Guest post by Foo Chek Wee of Zalora (Asia’s online fashion destination)
People in the HR industry are always trying to up their game and create more value for their stakeholders. Game changing moves can also mean another mountain of tasks appears that needs to be managed, and there’s never enough time. But, leveraging technology is important and can help tilt that balance.
Here’s a list of 10 apps that have made a huge impact to my work life. I am sure you will find it helpful in speeding up your work life as well. Common useful productivity apps, such as Mail, Skype, or Linkedin, are not listed below. Only the less common but useful ones qualify in my top 10 list.
- Feedly (web via feedly.com, free)
Feedly gathers your pre-selected news feeds from a variety of online sources. I use this every day to source interesting HR-related articles to share with my teams and fellow professionals.
- Buffer (web via bufferapp.com, free)
There are days when there are several articles worth sharing and there are droughts. To maintain a consistent stream of great article postings in my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts, I use Buffer to share a steady stream of great stuff with fellow professionals.
- Evernote Premium (web, iOS, and Android, $5/mo.):
This note taking app is a gem. I use it for so many purposes: jotting down new thoughts, penning meeting agendas on-the-go, and even scanning and archiving business cards. Evernote’s sync feature enables the same content to automatically appear in my laptop, and I can easily screen it over a projector in a meeting if needed.
- Microsoft PowerPoint (desktop, iOS, and Android, cost varies):
A vast majority of companies are still using Microsoft Office, and there is no point re-inventing the wheel if it is not broken. With Microsoft PowerPoint now available on mobile, I use this to draft presentation storyboards on the go. As my company uses Office 365, I can easily access my draft storyboard on my laptop and pick up where I left off.
- Fantastical (Mac and iOS, $49.99):
It’s more than a calendar. It enables you to create calendar events easily by recognising your inputs that you write naturally. Even quicker, simply copy-and-paste the whole text containing event title, time, and venue, and Fantastical picks it up and enters it into your Google Calendar.
- Charlie (iOS, free):
Charlie aims to be your personal assistant by providing you with relevant online information about the person you are about to meet for the day. A useful tool to help you not go blindly into a meeting.
- Trello (web, free):
Trello is a super flexible and visual way to organize anything with anyone. For me, I use this to organize the tasks that my team and I do, to ensure we’re aligned and to order our work priorities.
- Indeed (web, free):
Indeed is a job search engine that searches jobs from thousands of websites (including company job boards, public job boards and even Linkedin job postings). I use this as a intelligence seeking tool to find jobs that has my company name in it. [Interesting, there are many roles posted on my competitors’ sites making references to my company.] On a related note, I also follow competitors via Linkedin so I can keep track of the types of roles they are currently seeking.
- Glassdoor (web, free):
Glassdoor is another useful intelligence seeking tool that I use to keep tab on the sentiments of employees (including competitors). This is usually one of the means to motivate me in striving to be a better HR practitioner.
- Happy5 (iOS, limited access):
This is a super fun, real time employee engagement app that I am currently experimenting with. This app enables employees to post their emotions, thoughts, pictures, links, and even create polls to self-chosen colleagues, their manager or their mentor, in a safe and secure environment.
My friend, a senior HR professional, once proudly told me that she no longer brings her work laptop around when she travels, as she can operate effectively using just her smartphone.
Next time you’re on the road, try keeping the laptop at home!