool related to your niche or business.

4. Set Expectations

As the founder, everyone looks up to you, and most employees will likely be intimidated by you.

It’s vital that you actively create a friendly work culture where everyone is cordial without disregarding professional conduct.

The key to a good workspace culture is to set expectations early. You need to provide clear guidelines, set boundaries, and outline the basics.

One way to do this is to use cloud-based software to link to company information and guidelines.

You should also be on hand to answer queries quickly. This is especially important in the initial stages when you’ve just hired key team members like managers and team leads.

When higher-ups are well-informed and abide by your guidelines, it’s easier to form a culture where everyone understands the business’ goals and priorities.

5. Build Rapport

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Entrepreneurs and business owners have to walk a fine line between building a friendly workculture while still maintaining their authority.

You want to come off as a genuine person that cares about their employees without crossing a line.

As stated earlier, a non-work channel for general chatter is excellent for this. You can share fun pictures, comment on things happening around the world (keep it light, though), host polls, share gifs and memes, etc.

As the company leader, you want those under your employ to come to you if they have any work-related problems rather than let things get worse in silence because they’re intimidated.

This could be a manager that has noticed an issue with the workflow or an employee that is having trouble focusing on their tasks.

6. Have Longer One-on-ones

When a team is fully remote, one-on-one meetings become an important part of connecting with employees.

You might already be having solo meetings, but remote companies require lengthier sessions.

A one-on-one is typically a feedback session, but the praise or complaints go both ways. A solo meeting helps you let employees know where they stand and clears any doubts about expectations and performances.

It humanizes you as well. You aren’t just seen as a money-hungry CEO or manager, but rather a leader that cares and wants to connect with their troops.

Encourage your employees to provide criticism or any suggestions for improving current work processes.

One-on-ones are also excellent for building rapport. All those random conversations that typical employees might have in the break room or at company events don’t happen for remote teams, which is why group or solo virtual meetings are so important for bonding. Get yourself one of the virtual meeting platforms that are available and start building rapport with your team.

7. Maintain Morale

Morale is an extremely important part of remote team management. You can bond, address frustrations, etc., via company events, retreats, or a nice office dinner in a traditional office.

You can’t do any of those things with a remote team, so you need to be creative.

Replace breakroom hangouts with a virtual one, like an hour-long coffee session once a week. Virtual games are also an option for team building.

Both remote and in-person companies can boost morale by sending gifts for important occasions or milestones.

Since you don’t know each of your employees’ likes and dislikes, you can send generic gifts (sweatshirts, t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.), or you could offer them coupons to get discounts on whatever they want to buy.

8. Automate Remote Processes

Productivity is the backbone of business growth. As such, you and your team should constantly be working toward your goals rather than mindlessly busy with mundane tasks.

Every department can benefit from automating business processes.

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Automation is crucial for companies that are just starting. Every day has a significant impact on the business. You don’t want your employees to focus on repetitive tasks or waste time moving files manually.

The goal is to keep your team working on as many impactful tasks as possible while automation handles the rest.

For example, your HR team will save time and can focus on employee management when processes like leave requests, sales orders, onboarding for new employees, etc., are automated.

9. Sales Development

New businesses heavily bank on sales reps to get new clients or client projects. An ineffective sales team or sales process can be the downfall of a company.

While sales executives capture leads, sales development representatives (SDRs) nurture them and move prospective customers down the sales funnel.

Given how crucial their role is, business owners and managers should build an SDR process that dictates team members’ roles and responsibilities.

Arguably the hardest part of the SDR process is prospecting — when the team sends emails, makes phone calls, and utilizes social selling to create opportunities to close the deal.

You need to clearly define each aspect of this process with your SDRs in detail and provide them with the right tools to get the job done. For example, an email verifier can help SDRs speed up outbound emails and ensure they’re not wasting time.

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Your SDR process involves many other elements and is likely to keep changing with current market trends. Be sure to design every element efficiently and make sure you answer any questions upon implementation.

10. Schedule Annual In-Person Meetups

There’s only so much you can do over video calls and chat. Nothing beats getting everyone together in person at least once a year.

You can shell out for a company trip to an exotic location or organize a meet-up at a location that is close to everyone.

It’s like a mini-vacation with your coworkers. Spirits are usually high, conversations flow, and you can have epic discussions about anything from time travel to company culture.

You can use a part of the meet-up to show gratitude for your employees.

It’s also a great opportunity for team bonding. Some companies plan team icebreaker games during retreats for a little bit of competitive fun.

When planning company meet-ups, don’t plan strict schedules. You can plan some activities but leave enough space for employees to actually enjoy themselves.

If your remote team is scattered around the world and can’t all travel to the same destination, you can encourage smaller groups to meet at a convenient location once or twice a year.

Conclusion

Remote teams are the way of the future. Many studies of employees and CEOs have found that a significant portion of the workforce wants to stay remote, even after the pandemic subsides.

Entrepreneurs have a unique business opportunity in front of them — they can create diverse remote teams that work just as well or better than an in-person one while saving money on startup and overhead costs.

Of course, your remote teams require just as much management and guidance. We hope the tips we’ve provided help you become an even greater leader.

The post 10 Tips for Managing a Remote Team When Starting a New Business appeared first on Fleep Blog.

In 2021, productivity is all about automation and integration. The tools that offer the broadest range of seamless integrations and the most effective automation rules increase your efficiency levels and enhance your value.

With this in mind, take a look at the top 10 productivity tools for 2021.

1. Gmail

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As one of the most widely used applications on the internet, it’s no surprise that Gmail is a productivity tool that everyone should be using in 2021.

In addition to secure and professional email management, Gmail offers a range of features that streamline workflows and increase efficiency.

Smart features and personalization ensure you can customize your Gmail account to suit our needs and access intuitive controls at any time. When you’re invited to an event via email, for example, Gmail automatically adds it to your Google Calendar.

Similarly, the Google app uses the information stored to provide you with valuable, time-saving reminders, such as Google Maps showing exact travel times and directions to upcoming appointments.

Helpful nudges even keep you up to date with correspondence and remind you when an email appears to require a reply or when to follow up if you have received a response.

While Gmail’s in-built features certainly go a long way to making your email communication effective, you can integrate several other tools to increase its functionality.

With Slack, Asana, and Google Drive add-ons, for example, it’s easy to combine your most-used tools into one centralized hub.

2. Hugo

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 To achieve maximum productivity levels, you need to be highly organized, and that’s one reason why Hugo is a must-have tool for 2021.

Instead of meetings resulting in potential actions, unconfirmed collaborations, and confusion, Hugo allows you to keep clear, concise notes in one location.

By connecting your meeting notes, calendars, tasks, and most-used apps, Hugo simplifies your virtual workspace and allows you to function with increased efficiency.

Multi-user note editing in real-time facilitates instant collaboration, even if your workforce is distributed across different locations.

Currently, you can integrate Hugo with more than 20 apps, including posting ‘next tasks’ to Asana, syncing agendas via Slack, and transporting Google video calls straight into the Hugo platform.

With connections to both Office 365 and Google Calendar, it’s easy to update your schedule as new events are organized.

3. Miro

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Designed for teamwork, Miro’s visual-based collaboration platform makes working with colleagues simple, straightforward, and highly productive.

When millions of employees are working remotely, Miro’s real-time collaborations, presentations, and video calling ensure seamless connectivity and enhanced productivity.

You can use whiteboards, flow charts and a range of other graphical features to compile and present data within the Miro framework, add comments in the same way as you would in Google Docs and even save time with an ‘omnifeed’ that shows comments across all boards.

The Miro Apps Marketplace offers more than 90 app integrations, which means you can connect Miro and its features to your most-used tools and platforms to create cohesive workflows.

4. Asana

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Known for its first-class integration, Asana is a task and workflow management platform that’s used by millions of people worldwide.

Asana incorporates a range of complex methodologies but successfully presents them in easy-to-use features.

Compared to similar tools, such as Trello or Wrike, the capabilities, simplicity, and enhanced integration ensure that Asana comes out on top. It is also ranked as one of the top project management tools by TechnologyAdvice.

With an interactive Slack plugin, you can turn Slack messages into Asana tasks, create new tasks and action existing tasks from within Slack, view Asana data in Slack, and much, much more.

Similar integrations ensure seamless connectivity with a wide range of apps, including Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Jira Server, and Zoom.

Android and iOS apps show you a daily digest of your Asana workstreams, so you manage your workload and stay productive when you’re on the go.

Furthermore, a Premium subscription enables you to begin external guests into your Asana workspace to view and collaborate on projects.

5. Google Workspace

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The perfect tool to use a centralized platform, Google Workspace incorporates a wide range of features, including Docs, Sheets, Data Studio, Forms, Calendar, and Google Meet.

As you might expect, you can use Google Workspace alongside Gmail and the Google App to streamline every aspect of your work management.

Virtual Data Rooms allow you to group and store documents according to custom parameters, which means you can share, collaborate and update information in real-time.

With upcoming changes to Google Meets, such as attendance tracking, ‘hand raising’ and recording, virtual meetings can be conducted in a fraction of the time, with better outcomes.

6. Zapier

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If integration is a critical element of today’s productivity tools, there’s no doubt that Zapier is a must-have piece of software. With more than 3,000 app integrations, Zapier can be used to increase the functionality of your favorite apps.

Designed to facilitate automation between apps, Zapier streamlines your working methodologies and saves you a significant amount of time.

When a new email is received from a particular subject, Zapier integrations facilitate automated task creation in Asana. They will even insert a new row in an existing Google Doc.

What’s more – when a new row is created in a Google Doc, it can be automatically added to other Google Docs in a different format or place, depending on the criteria you set out.

Similarly, when a Slack message contains the term ‘meeting’, you can set up an automation rule that sends the Slack message, along with the preceding five or 10 messages, to the meeting moderator or note-taker.

When used for lead nurturing, Zapier integrations identify prospects who have reached certain trigger points and executes custom actions, such as sending welcoming emails or newsletters.

Additionally, you can:

• Automatically create Basecamp To-Dos from incoming emails
• Create Jira Issues from Asana Tasks
• Add tasks, project events, and milestones from a range of data sources into a single, universal calendar

While Zapier is great, it can get pretty costly and complicated in some cases. If that’s the case, you can always consider a number of Zapier alternatives as well.

7. Toggl Track

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If a lack of time seems to eat away at your productivity, Toggl Track can transform your working day. It’s an awesome free tool for small businesses, a leading time-tracking tool: it ensures you can track any type of work and get more done.

As well as using the platform to manage your own time, supervisors, managers, and business owners can manage teams via Toggle Track and improve efficiency organization-wide.

Automated time-tracking means you won’t have to action time management. Instead, you can rely on Toggle Track to:

• Pull data from open pages
• Implement popular time management techniques using the Pomodoro Timer
• Use automation rules to instantly add time-based information to Toggl Track from apps, such as Google Docs and Asana

8. Loom

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Effortlessly simple yet remarkably effective, Loom transforms communication and saves you time. Instead of sending text-based emails, Loom enables users to create and record video messages of your camera, screen, or both.

Delivering increased accuracy, speed, and engagement, Loom allows you to get your message across faster and with greater clarity.

With Loom, you can forget lengthy walls of text and embrace a new era of efficiency with video messaging instead. A desktop app, iOS app, and Chrome extension ensure you can use Loom across devices in the way that’s most convenient for you.

9. Markup Hero

Markup Hero is making a name for itself as the best in class screenshot and annotation productivity tool. It quickly allows you to take a (scrolling) screenshot and share unique links, while also letting you add always editable annotations. You can even upload images, PDFs, or captures websites directly and add annotations all from you web browser and on any device.

Features included:

• Screenshot – Screenshot Tab, Scrolling Screenshot Tab, Screenshot Desktop
• Uploader – Upload images, PDFs + Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides
• Annotation Tools – Text, Arrow, Line, Rectangle, Oval, Blur, Pen, Highlighter
• Editing Tools – Colors, Font Size / Line Thickness, Move, Scale, Rotate, Undo / Redo, Delete
• Insert Images – Add images to any page to enhance your feedback or message
• Share Link – Copy and share a unique sharable link for your image, screenshot, PDF or markup

Moreover, the tool already has a host of useful integrations, including Google Drive, Slack, and even a Chrome Extension if you don’t want to use their desktop screenshot app. The team has even released an API that you can use to add annotations with your own app.

The tool is free to use and doesn’t even require you to sign up to give it a spin. They also offer a pro plan starting at $4/month if you need unlimited usage and access to all the advanced tools (including custom privacy settings)

10. Fleep

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Fleep is known for its instant messaging features, but, in reality, it’s far more than merely a messenger. It’s the connective tissue that brings all of your work team communication together.

The software supports rich text, tasks, pinned messages, file-sharing and integrations that save you time and make your work life easier.

One key feature that sets Fleep apart from other workplace messengers (and makes it a great Slack alternative) is Presence. These days, being online doesn’t mean you’re available. Fleep’s Presence features share key important information about everyone’s participation in the conversations.

Simply check anyone’s profile to see when they were last active in Fleep. You can also see who has read your messages with our Seen-by (Read) indicators. Additionally, you can see if someone’s busy writing a reply with the Writing indicator.

11. Avoma

Known for its ease of use (ranked no.1 on G2 Crowd) and its AI-powered technology, Avoma is a Conversation Management Platform that helps customer-facing teams capture important customer information, before, during, and after important meetings.

Avoma goes beyond the general set of conversation intelligence tools. It analyzes conversation insights, and intelligence to help reps shorten sales cycles and delight more customers.

With Avoma, you can automatically record all your meetings, get full transcripts and summarized notes, and actionable insights synced directly to your CRM. Review calls and meetings faster by searching directly within transcripts and using identified topics to find exactly what you’re looking for.

The platform integrates with all major CRMs, dialers, conferencing tools and calendars. Avoma also offers a pretty flexible pricing model that starts at $15.

Find the Best Productivity Tools for Your Teams

With so many programs out there claiming to increase productivity, you could spend weeks merely trying to gauge which one is right for you.

Fortunately, our handy roundup of the top 10 productivity tools for 2021 makes it easy to identify the most effective software for your needs.

Whether you’re working from home, managing a remote team, or operating on-site, using a combination of these top tools can help you evade productivity killers, increase efficiency and enhance your success.

The post Top 11 Productivity Tools For 2021 appeared first on Fleep Blog.

With the evolution of modern technologies, when employees can use cloud-based SaaS software to connect and collaborate with colleagues, more and more people get an opportunity to work remotely. In fact, the number of people working from home has risen by 400% since 2010. Today, 3.9 million people work from home.

Remote work has many benefits for employers and employees. Workers get flexibility, increased productivity, and better work-life balance while employers have lower business expenses, improved employee satisfaction, and reduced employee turnover.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has impacted the growth of remote work as companies have allowed their employees to work from home.

Although many businesses were skeptical about remote work, most of them saw an increase in employee productivity. As a result, 74% of companies plan to shift to remote work permanently and 70% of the existing workforce will work remotely by 2025.

Remote work is the future of the workforce. Here’s what business owners and employees can expect of remote work in 2021.

1. The Growing Number of Fully or Semi-Remote Roles

The global pandemic has affected the growth of remote workforce. According to Reuters, the permanent remote working opportunities are expected to double up in 2021.

Modern employees want to work remotely. One report has found that 99% of people would like to work remotely at least some of the time for the rest of their careers.

If your workers can transition to online work with ease, that’s great. But if your employees are unable to complete their job duties from home, semi-remote roles suit them best as these people can balance working from home and office.

Moreover, there is a great variety of tools that help companies of all sizes and niches manage their remote employees who need assistance.

For example, if your employees work in shifts, it’s a good idea to use a time clock app for small businesses that helps managers and employees enjoy the balance between in-house sociability and telecommuting flexibility.

In short, the number of fully or semi-remote roles is predicted to grow, so companies should adapt to remote work as it’s here to stay.

2. Increased Number of Freelance Gigs

People are ready to take freelance gigs and the modern workforce offers these opportunities.

According to one research, 52% of the U.S. workforce has worked as an independent contributor while 55% of freelancers still have other full-time jobs.

In 2021, businesses will also move towards the more agile form of recruitment and job allocation. Based on the insights presented by Adam Ozimek, who is currently listed as Upwork’s Chief Economist, remote work can disrupt the geographical distribution of the remote workforce which would then bring in more freelancers and outsourced gigs into the mix.

Remote work allows people to take freelance gigs and therefore make more money that can give people flexibility and freedom. Moreover, the demand for freelancers is on the rise.

3. Advanced Teamwork and Collaboration

It’s no secret that most corporations were skeptical about remote work due to the lack of professional collaboration, erratic shifts in productivity, and depleted teamwork.

In 2021, we can expect remote workforce management to see positive changes. Why? Modern society is constantly changing, so the market offers a great number of remote working tools so that every business can find the right solution for their needs and wants.

Today, more and more companies invest in collaboration software:

Let’s take Fleep, for example. This tool allows users to share files and tasks which helps to coordinate the team’s work with ease.

But when your team members face a problem and they need assistance, companies can rely on  remote access apps that allow people to get virtual help.

All in all, the growth of remote work software leads to advanced teamwork and collaboration which help team members communicate with their co-workers, no matter where they work from. As a result, remote work leads to higher productivity and a better work-life balance. Moreover, we can expect to see more tools and apps for remote work in 2021.

4. The Growth of Outsourcing

In addition to setting the highest possible remote working standards, 2021 will also see massive growth in the outsourcing demands.

Smaller businesses will look to get a major chunk of their work done by independent, outsourced vendors to minimize reliance on in-hour labor. For instance, it seems to be a smarter idea to outsource your extended software team for a project instead of hiring in-house employees.

Outsourced jobs will find their way back into the employment sector, either as smaller freelancing gigs or contractual services. This approach will also pave the way for a chain reaction, eventually resulting in a lesser requirement for office spaces, inclination on co-working arenas, and better organization security.

However, the growth of outsourcing has its impact, too.  For now, organizations should keep a closer eye on the cybersecurity threats. Every business should invest time and effort in remote cybersecurity as the majority of work comes into the organizational server from the remote and alienated arenas. This is the reason why we are expecting the 2021 remote work scenario to be more inclined towards end-point security and other measures for keeping cyber threats at bay.

5. Better Work-Life Balance

Remote work is flourishing. Organizations provide their remote workers with various tools and apps to make their workflows easier. For example, digital marketing agencies who help companies build social media presence on various platforms use social media management tools to put some duties on autopilot and make it easier for their workers to concentrate on creative tasks.

Many companies also outsource tasks that can be outsourced. For example, organizations can use content marketing service provides, like essay writer pro experts or some other relative content specialists.

Since collaboration and teamwork become easier, both employers and remote workers get an opportunity to manage their workflow better and therefore become more productive.

During the pandemic, companies have started sharing productivity tips with their employees to help them overcome social isolation. What is more, businesses spend less on managing remote teams, so companies have budgets to invest in employees’ development and health.

Not only does it lead to an emotional bond between employees and organizations, but it also positively affects employee satisfaction that helps your team members keep a better work-life balance.

The Bottom Line: The New Normal of Remote Work in 2021

In the last decade, when more people got an opportunity to work from anywhere, the idea of working remotely had been lucrative for workers from all over the world. In 2020, the spread of COVID-19 has impacted many organizations and office workers have adjusted to different forms of remote work.

Today, a great number of people work outside the office and remote work is likely to persist long after the pandemic. Obviously, remote work requires companies to reinvent many processes and policies, but many professionals believe that remote work is the future of the workforce.

So, are you ready to make the most out of this new reality?

The post The Future of Remote Work in 2021 appeared first on Fleep Blog.

It’s now easier than ever to create a chatbot, and approximately 5 to 10% of companies actively use them.

The most common use case of chatbots is customer communications and support. In fact, the best CRMs come with chatbots built in. However, chatbots have many features and talents that are underutilized and can be used to help a company internally.

In this brief article, we’ll look at the top ways chatbots improve team productivity and communication.

1. Automating Routine Tasks & Freeing Talent

Employees in a company always have plenty of questions to ask. While there’s no such thing as a stupid question, there is such a thing as a simple question. Chatbots can be used to take care of routine tasks such as booking appointments, answering frequently asked questions, requesting tools and materials, and so on.

Furthermore, this isn’t limited to internal staff, but also external users. In fact, you’ve probably already booked an appointment using a chatbot or had some basic questions answered by one.

Thereby, using a chatbot allows you to free up time from all levels of employees, improving team productivity and hopefully profit.

2. Eliminating Time-Consuming Searches for Information

Most companies have thousands of files taking up terabytes of space, and there is nothing wrong with this. Unfortunately, most search utilities are slow, and finding the required files can be time-consuming and even problematic, especially if a deep-search is required.

A chatbot can be used to create a directory of the company’s IT systems. This way, if someone is looking for a specific file they will be able to ask the chatbot where they find this file. This is also useful if the employee doesn’t know the file naming convention for the type of file they are looking for.

3. Create a Consistent Experience Between Departments

In large companies, there are always distinct differences between different departments. Especially if you manage different shifts of your workforce, it’s a good idea to use various employee scheduling software to make sure all of your employees know about their schedule changes or get shift reminders.

Often, you’ll find that a manufacturing team has a completely different feeling than a PR team. Now, this is, of course, to be expected as they use completely different tools, software, and serve different purposes. Often, information gets lost or left behind “in transit”.

With advancements in technology and artificial intelligence, it’s now easier than ever to create a working chatbot that can learn and pull everything into a single unified system. While it would take a long time to set up a system such as this, the performance and communications improvements would be well worth it in a large company.

A centralized chatbot with access to all key data across the whole company will give employees instant access to information when necessary. For instance, managers and A-level executives will be able to access operations, production, and sales data in their as well as other branches by simply asking the chatbot. It can seriously improve and speed up strategic decision making. Similarly, chatbots can be used to send updates and messages to all the employees, specific teams, or individual staff.

Here at Fleep, we’ve created a tool that combines team communication, file sharing, and tasks. Thereby if you use Fleep you’ll be able to immediately get rid of some of the tools that you’re already using and move towards a more unified system.

However, data accuracy and consistency at a company helps managers and executives get a clearer picture of what’s happening and therefore make more informed decisions more quickly and more efficiently.

If workflow and productivity is one of your biggest pain points, then you should look into ways of improving your productivity using technology.

4. Improving Training/Onboarding

We’ve all been the new kid at a company, and truth be told it’s not exactly an exciting experience. There are endless meetings, introduction talks, software and hardware orientation, and so on.

However, did you know that you could use a chatbot to automate a lot of an employee onboarding process? This way you would free up employee time and if done right you’ll also make the onboarding process more exciting for the newbie.

Before I continue, let me state that a chatbot shouldn’t be used to automate everything. The whole task of onboarding is to get a new employee integrated into the company. If you were to remove all social interaction from this process not only would they end up disliking your company, they probably wouldn’t want to work there for long either.

Chatbots improve team productivity by helping new employees set up their accounts, quickly access learning materials,, or schedule meeting times with different employees. It can also help them get introduced and acquainted with the systems and processes used within the company. On the whole, this should save your HR team plenty of time, without sacrificing important human interaction.

5. Providing Access to Ongoing HR Support

In most companies, it’s impossible to give individual attention to every single employee on a regular basis. However, all employees will need constant support and help. This is where a chatbot can step in. It will be able to regularly check in on a person, gather feedback, and if required get human interaction going.

Additionally, as discussed above, it will be able to help with any commonly asked questions such as “what if I’m ill” or “policy in case of pregnancy”, etc. This way your HR team will be more productive, effective, and able to provide attention to the employees who really need it.

6. Serving as an Instant Knowledge Base

Knowledge bases can boost team productivity. They can be an internal or external pool important documents and files.

It may come as a surprise, but a chatbot can also be used to create an instant knowledge base for sales and support calls.

Let’s say an employee is on a support call and they get an unusual question. If you use an interactive voice response (IVR), you can redirect your employees to the right customer support representatives. But if you want to save time, they can also use an internal chatbot system which should be able to answer the question.

Understandably, this system can be built up over time as more and more questions get asked by users. The advantage of such a system is that with some minor changes it can also be used as a support chatbot on the company website if that’s what they wish to use instead of calling a support member.

For sales members, a similar system can be used. While sales members will have an in-depth knowledge of the product they are selling, unfortunately, they won’t always have all the answers a possible client may ask. An internal chatbot system will help them answer unfamiliar questions. This means that your sales team will have a higher success rate and thereby provide you with a larger profit.

The above two combined will mean a significantly higher customer lifetime value which, of course, is the aim of any company.

Conclusion: Chatbots Improve Team Productivity & Communication

So there you have it. Just some of the ways that chatbots can improve team productivity and communication within your company.

Of course, these are just some ideas, and if you let your mind flow we’re sure you’ll be able to come up with plenty more creative ideas on how you can use a chatbot to benefit your company.

The post 6 Ways Chatbots Improve Team Productivity & Communication appeared first on Fleep Blog.