There is an app to help with your daily life. One app can wake you up, another tracks your sleep. By switching to another app, you can also turn on the coffee machine or play music from anywhere.
There is an app for everything. Why should work be any different?
According to Slack’s research, Australian professionals spend four hours a week switching between apps – that is a lot!
Employees and businesses are often frustrated by the fact that their apps don’t communicate with each other. It would be great if all your apps could be integrated so that you can keep track of everything from one place.
This wish may not be too far away. Gartner predicts the rise of’superapps’ and that more than half of the world’s population will use them daily by 2027.
A’superapp,’ can be conceptualised as a Swiss Army knife with access to many component tools. They can be activated by employees or customers as required in a mobile-like, powerful experience.
After adopting collaborative technologies, such as Slack, for keeping teams connected during pandemics, businesses have realized that it’s not just about communication. Slack isn’t just about communication. It unlocks an entirely new way to work that helps you work smarter and not harder.
Modern collaboration platforms can help you achieve this and boost productivity by integrating with apps that your company already uses as well as those you may use in the near future. It is simple to add an app through the slack App Directory. It is as easy to do as downloading an app on your phone.
The ease of integration offers many benefits. The best tools for supporting business can be selected by organisations without having to worry about the cost and time of connecting them to their existing IT stack. IT teams are more productive and employees have the ability to share information and track down messages and tasks across multiple platforms.
Sales reps can now quickly update their records, collaborate on deals and pull in relevant information with the recently announced Sales Cloud integration. This will allow them to spend more time developing relationships with customers.
Where do you begin with the thousands of apps available? Here are five apps to help you overcome the challenges of working in hybrid environments – communication, coordination, collaboration, and continuity.
Donuts for watercooler conversations anywhere
The hallway conversations at the office are one of the things that people miss the most when they work remotely. These spontaneous interactions are what help to build trust, connections and camaraderie.
How can you continue these casual conversations when people work remotely? Donut is the answer.
Donut selects randomly two users each week to chat about unrelated topics. It’s the perfect way to break the ice. It creates an automatic conversation in Slack to allow paired co-workers to plan their virtual coffee break.
Wisr is an Australian fintech lender that integrated Donut to help its employees make the transition from traditional office work to remote working. It allowed people to discover and learn about each other beyond their title.
Zapier allows you to connect your apps and get information without any coding.
When your information is spread across different apps that do not communicate with each other, it’s difficult to collaborate. To get everyone on the same page you need to have everything in one place.
Zapier is also a favourite among businesses. The ability of Slack to move information between thousands of tools like Gmail and Hubspot, Typeform and Typeform without native integrations makes collaboration easier.
You can add calendar events, social mentions or lead details directly into the chat. Create a task list when you save an Slack message. Fill out forms and surveys.
Zapier makes it easy to create Slack notifications bots. Shopify created its Spy bot using Zapier in order to speed up incident resolution. Shopify is particularly affected by this, as system failures cost them tens to hundreds of dollars every minute. The Spy bot allows teams to receive real-time updates on customer support and quickly query data relating shops, traffic and checkouts.
Polly is a quick way to get answers to your questions.
It’s not fun to send a mass-email to ask a simple question, then go through each response individually. This is true whether you are trying to organize a meeting or get feedback.
You can quickly get answers to your questions by creating native polls within Slack channels.
RMIT University believes it is vital to check-in with students in the first two weeks. This is crucial to the success of the student’s studies and their long-term future. RMIT uses the Polly integration to encourage feedback on how students are finding their courses and campus experience so that any challenges can be addressed as early as possible.
Keep track of your workplace’s movements with Envoy
It’s difficult to know, for instance, which employees are in the office at what time.
Envoy lets staff easily coordinate schedules and check into meeting rooms. They can also update their Slack status so that they know where they are working. Envoy helps you keep track of everyone who enters your office by sending an automatic notification to let you know when deliveries and visitors arrive.
Envoy, which is a career matchmaker for SEEK has helped increase transparency. Envoy, for example, allows team leaders and managers to see at a glance who is able to attend a meeting physically and who will join virtually.
Disco – Give your teammates a shoutout they deserve
It is important to celebrate a job well done. Employees feel confident, proud and motivated when their contributions are recognized.
You can use the Disco integration in Slack to send compliments, give kudos and utilize the dashboard of appreciation. This will keep your employees feeling positive about themselves and each other.
Thanks to Disco, Canva’s design technology company has made celebrating good work a team tradition. Canva took it a step further by adding an extra layer of customization — when someone receives kudos Disco creates six company values to which the work is attributed.
Slack can be used to your advantage
Slack is a powerful tool that allows you to create a hybrid working environment.
