Future of work
6 min read

Top 10 best collaboration tools for productive teams

With many companies announcing their plans for returning to work in a post-pandemic environment, it is clear that research during the pandemic showing employee’s desire for permanent flexibility is being adopted by employers. A hybrid model has been most commonly adopted, and this entails a system where employees can divide their time between the in-person office and a remote setting.

Now that workers have more certainty in their post-pandemic work schedule, and a remote component is here to stay for many, it is important to continue learning ways to ensure your teams remain efficient. We’ve done the research for you based on the many different tools in the marketplace that tout efficiency. In this post we will break down some of our favorite collaboration tools that we believe can help you figure out how to increase productivity, for everything from communication to project management.

Below are our Top 10 picks

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1. Asana

This pick comes from Jamie Johnson, contributing writer at CO, a website that “connects like minds and delivers actionable insights for next-level growth.”

According to Johnson, who specializes in writing about small business and finance, “If you’re looking for inexpensive, intuitive project management software, Asana is a great option. The software is completely free for up to 15 people, and it comes with unlimited tasks and projects. The dashboard is very straightforward and easy to navigate, and the focus is on creating projects and assigning tasks to various team members. When you log in, you can immediately see your assigned tasks and look at them in calendar view if that’s easier.”

2. Microsoft Teams

This next recommendation comes from Prerna Sharm, writing for GreyCampus, which helps people power their careers through skills and certifications.

According to Sharma, a content and marketing writer for technology, travel, food and marketing industries, “This one is the best fit for today’s scenario where employees can easily share their screens with others. So, if you are working in teams and need to share your work with others then these tools are the right pick for you. It is a persistent chat-based collaboration platform with features like document sharing, online meetings, calling, and Instant Messaging.  Moreover, this software makes communication with one another much easier, especially if a team has many remote employees.”

Sharma goes on to share these features:

  • Document storage
  • Video calling and Screen sharing
  • Online meetings
  • Audio conferencing

3. Slack

Stephanie Mialki, content writer for Instapage, a service that lets you build landing pages for your online marketing and promotion campaigns, highly recommends using Slack.

According to Mialki, “Slack, one of the fastest growing startups to date, is another powerful team messaging app, used by millions of remote team members around the world. This real-time communication tool operates in channels to better stay organized with various projects and features notification and reminder settings to help track conversations. You can also use hashtags to highlight keywords during discussions so you (and other members) can later use Slack’s search feature to find relevant chat histories quickly. With certain paid accounts, all messages are stored and archived within the platform. Slack allows for the sending of direct messages to a single person, a group of individuals, or the entire team using @everyone. It supports voice calls and video chats with team members as well. Integration with services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box allow for file sharing with drag and drop capabilities.”

4. monday.com

Ben Alston, digital marketing manager and founder of The Digital Project Manager, a company that provides project management guidance, explains why he is so fond of monday.com.

According to Aston, “monday.com is a collaboration and task management software that won the 2019 Webby Award for productivity platform. Its simplistic design and user-friendly features make collaborating within, and between, teams easy. monday.com’s features include task management boards for resource planning, timeline views to manage deadlines and projects, and updates and comments to give feedback or define next-steps in order to keep everyone aligned. Teams can use monday.com to share and organize files, centralize communication, plan out resources, and easily @mention any person or team to keep them in the loop. Because it’s so flexible, any team can customize monday.com to fit their unique needs. monday.com’s integrations include apps like Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Zoom, Typeform, and many more, accessible via Zapier…”

5. Todoist

Inc42, an Indian media and information platform, explains why they believe Todoist helps with team efficiency Inc42 staff writes, “Let’s face it: modern life is chaotic. There is only so much one can retain in memory when it comes to the number of errands to be run, and mini-tasks to do in a day, be it at work, or personal life. With Todoist, you can bring order to that chaos by organizing your daily to-do list for both work and home in one place. From being able to add labels to get more clarity, to prioritizing them on the basis of your own mental models, you can stay on top of your game by never forgetting any task – be it big or small. The free forever offers a ton of features that can come in handy to achieve the same, however, if you’d like to unlock the full potential of the app, it costs only $3/month.”

6. Whereby

Richard Fendler, Head of SEO and Content Marketing at SnackNation, a healthy snack delivery service, recommends Whereby.

Fendler writes, “Whereby is the best way to meet over video. You don’t need to download an app or any software. Just choose your own personalized URL and meet using your browser – on mobile or desktop – in one click. Whereby has a range of features to help you collaborate and communicate. Like Breakout Groups, virtual whiteboards with Miro, screen sharing and recording, and integrations with Google Docs, Trello and YouTube.”

7. ProofHub

Nikoletta Bike, senior writer at Workable, a hiring platform, suggests ProofHub. According to Bilke , “ProofHub is a work management tool that offers a comprehensive suite of collaboration and project management functions. On this platform, you can organize files, plan and monitor projects and discuss with colleagues and stakeholders. ProofHub also lets you review and approve files through an online proofing tool.”

8. Trello

Joon, a custom business communication company, included a  suggestion of Trello. A post on Joon’s website reads in part, “Created based on the Kanban philosophy, Trello is a highly visual and intuitive tool that allows you to break down a project into smaller pieces by creating a “card” for each task. A task can then be assigned to an owner and the cards can be arranged into columns to represent the different stages of a project. The columns are set up on a board, which allows the team to have a bird’s eye view of the project’s status. The basic plan is free and you can get additional features for $9.99 per user per month.”

9. Toggl

WhatFix, a SaaS based platform which provides in-app guidance and performance support for web applications and software products writes about this tool. Disha Gupta writes in part, “Toggl comes with a browser extension that allows you to simply tap a button on your browser instead of repeatedly going back to start and stop the time for your tasks. It generates visual reports for users to see where they’ve been spending most of their time and alter their schedules accordingly. It also provides a snapshot of estimated vs actual time for a project, to help you plan better in the future.”

10. Podio

Writing for TechRadar Pro, an online publication focusing on technology, Nicholas Fearn, Steve McCaskill, and Brian Turner highlight Podio. According to, Fearn, McCaskill and Turner, “Podio describes itself as a flexible and customizable online platform for work and communication among teams. In other words, it gives you a way to organize large stacks of work and to delegate tasks between employees. Just like many of the other business collaboration apps out there, Podio provides you with the tools to share files, view the status of ongoing projects and get feedback on the things you’re currently working on. These functionalities are combined into an easy-to-use interface. Podio is also equipped with quality mobile apps for when you’re out and about, and need to use your smartphone or tablet, and it has an impressive amount of integration with third-party services and apps including Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote and Zendesk.”

Smartway2 is a workplace scheduling system that helps enable peak performance from employees. Using Smartway2 is easy and can help to pave the way towards a “culture of innovation.”

Stefania Vatidis
Author

Stefania Vatidis

Last updated June 3, 2021