Increasing employee productivity is always a challenge for small businesses. From merchandising and marketing to inventory and customer relations, the everyday tasks of operating a small or medium enterprise may seem too many that some employees find themselves overwhelmed.

It’s not just enough to work harder—working smarter is the key to tackling such workplace demands. Fortunately, there are a number of online tools and platforms which can help you and your employees manage tasks. By making use of these platforms, your team will be able to efficiently and effectively accomplish more work at a given time. Here’s how to improve employee productivity in the workplace:

1. Trello
It can be quite confusing when many tasks are going on simultaneously, and it can be a challenge to keep updated on all project details, responsibilities, and timelines.

Trello is an online bulletin board which gives a visual representation of a project’s workflow. You can add as many boards as you like, each of which can represent a task or a project, and correspondingly add as many contributors to each board. Contributors may then add comments, attachments, and other details to specific boards they are members of.

By minimizing confusion, promoting delegation, and encouraging collaboration, employees get more done as a team and as individuals.

2. TMetric Time Tracker
Tracking productivity is also about tracking time. More than monitoring the quality and quantity of tasks accomplished, the employee must also be able to deliver at a given period. Too much time needed to finish a task reveals a flaw in the system, either in the employee capacity or in the work process.

TMetric Time Tracker allows you to track everything—from working hours and breaks to attendance and absences. Not only is this valuable in ensuring that your employee is compensated accurately, it also gives a graphic representation of how much time is spent on particular tasks. Using this information, you and your employee can then evaluate after a given period. If your employee, for example, is spending way too much time doing inventory, perhaps a review on how this task is done is in order.

TMetric Time Tracker not only empowers your employee, giving him even more control of his time; it also gives opportunities for the company to improve systems and processes.

3. eBriefcase
The everyday operations of business requires sharing files. Whether they’re photographs for the company website and social media accounts or a PowerPoint presentation for an upcoming sale event, tasks are accomplished faster when files and documents can be easily shared online.

eBriefcase is a tool you can find inside the UnionBank GlobalLinker platform where you can upload word files, spreadsheets, and slides that can be shared between users of the platform. It offers a solution for storage of electric documents -  including word, excel, power point, pdf.  You can mark documents as favourites and can enjoy up to 1GB of free space with an overall cap of 4GB per Company. 

To start using this feature,  you can click 'Tools' on your GlobalLinker account where you can find the eBriefcase tool 

4. Go Paperless
If paper forms are wreaking confusion on your files, then perhaps it’s time to go digital. Going paperless will not only save you and your employees time and effort, but it will also lower administrative costs and make processes much faster.

Go Paperless allows you to convert your documents to digital files which can reduce paper costs by transforming your paper records into text-searchable digital images.

Click Here to know more how Go Paperless can help your business save money and reclaim your office space.

5. Calendar module
The daily tasks of operating a business can be overwhelming to every employee. Without using a tool that can help employees track their daily tasks or obligations, they might end up mismanaging their time.

With calendar module found on the ‘Tools’ section of your UnionBank GlobalLinker account, employees can set meetings with their Links in their network. It can improve efficiency as it allows users to set tasks for their schedule. Aside from that, users can also view their Links availability while scheduling a meeting to avoid any re-schedules in future, set recurrences for weekly or monthly calls with colleagues or Company Links.

6. Cloud Point of Sale (POS)
Doing billings and tracking inventory are challenging tasks for retailers, so your employees will definitely welcome Cloud POS. A cloud-based business solution, it can monitor sales in real-time, track inventory with ease, print BIR-accredited receipts, and create loyalty programs.

By switching from a manual setup to a cloud-based format, you not only avoid pilferage and minimize paperwork; you also make accounting and tax-related tasks easier resulting in faster transactions.

As you can see, your Internet service is not just good for maintaining your website, updating your social media accounts, and managing your email. It can also offer ways to improve employee efficiency and help your business run more effectively, leading to better sales and revenues for your company.

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, official policy or position of GlobalLinker.