When it comes to keeping your team members on track throughout the workday, there are plenty of options available. From apps that help with time management, automation, project management, time tracking, and more, it’s easier than ever to streamline work.
The best workforce productivity apps for you and your employees are those that help you save time, communicate more easily, and offer the features most important to your team’s work. They should also work well with the tools you already use.
Trello
Best for teams of all sizes that need easy-to-use project management software.
Asana
Best for highly collaborative teams that need to be able to work together and communicate easily.
Evernote
Best for those who need a single space to keep track of their documents and tasks throughout the day.
Todoist
Best for those who need to access their task lists from wherever they are, whether on a mobile app or desktop computer.
Basecamp
Best for teams looking for a project management tool that allows for easy communication with clients.
Proofhub
Best for teams that need task management software with a focus on collaboration features.
Notion
Best for teams looking for an all-in-one solution for their project management, company wikis, documentation, and more.
ClickUp
Best for those who need a flexible project management platform that incorporates collaboration tools.
There is a large variety of productivity software that fulfills different needs and can be categorized into different uses, from music platforms that aid focus to virtual co-working tools that help you stay motivated. This guide will focus mostly on tools for project and task management and touch on additional productivity tools later.
Productivity apps for project management and task management should:
For companies that have employees who work on an hourly basis or complete billed work for clients, it may also be important for productivity software to include a way to track time. Time tracking can help ensure clients are charged the correct billable hours for work being completed on their behalf. It can also help employees and businesses understand how long tasks take, so they can better determine how long projects will take to complete.
Best for teams of all sizes that need easy-to-use project management software.
Trello is a highly visual tool that allows users to create Kanban boards for projects where they can customize workflows, create and assign tasks on cards that include checklists and attachments, include due dates with notifications, and more.
Trello is a tool that’s used by businesses of all sizes in many industries, though it’s most frequently used by those in the computer software, information technology, marketing, advertising, education management, and non-profit industries.
For individuals and small teams, Trello offers a free plan, a $5 per month standard plan, and a $10 per month premium plan. Enterprise-level plans start at $17.50 per month per user for 25 users and go down to $7.38 per month per user for 5,000 users, with custom plans available for more than 5,000 users.
Best for highly collaborative teams that need to be able to work together and communicate easily.
Asana helps teams collaborate and manage projects with list, timeline, and calendar views that help them stay organized and on track. The platform makes it easy to see key information, like next steps and due dates, and track progress easily.
Asana is used by many small and medium-sized businesses. It’s popular in the marketing, advertising, information technology, computer software, and non-profit industries.
Asana offers a free basic plan, a premium plan for $10.99 per user per month, and a business plan for $24.99 per user per month.
Best for those who need a single space to keep track of their documents and tasks throughout the day.
Evernote is a powerful note-taking platform with features that help users stay organized, plan projects, track to-do lists, and more. It lets users easily search through their documents, including handwritten notes that are scanned in.
Companies of all sizes use Evernote. It is frequently used in the marketing, advertising, higher education, broadcast media, and information technology industries.
Evernote offers a free plan, a personal plan for $5.83 per month, a professional plan for $8.33 per month, and Evernote Teams for $14.99 per month per user.
Best for those who need to access their task lists from wherever they are, whether on a mobile app or desktop computer.
Todoist is a task management app that allows you to track your to-do list, add recurring tasks and due dates, prioritize tasks, delegate tasks to others, and view tasks on Kanban boards, in a list format, and more.
Todoist is used by many small and medium-sized businesses. It’s popular in the information technology, computer software, marketing, advertising, and non-profit industries. It’s used by companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Netflix.
Todoist offers a free plan, a pro plan for $4 per month, and a business plan for $6 per month per user.
Best for teams seeking a project management platform that allows for easy communication with clients.
Basecamp is a project management tool created for remote workers to help them get more work done. It streamlines projects, documents, and related communications by bringing them into one organized place, so everyone knows where to find what they need.
Basecamp is widely used among medium-sized businesses and enterprise-level companies. It’s popular in the marketing, advertising, information technology, non-profit, computer software, and higher education industries.
Basecamp offers a personal plan that’s free and a business plan that is a flat rate of $99 per month with no per-user fees. A 30-day free trial is available for the business plan with no credit card required, and discounts are available for non-profits with free accounts for teachers, and students.
Best for teams that need task management software with a focus on collaboration features.
ProofHub was created to help project managers organize, plan, and collaborate with co-workers and clients on their projects, so they can deliver them on time. Communication features help cut down on emails and keep project discussions in one place.
ProofHub is used by many small and medium-sized businesses and is widely used in the computer software, marketing, advertising, information technology, education management, and non-profit industries.
ProofHub’s essential plan costs $45 per month, and its ultimate control plan costs $89 per month. Both plans include unlimited users with no per-user fees.
Best for teams looking for an all-in-one solution for their project management, company wikis, documentation, and more.
Notion was created to provide a flexible workspace for individuals and teams that allows them to customize it for their project management needs. Users can easily create internal company wikis, project roadmaps, to-do lists, content calendars, and more.
Notion is used by many small and medium-sized businesses. It’s widely used in the computer software, information technology, marketing, advertising, financial services, and higher education industries.
Notion’s personal plan is free, and its personal pro plan is $4 per month. Notion’s team plan is $8 per month per user, and custom-priced enterprise plans are available as well.
Best for those who need a flexible project management platform that incorporates collaboration tools.
ClickUp helps users with their project management needs, such as planning and tracking tasks, while providing communication tools that help teams collaborate easily. It also lets teams set goals and track progress on them in real time.
ClickUp is used by many small and medium-sized companies. It is a popular tool in the marketing, advertising, computer software, information technology, management consulting, and design industries.
ClickUp offers a free plan, an unlimited plan for $5 per month per user, a business plan for $12 per month per user, a business plus plan for $19 per month per user, and custom-priced enterprise plans.
Before you make a final decision on a flashy new productivity tool for your staff, consider this: enhancing productivity is only the second step on a journey to a healthier workforce. Powerful productivity apps like Asana and Notion are great at taking your team to the next level - but your team needs to be in the right position to make that jump in the first place.
If your organization doesn’t first get the fundamentals correct for efficient hourly work, staff productivity will never improve, no matter how many different Evernotes you try. Frustrated staff members bogged down by the everyday requirements of their employment are almost never prepared to improve their productivity.
If any of the following scenarios sound familiar, a productivity app might not be the most immediate answer to your problems:
At the core of every business are two functions: scheduling and time tracking. All of the pains outlined above become non-issues upon proper implementation of these two critical functions. Once you make scheduling and time tracking as seamless and painless as possible for employees, only then can you focus on productivity measures.
Getting the fundamentals right causes a positive ripple effect across your business. When employees can check schedules, review daily timesheets, and swap shifts all right from their phones, they are in a better position to take their work to the next level.
Workforce management software like Workforce.com unlocks this potential. Efficient scheduling and timekeeping software engages your workforce, keeping them happy and motivated to embrace new productivity apps. But more than this, effective workforce management software fades into the background, going unnoticed and keeping work humming along. It’s this kind of subtle effect that creates an engaged and more productive employee base.
It’s time to review how you go about scheduling and tracking employee time. Once you identify the pain points in your workforce management, discover ways to eliminate them and boost employee engagement. Check out our webinar on how to go about doing this below:
Once you have found the right workforce management software, start shopping around for the perfect workforce productivity app that will launch your business into star status.
To learn more about how Workforce.com can help your team be more productive, book a call today.