Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

January 2022

8 Excellent Tools for Todoist Time Tracking (Features, Pricing)

Todoist is a task management tool suitable for individuals and small businesses. This task manager helps teams easily manage their tasks with features like recurring due dates, priority levels, reminders, and more. Unfortunately, Todoist doesn’t support native time tracking. So, how do you perform Todoist time tracking? Simple! Through third-party app integration.

Is Microsoft's Teams Productivity Tracker Legit?

In November 2020, Microsoft launched a productivity app named Microsoft Productivity Score to measure the productivity of your co-located as well as remote team. This Microsoft Teams productivity tracker helps your company break down how much time your employees are spending on all Office 365 tools. In this article, we’ll cover what Microsoft Teams productivity tracker is and the eight parameters it uses to measure your company’s Productivity Score.

Upwork Time Tracking: How to Use, FAQs, Limitations, Alternative

Upwork Global Inc. is a freelance platform designed for effective remote collaboration between clients and independent professionals, like a graphic designer or freelance developer. The platform allows clients to share information and communicate work objectives with virtual teams. And to ensure everyone gets their money’s worth, Upwork provides a time tracking software solution to invoice work time.

Teamwork Time Tracking Guide (Steps, Drawbacks, Alternative)

Teamwork is a leading cloud-based project management software solution with features like Gantt chart functionality, Kanban boards, and time tracking. Its native time tracking is valuable for managing projects, calculating billable hours, and general time management. But how do you set up Teamwork time tracking? More importantly, does Teamwork offer all the time tracking features you need? In this article, we’ll highlight the essential steps for Teamwork time tracking.

10 Smart Tips for the Perfect Remote Working Set Up

Remote work and hybrid work have become increasingly common since the Coronavirus pandemic. And with people working from shared spaces and home offices, it is crucial to highlight the importance of a great remote working set up. But working from home (WFH) isn’t just about pulling up a chair and logging in for the day. Maintaining a well-organized remote workspace can do wonders for your productivity and work-life balance.

20 Proven Work From Home Best Practices

Working from home can be beneficial for both employers and employees. For starters, employees save on time and money that they would’ve otherwise spent on commuting. And employers need not spend on large office spaces, utilities, and other overheads. But on the other hand, working from home can cause loneliness and isolation, leading to lower employee productivity rates. Remote managers may also find it challenging to analyze employee performance.

10 Out-Of-The-Box Virtual Water Cooler Ideas To Promote Teamwork

If you want your team to operate like a well-oiled machine, a good rapport among team members is essential. Spontaneous opportunities to bond, like office water cooler chats, promote teamwork, boost morale, and enhance productivity. This is easy when your employees are in the same office; team bonding can occur naturally. However, if you have remote employees, team-building activities require a little more effort and planning. That’s why your team needs virtual water coolers.

Hiring Flexible Staff in 2022: Everything You Need To Know

Workplace flexibility is becoming increasingly popular among the global workforce, with employees preferring temporary, flexible roles over a permanent nine-to-fiver. As a result, companies are transforming their staffing policies to make more room for flexible staff like part-time employees, independent contractors, etc. But what exactly is flexible staffing? And how do you go about managing and hiring flexible staff?

12 Proven Tips to Nail Your Virtual Presentation

Delivering an effective virtual presentation is no easy task. Whether it’s for pitching to potential clients or discussing project goals with your team, you’ll have to compete for your audience’s attention and ensure your message gets through. In this article, we’ll cover the top 12 virtual presentation tips and best practices for your next virtual meeting. We’ll also look at some of the key benefits of virtual presentations.

Top 15 Ground Rules for Your Team's Virtual Meetings

A virtual meeting is a great way to connect with your remote team, clients, and stakeholders. However, these meetings can often be difficult to execute due to the lack of in-person communication, software errors, and other technical glitches. To overcome such issues and conduct effective meetings in a virtual environment, you need to pay attention to the meeting etiquette.

What is Flextime? Types, Benefits, and Best Practices

Flextime is a work arrangement that lets employees manage their work and personal lives, giving them the liberty to make their own work schedule. Companies adopt flextime systems due to their convenience, low maintenance, and ease of management. They’ve become quite popular during the pandemic-induced lockdowns — when companies had to shift to more flexible remote work. In this article, we’ll talk about flex time and its five types.

GitLab Time Tracking Guide (Limitations, 7 Alternatives)

GitLab is a DevOps platform that helps developers manage the software development process, from the planning stage straight through to the release. The GitLab app also offers a time tracking feature that allows you to track estimates and time spent on epics and merge requests within the app itself. But is GitLab time tracking the answer to all your time management needs? In this article, we will explain how to use the time tracking feature in GitLab and discuss its limitations.

Freshbooks Time Tracking: How it Works & Better Alternatives

Freshbooks is a popular cloud accounting software used primarily by medium and small business owners. The platform has several useful features to help simplify the accounting process and save time. However, the Freshbooks time tracking function is extremely limited. If you’re looking for an efficient way to track time on Freshbook, using dedicated time tracking software would be a much better solution.

5 Best Tools for GitHub Time Tracking [2022 Reviews]

If you’re an individual or business involved in software development, you probably use GitHub — a leading code hosting and version control platform. But when dealing with various GitHub repositories, issues, and requests, developers could easily lose track of time spent on a particular project. So, it’s a great practice to track the time you or your team spends on GitHub. It helps monitor productivity, log time for individual projects, and create accurate invoices.

How to Work Smart with a Task Tracker (Benefits, Best Tools)

Maintaining a lengthy task list with multiple deadlines, client requirements, and resources can be quite a tedious task. Fortunately, you can replace your to-do lists and unreliable sticky notes with a more efficient, fool-proof alternative — a task tracker. A task tracker will ensure that no important task escapes you by tracking everything that requires your attention. In this article, we’ll explore what a task tracker is and how you can use it.

16 Virtual Meetings Best Practices for 2022

The pandemic and the subsequent remote and hybrid work transitions have made virtual meetings the norm for several companies. But conducting a successful remote meeting over tools like Zoom or Microsoft Teams is no simple task. Organizers must deal with myriad challenges to host a successful virtual meeting. Don’t worry. We have got you covered. In this article, we will highlight 16 virtual meetings best practices so that you can make sure your remote meetings are a sure-fire success.

5 Free and Easy to Use Hourly Schedule Templates

An hourly schedule template helps your employees become more organized and efficient while performing their duties. With the help of an hourly schedule template, you can keep track of what tasks an employee works on and how much time they take to finish it. In this article, we’ll share five downloadable hourly schedule templates and discuss the pros and cons of using them. We’ll also explore a much better way to track your employee hours more precisely.

What is Asynchronous Collaboration? (Best Practices & Tools)

Remote work has been the norm since the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, employees experience burnout symptoms more often with the constant meetings and notifications that come with synchronous work. Fortunately, asynchronous collaboration makes it very easy to regulate your office hours and work according to employees’ capacity. You can practice effective asynchronous communication with your team to overcome time zone and distance barriers. But what exactly is async collaboration?

12 Must-Know Pros and Cons of Remote Working

With the world moving into another phase of the pandemic, it’s no surprise that an increasing number of companies are joining the remote work revolution. From flexible schedules to access to a broader talent pool, remote working offers several benefits to employees and employers alike. However, it also comes with particular challenges like decreased collaboration, employee isolation, etc. In this article, we’ll look at 12 pros and cons of remote working.

How To Make Virtual Meetings Fun and Interactive in 2022

Virtual meetings are essential for the smooth functioning of your businesses. But keeping your employees engaged throughout the meeting can be challenging. They may get restless if the meeting runs too long or if the discussion gets repetitive. However, there are some simple ways to transform your online meeting into fun virtual gatherings! In this article, we’ll give you some amazing tips on how to make virtual meetings fun and boost employee engagement in 2022.

8 Steps for Successful Remote Onboarding for New Hires (+ FAQs)

Employee onboarding has clear objectives: help employees build relationships, understand work expectations, and accustom them to the company culture. However, achieving these goals can be challenging during remote onboarding since you can’t have in-person interactions with your employees. But the process is here to stay! With the surge in remote work during the pandemic, businesses are noting how strategic remote onboarding can increase employee engagement and retention.

How to Make Your Virtual Meetings More Effective

Effective virtual meetings have become indispensable to business success as an increasing number of companies adopt digital initiatives and remote work models — thanks to the pandemic. So, you need to take a closer look at the various aspects of virtual meetings to inspire great work and deliver excellent services in 2022. In this article, we’ll highlight the top four benefits of virtual meetings and the six best practices to follow while hosting a virtual meeting.

How to Create a Successful Weekly Work Plan (Tips, Templates)

A weekly work plan is a clearly thought-out map of all that you need to accomplish at work during a week. With hectic and demanding work lives, introducing such a simple practice into your process can significantly improve your efficiency and productivity. In this article, we’ll explore eight handy tips for a successful weekly work plan and provide a great template that you can use.

What is Asynchronous Work? (Pros, Cons, Best Practices)

Asynchronous (async) work is an arrangement where employees can work individually whenever they like. Many companies have adopted this work system due to its ease of functioning and better employee satisfaction. However, to get the maximum benefit out of working async, you need to understand how to implement it successfully. In this article, we’ll discuss what asynchronous work is, its benefits, and its drawbacks.

Free Printable Employee Attendance Calendar 2022 (Excel, PDF, Word)

You rely on your employees to deliver top-notch services and meet business objectives. Naturally, you need to account for their paid time off (or annual leave), sick leaves, and other inevitable emergencies which may cause them to skip a day of work. Tracking employee attendance and proactively monitoring their leaves can help you develop a contingency plan in their absence. This way, your business operations can continue uninterrupted.

BambooHR Time Tracking: Key Features, Limitations, Alternatives

Whether you have five employees or 5000, you need a way to track their billable hours and manage their attendance. For this, you may choose to go with BambooHR Time Tracking Software. BambooHR offers employee time tracking, attendance management, payroll processing, and benefits administration functionalities. In this article, we’ll give you a detailed BambooHR review, including its various features.

How to Schedule a Teams Meeting in 2022 (Step-by-Step Guide)

Microsoft Teams (MS Teams) is a popular collaboration and video conferencing app designed for individuals, freelancers, small businesses as well as large corporations. You can use it to conduct virtual meetings instantly. All you need to do is click the ‘Meet Now’ button to get started. But what if you want to schedule your next business meeting to accommodate everyone’s schedule?

The Future of Outsourcing in 2022: Labor Challenges Will Mean More Remote Work and Automation

The future of the outsourcing industry remains bright after wrapping up 2021. While the last year was another strange year given the ongoing concerns over COVID-19, it also saw areas of tremendous growth, opportunities to explore new operating models, and lots of encouraging adaptation. Despite the need to balance safety and client needs, there was still plenty of room for providers to thrive. As another new year begins, many outsourcing businesses are excited for continued growth in 2022.

8 Remote Training Best Practices for Business Owners in 2022

Remote working has become the norm thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns. And remote managers had to quickly adapt to remote learning for an efficient employee training process. But how do you optimize your learning content for maximum productivity and outcome? What are some remote training best practices for businesses? In this article, we’ll cover the top eight best practices for training remote employees in 2022.

How to Conduct Employee Attendance Evaluation (2022 Guide)

Employee attendance evaluation involves recording and analyzing employee presence to evaluate how regular and punctual they’re. With routine attendance evaluation, the supervisor can spot employee absenteeism, tardiness, and other attendance issues and create plans to address them. It also helps regulate paid time-offs and minimize payroll errors, improving your profit margins. But how do you carry out an employee attendance evaluation?

What Is Business Process Improvement & How to Execute It

Every company relies on hundreds of business processes to function smoothly. But if any one of these processes is faulty, it can cost you both valuable time and money. To avoid that, companies perform business process improvement. But what is business process improvement? And how do you do it? In this article, we’ll discuss in detail what business process improvement means, the steps involved in any process improvement, and the popular methodologies used worldwide.

Time Doctor Product Tour | 360° Visibility

Time Doctor is a cloud-based time tracking and management solution used by businesses for monitoring workforce productivity. It offers tools for time tracking, web activity monitoring, payroll management, and reporting. Time Doctor lets users enter the time spent on each project and calculate their billable and nonbillable working hours. It helps users to keep track of the time spent on chats, meetings, calls, internet usage, and other activities.

10 Remote Onboarding Best Practices You Should Follow in 2022

Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, remote work has become an ever-more popular way of working. And as the next generation of remote workers joins the workforce, how they’re onboarded has become a focal point of discussion. How will they internalize the company’s values remotely? Will they feel like part of the team when working from home? Fortunately, a well-planned virtual onboarding program can address these questions and more.

How to Make Someone Else a Host on Zoom (Guide + FAQs)

When you host tons of Zoom meetings, you might have to exit some meetings suddenly. However, in the absence of a host, other attendees will not be able to perform some essential actions on Zoom. So what can you do? Simple: Make someone else a host! In this article, we’ll explain how to make someone else a host on Zoom. We’ll then look into four frequently asked questions about Zoom meeting hosts.

How to Raise Hand on Zoom (Walkthrough Guide w/ Screenshots)

Speaking up and asking questions during video conferences or webinars can help you draw the host’s attention to resolve any doubts or confusion. That said, it can be quite distracting to interrupt someone when they’re speaking. Fortunately, Zoom has a convenient raise hand feature. It helps you notify speakers about your intention to ask a question through a digital hand gesture that appears in your video — without disturbing the session.

Terminating an Employee for Poor Attendance (Best Practices, FAQs)

As a business owner or manager, if an employee starts showing excessive absences and poor performance, you need to address the issue promptly and carefully. However, if there’s no improvement even after repeated warnings, the only viable option is to let the employee go. But should you be terminating an employee for poor attendance? Would it be called unfair dismissal? In this article, we’ll answer these questions.

10 Customer Service Best Practices to Boost Business Success in 2022

Customers today have many options to engage with a business and share their experiences with others, giving them greater control over their journey with a brand. As a result, companies need to be more proactive with their customer service approach to keep their customers satisfied and returning. Fortunately, you can deliver a consistently top-notch customer experience by adopting some customer service best practices.

Remote Work Security: 12 Best Practices for Employers

The Covid pandemic has pushed businesses worldwide to adopt a work-from-home culture. While this shift in work dynamics has several positives, it has also brought remote work security concerns to the forefront. But what is remote work security? More importantly, why is it necessary? In this article, we’ll discuss what remote work security is and why it’s crucial.