But you may think, why another software if you already have task management software, project management software, and other productivity tools? Well, they are fine, but a work OS software can cover all your needs. It can offer all these capabilities, so you don’t have to spend on individual software for different needs. Besides, work OS is excellent for your remote workforce to enable smooth business operations. And by this time, the whole world knows how important remote work culture has become after the pandemic. It’s also one of the reasons behind the sudden rise in the usage of work OS software. So, let’s understand more about work OS software and how it can help your business.
What is Work OS?
A Work Operating System (OS) is a software solution that allows businesses and teams to create custom workflows for managing projects, tracking tasks, running processes, and more efficiently. You can also plan, monitor, and track everything, from daily tasks to year-long priorities, by visualizing details comprehensively. Work OS software comes with a dashboard that lets you gain a 360-degree view of your workflows for employees, both remotely or in person. It’s gaining wider adoption these days where the remote workforce has become a norm. Ideally, a work OS solution must be cloud-based to enable employees to access it anywhere, anytime, and on any device. It’s because emergencies can arise anytime, just like in 2020 when the pandemic hit us, and offices remained closed while work went remote. At that time, if you use a cloud-based solution, you don’t have to worry about managing your tasks and employees.
Difference between Work OS and Project Management Software
Many confuse between project management software and work OS, thinking they are the same. But they are not, although similar. Project management software offers functions to manage, organize, and track tasks and effectively measure project progress. It focuses on streamlining your organizational projects so that they are completed on time and successfully without compromising the quality of deliverables. On the other hand, work OS software goes deeper. It works as a central hub to plan, organize, monitor, track, and assess all key processes and activities of a business. This is all you need to operate your business remotely by enabling smooth workflow, employee and task management, clear visualization of each activity, and other processes. If you implement it properly, it has the potential to replace other tools like productivity software, to-do lists, etc.
Benefits of Work OS
Work OS software is helpful in many ways, including:
Single point of reference
Work OS software works as a single point of reference to track your business activities and processes. You can view and track individual and priority tasks efficiently to gain information about your entire business and on an individual basis. It will help you remove roadblocks at both levels by understanding the issues and providing tailored fixations.
Replacement for multiple tools
An efficient work OS software can have the capabilities to replace all other tools you use in your business for employee and task management, monitoring projects, and other related activities. You can replace it with boring, time-consuming spreadsheets, to-do lists, reminders and alerts, productivity tools, project and task management software, and more. This one work OS software can cater to all these needs and save your employees from complexities. It also saves time and cost spent on buying those software solutions as this one alone can suffice all your needs.
Wider accessibility
Cloud-based work OS software can help you and your employees work remotely from anywhere. They can access it from any device as they are designed to be cross-platform compatible. In addition, no one in the team would suffer inefficiencies due to differences in time zones. The tool will help you manage it efficiently by tracking employee hours and daily schedules. Whether it’s task allotment and monitoring or scheduling meeting, everything can be organized seamlessly, all remotely.
Smooth collaboration
Work OS software enables smooth collaboration between your team members. Team leaders can efficiently allocate tasks online, track their progress, and monitor for duplication. You can also upload, edit, and share files effortlessly and enable access permissions. In addition, you can add notes and comments on documents that everyone with access can see, and responsible employees can take action in real-time.
Increased efficiency
With streamlined tasks, projects, and processes, employees won’t face trouble with assigned tasks, taking feedback, and finding progress. They can view everything in a centralized dashboard and stay on the same page. This not only increases their work efficiency but also gives a sense of transparency within your organization’s culture and respect between each member. So, do you want to avail the above benefits? Try work OS software like the ones mentioned below.
Monday
If you are looking for a visual platform that could manage everything, or you can say a Work OS, try Monday.com to plan, organize, and track almost everything in a single place. It is easy and intuitive so that you can create your own ideal workflow within minutes. Choose from more than 200 pre-built templates based on your requirement. Monday’s visual interface lets your team members directly jump in without any training. While designing the workflow, your groups, updates, items, and sub-items are synced to keep the things within the context of your project, process, workflow, etc. You will also find status buttons that will show the team’s actual work. Notifying every team member and keeping track of what is going on is now easy with Monday. Link boards together and add files to save time, process, and manage all moving pieces. Use Calendar, Gantt, form, map, workload, main views, and Kanban to transform the data you want to see in the way you dreamed from complex and colorful to muted and essential. Whatever location you are in, communicate with your team members efficiently and share images, feedback, updates, files via the mobile app. Leave your daily tasks to the robots to eliminate human error and focus on the work that matters. If you are using any specific tool and love it, integrate it with Monday and feel the difference. It is used in many industries, as keeping security on the line is essential. You can also customize permissions to determine who has access to what, share the correct data with the right person, and secure your critical information. Use an individual plan if you are using it for two persons and get unlimited docs, boards, and more for free. Manage your complete team’s work at just $8/seat/month.
Notion
One workspace for every team; Notion is a customizable workspace that helps you work the way you want. Connect your docs, projects, and teams so that you can work together on a single workspace. It ensures you never lose any context while your daily work is flowing side by side. You will get a Drag and drop feature to build the dashboards, systems, docs, etc., you need. In addition, Notion can solve your complex issues quickly. It also offers 1000s of pre-built and free templates to complete your setup. Get Notion for free with unlimited blocks and pages. If you need more, try a paid plan starting from $4/month and take a free trial.
Wrike
With Wrike’s work management platform, move forward with your goals and power up the agile and modern enterprise. Empower teams to do work with 360-degree visibility, powerful automation, and cross-departmental collaboration. Customize Wrike the way you wish from custom dashboards. Workflows to specific automation and streamline processes. Eliminate the way you work before, like needless meetings, copious check-ins, and email threads with notifications, commenting, dynamic reports, live editing, and more. You can share information with the stakeholders anytime you want. Wrike helps you deliver more projects faster and allows you to drill down for individual tasks or zoom out for a holistic view to get everything in your portfolio. It provides enterprise-grade security, so you have complete control over the data. For startups, it is free with features sufficient for managing all the work. Fast-growing teams can choose a plan starting from $9.80/user/month.
ClickUp
Put all the work in a single platform to collaborate and manage from any place with ClickUp. It lets you know what everyone is doing, plan what to do, and check what was already completed. Remote teams can use the platform to manage work worldwide and keep all the action-based communications in a single place. The tool lets you establish the processes clearly and share them with your team effectively. It ensures every member is aligned by letting you review and define measurable goals. Never miss any notification by creating reminders to see the pressing tasks and get a clear-cut view of the work to know the progress. Choose from different views you need for your team and filter the workflow to keep on track. You can also adjust the timeline easily so your team knows where to start and what to work on next. Moreover, you can see who is online, who is working on what, and what everyone is doing for virtual management. Monitor backlogs and sprints with charts to stay on top of the game. Keep necessary conversations regarding projects and tasks in a centralized place, including emojis, links, attachments, and more. Set priorities for the tasks and group them into a list to check what needs to be done first. Integrate with more than 1000 tools that you already use in your organization. ClickUp is serious about privacy and security and guarantees 99.99% uptime. Its free plan is for unlimited members and tasks, 100 MB storage, real-time chat, email in ClickUp, Kanban boards, and more. Or, you can get started with $5/member/month and manage more.
SmartSuite
The SmartSuite platform is a great option to take into account for businesses trying to advance their work management. Companies can manage their work more effectively and efficiently with its flexible features and ability to integrate with other applications. The versatile SmartSuite platform is focused on small to significant large enterprise requirements to manage the business. For the modern entrepreneur, it provides a full suite of management tools, including project management, CRM, inventory, and accounting. The entire operation may be easily coordinated, including but not limited to sales, marketing, human resources, product development, and design. It offers a comprehensive, web-based workspace that works well for remote teams. The platform, which can track tasks, manage calendars, and communicate, makes it simple to keep everyone on the job and manage workloads. Business owners may increase productivity and organization with the SmartSuite Platform to Manage work, improving their bottom line. Key Features
Automation of repetitive tasks More than 2000 third-party tools can be integrated able to oversee projects of any scale and monitor all aspects of operations from a single console Easy-to-use dashboard for managing compliance, risk, and governance Using the Kanban view, you may see projects at various stages Realtime notification to stay updated about project status Can analyze data through multiple charts
Your work is managed throughout its entire life cycle by the SmartSuite Platform. Organizations may easily manage their projects, tasks, and team using the multifunctional platform. With an easy-to-use user interface, businesses of all sizes may view the entire project timeline. A 14-day free trial of the software is available. The four price tiers are Free, Team, Professional, and Enterprise.
Smartsheet
Smartsheet offers a dynamic workspace to move your business forward. It allows you to align global teams, scale or build business-driven solutions, enable IT to maintain compliance, and manage risk on the platform. It lets you manage projects, build new solutions, and automate workflows using no-code tools backed by IT security needs. Integrate Smartsheet with the existing ecosystem and align every member across your business from a single source. Gain visibility into all the processes to ensure you are delivering the most significant ROI. You can also manage complex projects, streamline processes, and hit deadlines by managing all marketing work in a single and flexible platform. Furthermore, Smartsheet helps you plan, track the team’s priorities, and manage resources to provide high-quality and creative work. Adobe Creative Cloud integration and streamlined proofing also enable you to concentrate on your work rather than bogged down with meetings and repetitive emails. Empower your team with capabilities for managing work that includes dashboards and unlimited sheets, real-time collaboration, and process automation. Take a trial and get to know the usefulness of Smartsheet Work OS. Board a flight with Smartsheet at just $7/user/month.
Asana
Work smarter, not harder, on big ideas you have with Asana. From small tasks to large environments, Asana helps organize your work so that your teams can know what to do, why to start early, what to do next, and how to get it done within time. Bring the team’s work in a single shared space, choose the project view you like from the options, and collaborate with your teams while working from anywhere. In addition, organize tasks and assign them to your team to know about the priority and need of the project. Manage unscheduled, overlapping, and dependent tasks to create the perfect plan for the members. Allow your team to focus more on tasks by leaving the repetitive work to Asana to get better results. Bring tools from 200+ integration options your team needs to collaborate, communicate, and coordinate work. Moreover, customize the workflows suitable for you from creative production to everything in between for delivering the work. Keep an eye on the team’s workload and progress, get visual highlights and real-time charts to spot problems, share status, and keep the job on track. It gives you the power you need to control and manage the workflow. Use Asana for free and get unlimited projects, tasks, messages, activity logs, and more. For more features, go with a paid plan starting at $10.99/user/month.
Basecamp
Basecamp is the all-in-one package for working remotely. Organizing everything in a single place is now straightforward so that you can focus more on work. Searching stuff from file services, emails, spreadsheets, meetings, chats, and task managers is tricky; Basecamp makes it easier by keeping the right information in the right place, never to lose any data. Allow your team to access the Work OS from anywhere on Android, iOS, and web, offering a modern way to work. Inside every project, you will get a message board, to-dos, docs, files, schedule, group chat, automatic check-ins, and more. It helps you improve the workflow, and hence, productivity. Furthermore, Basecamp gives you many tools that you can rename. Turn off the tools that you do not need for the project. You can integrate with the tools to tailor things like a time tracker, etc., to work better, track everyone’s working hours, and check the status of each project. Get every feature you need at just $99/month and start your 30-day free trial. Basecamp has a limited plan for free for three projects, 1GB storage, and up to 20 users for small-sized companies.
Google Workspace
Get an innovative and flexible solution – Google Workspace – for teams of all sizes to create, collaborate, and connect within organizations to achieve the company’s goals. It lets you stay up to date with the events and latest stories and offers collaboration and productivity tools for your work. You can host meetings with up to 250 participants from anywhere. In addition, you can edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in real-time along with your team and track changes from the history. Keep the entire team on the same page by creating a group calendar, organizing files, and creating group chats. Google Workspace runs on the cloud as it understands the security requirements for your business. It also offers the administrators enterprise-level control over the application and system configuration settings. You will get everything you need in the dashboard for asset protection, streamlining the authentication process, and operational control.
Airtable
Airtable is a single source of truth to your teams with endless solutions. It gives your team the robustness of a database and the familiarity of spreadsheets. It grows with your team so that you can create a solution with enhanced capability and sophistication. Use it to modernize the way you work and deliver better outcomes. You will get beautiful templates to choose from and make your work a bit more exciting. In addition, streamline your work with essential integrations and transform your data to clear views so that your team can understand them easily. It will help you track events, projects, resources, etc., on the timeline and visualize the pieces of the ongoing work. Supercharge your management process with Kanban view and track stakeholders, progress, and more deliverables in a modifiable UI. Additionally, you can map out task dependencies, activities, and milestones to manage multi-step projects. Airtable offers calendar view, grid view, gallery view, form view, and more. It can also help your team respond faster to work by automating processes that save time. You can create graphs, top-line metrics, and charts that suit the team’s reporting use cases. Airtable comes with a free plan for small teams and provides unlimited bases, 1200 records per base, 2GB attachments per base, gallery, form, Kanban, grid, and calendar views. Go with a plus plan at just $10/seat/month if you have a growing team.
Conclusion 👩🏫
Remote work is the present and future. And this is why a lot of software solutions like Work OS software are emerging to support businesses so they can operate remotely with efficiency. Thus, go for any of the work OS software mentioned above and enjoy its benefits for your remote workforce.
