Running a team isn’t easy and as a business grows figuring out the best way to do this becomes essential. Whether it’s a team of 5 or 50, strategic and effective management of everyone’s time can only improve businesses operations and employee satisfaction. Getting a little, or alot, of help from technology when it comes to smart planning is a no brainer in this day and age; below is a carefully edited selection of the best tech tools to make team management a breeze.

Team Colony

This is a simple and free (ad-free too!)tool that helps to cut down on micromanaging whilst keeping everyone accountable. At the end of each workday, Team Colony send every employee an email asking for what they did today; this is then made into a daily report(automatically) and sent to the manager. Employees also add a hashtag stating how they’re feeling that day, which is turned into an emoji and plotted on acalendar to create a weekly/monthly/annual view of how everyone feels about the workplace. Employees are bound to feel a little extra motivation if they know that they must list everything achieved that day and that their manager will read the report.

Resource Guru

Trying to keep track of resource availability in a team of almost any size can be a nightmare but there’s a way to avoid sending hundreds of chain email and constantly asking people what they have on. Even the classic spreadsheet approach can get old real fast when errors reoccur. Instead, give Resource Guru a go – time slots can easily be booked, added, edited, moved, and much more. It’s all housed in an attractive and easy interface to make planning and visibility possible for everyone in the team. Say goodbye to time clashes or not realising someone’s on annual leave whilst a deadline looms close with a system that will do the work for you.

Slack

If your company isn’t using Slack yet, then you need to get on it. We all hate it when our inboxes fill up with needless and endless emails that could have been easily answered in a quick message -that’swhy Slack is useful. Not only will you be able to send messages, you will also have the ability to create different groups and even share documents in a more casual manner, which many employees prefer over the more formal nature of anemail. The basic version of the software is free but can be upgraded if you require more features.

GoToMeeting

Employees are no longer chained to their desks 5 days a week and this means that you’ll need to have a process in place for good communication. Emails and messages will always be there but some times a proper meeting needs to take place and that’s where GoToMeeting comes in very handy. It makes it easy to connect with others through a variety of devices,allows screen sharing that includes audio and video, and scheduling options too.

3sixty

One way to improve team management is to know what the team thinks about your management style. Asking never pays off as employees will feel too awkward to answer honestly; with 3sixty, you’ll be able to receive honest feedback that’ll help to improve your management style and implement positive changes to your team. In turn, you’ll find managing the teamfar easier if you know what really needs changing and improving.