Have you heard about the recent workplace buzz? The 4 day work week is a trendy workplace practice that is being talked about a lot. The key goal is to have three days off to achieve a better work-life balance. However, there are differing views on whether the 4 day work week achieves the desired objectives for both employees and the organization.

Failure to meet deadlines, long email threads, disputes during meetings, poorly planned projects, missing files, delayed feedback, you name it. How about meetings where people are talking to each other and thinking they are discussing the same thing, but it is obvious that they don’t? Rings a bell? Of course, it does. We’ve all been there. Team communication isn’t always as effective as we’d want it to be, and it has a direct impact on every area of an organization.

Monday blues are understandable and acceptable. However, if your Monday Blues last until Friday, or you feel unmotivated at work throughout the week, there is a severe problem in your working style or routine that you must address as soon as possible. Without a doubt, being productive and focused at work throughout the week is a challenging task for most of us.

As I’m writing this in January 2019, I suppose we can already talk about the tool using past tense. HipChat WAS a popular messaging and collaboration service owned by Atlassian, launched in 2010 (years before Slack!). HipChat was a decent Slack competitor for years. Even when Frisco-based SaaS was already picking up steam, HipChat managed to get ahead of its arch-rival a few times.

Basecamp has always been a top project management solution due to the fact that it charges a flat monthly fee regardless of how many users you have besides also being jam-packed with features. That being said, the unorthodox Basecamp pricing system has put it in a rather awkward position. While the $99/month price point is actually a pretty good deal if you’re working with large teams, it can be pretty expensive for companies of lesser scale.

Jive is a well-known intranet and collaboration software. Founded in 2001, it is one of the pioneers in the team collaboration industry. Having said that, Jive is not the only team collaboration software available in the market. There are plenty of tools (both old and new ones) which are great alternatives to Jive. In this article, we have used our experience in the team collaboration space and compared Jive with similar tools based on features, price, and user reviews.

We were pretty happy to use Skype during the last decade. Skype has managed to become a synonym for instant communication just like Xerox used to be a synonym for photocopying. We’d ask people to meet on Skype, and added our Skype names to the email signature. It’s also been a part of our everyday life at work. Then Slack popped up in 2013 and turned the world of business communication upside down. Was it the first app of a kind? No.

Exactly like team collaboration tools can do wonders to your employees’ productivity and business efficiency; your daily habits have the power to improve your life. The habits, like most things in life, necessitate effort and determination. To realize your full potential, you must direct your path through daily habits that prepare you for success. A recent study found that it takes 18+ days to acquire a new habit. Are you ready to take on this journey with full force?

Presenteeism is a growing concern for managers and HR across the world. Organizations should try and tackle this issue and help the employees avoid the mental and physical effects of not taking sick leave when needed.

OK Skype, you’ve been with us for years. No matter how old you are, you’ve probably heard of Skype. For many of us, it was the first app we would open every morning when we got to work. But as you know, no app is used forever. It seems like it’s finally time for Skype to be replaced with something else – something more reliable, robust and easier to use. Or is it?