5 tools that will boost productivity in IT department

Productivity doesn’t just come by itself. It needs to be nourished, egged on. True productivity, the type that stays with you and your employees needs to be consistent. The best way, in fact, to breed productivity isn’t through constant motivation and oversight. What you actually want to do is to create an atmosphere and an environment where productivity can grow and develop. This is where our article comes in.

One of the most important parts of building productivity in the office, and especially in the IT department, is getting people the tools that they need. Proper apps and equipment make life easier for everybody. It minimizes mistakes, makes workflow more efficient, and in general makes everything run smoother. Below we have a couple of quick reviews of tools that your IT team will definitely appreciate.

Rescue Time

It’s one thing to get motivated employees and hire talented developers - you also need to keep them productive. Far too often people get a bit burnt out, or just lazy, and start slacking off. Then again, you also have people who might be fantastic at their jobs but aren’t good at time management. Rescue Time can help you with that.

Rescue time essentially monitors productivity, and it can help you gain insight into the areas where employees can improve.

This app monitors employee work, it shows how much time your employees are spending on certain platforms and websites.

However, what really sets it apart is its blocking features. Used properly, REscue time can block certain distractions. So, have you noticed that an employee has been less productive lately? Rescue shows that they have, for example, been spending a lot of time on Facebook. You can use this app to block it and get things under control again.

Hubstaff

Hubstaff is a neat little app that helps you keep an eye on your employees. While there are some similarities with Rescue Time (we mentioned it below), its core differences make it earn its own spot on our list. Here is how it works:

You have your employees install Hubstaff on their work computers. They turn it on when they start working, which then tracks how many hours they worked. What makes it assist in boosting office productivity is its “activity level” tracking.

WHen Hubstaff is turned on, it tracks mouse and keyboard activity, as well as taking randomly timed screenshots every ten minutes. By checking on their activity levels, you can see how productive they at least seem to be. It also gives people some extra positive pressure to not slack off.

Blink

Now we come to Blink. One of the best alternatives to Teams and Slack, Blink gives you messaging, cloud storage, and acts as a central hub for company communication. It’s a fantastic piece of communication software that helps everybody communicate better, with greater efficiency and focus.

You can talk to your employees directly, or you can create group chats. Blink can also serve as an information repository, keeping lots of information all in one place.

The reason this app boosts productivity is that you have everybody in one place. You won’t have to dig through emails, or check Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp when you want to check on what you talked about with an employee. It minimizes the chance of you or your employees forgetting something, missing out on a vital piece of info, and just makes giving and receiving feedback much simpler.

Zapier

One of the more stressful faces of work-life is getting overwhelmed with assignments. In fact, 25% of employees claim that their job is the main stressor in their lives. Helping your people reduce stress through the better organization can do wonders.

With Zapier you can integrate Google Sheets, Asana, Salesforce, Trello, and many other productivity and work apps. Through Zapier, you can automate a lot of them, removing annoying repetitive tasks, giving you some extra time to focus on more pressing issues.

The best part is that you don’t need advanced coding skills to use it.

Proprofs

In order to stay afloat, you need to keep moving, like a shark. This doesn’t just refer to expansion, but also to your skillset, and the skill set of your employees. This is where Proprofs comes in.

Through this software, you create access for all of your employees - access to materials and courses that allow them to improve their skills.

It allows you to create courses, training, as well as use prebuilt courses created by its developers or by other users. You can make flashcards, quizzes, polls, surveys…

For example, you can have your senior developers create a tutorial for new, promising recruits. They can then get up to speed much faster, all the while improving their knowledge. Its the perfect way to fill in skill gaps among your team.

Conclusion

And there you have it folks, a quick and easy guide on the best tools for boosting productivity in any IT office. Tools make everything simpler, they smooth out a large part of the creation and production process. Proprofos can help you keep track of how your employees are advancing their skills.

Blink helps everybody communicate much better. Hubstaff helps you keep track of everybody, giving you some extra oversight. Zapier automats everything you need, and rescue time actually tells you how productive people actually are, and where they are making mistakes.