13 Apps & Tech Tools For Effective Bosses

Paper and pen can be efficient, but to really be an effective boss, you’ve got to leverage technology.

Leaders in the 21st century connect with their employees, encourage engagement and stimulate performance through the use of apps and tech tools.

Digital solutions in the form of apps and other tech tools make you a more effective boss and help you do your job better.

You are probably already using your smartphone, tablet and laptop for work. But, did you know there are ways to use these tools to their full capacity, helping you be a better boss?

In this article, we look at 13 apps and tech tools for effective bosses.

#1: Evernote

This terrific organizational app is available for your computer, phone and tablet. It syncs across all of your devices, so everything is readily available no matter where you are.

With Evernote, you can use the free version or upgrade to a paid package that unlocks extra features and storage space.

Using Evernote, you can make to-do lists, take notes, snap a photo of a sketch, clip articles on the Internet to read later and store documents.

You can also collaborate with your employees and share notes and notebooks. This is an effective tool for organizing teams within your organization and sharing documents.

#2: Asana

How’d you like to help your team track and monitor their results from start to finish?

Asana helps you manage your team’s tasks and goals toward project completion.

Like Evernote, you can also organize to-do lists, but it goes a step further allowing you to organize projects, meetings, conversations and emails using an easy-to-use dashboard.

Asana keeps everyone in the loop and assures that project information is always available to anyone at any time.

It’s also available on the go, so you and your employees can use it from a mobile device.

This is an especially helpful tool if part of your workforce works remotely.

#3: 15Five

15Five is a great option for restaurants, hotel managers and other small businesses.

This handy tech tool lets bosses know what’s going on with their employees. In 15Five, there are two roles – that of reporter and reviewer. Employees are the reporters, and managers are reviewers.

Your employees take 15 minutes weekly to answer some simple questions and write very short snippets about business ideas, while providing feedback and sparking conversation or asking for help.

Then, you as the boss, take five minutes to comment back adding your own feedback and insights.

This is a great tool for effective bosses because it sparks conversation and enables employees to communicate in a low-key, non-threatening manner with their managers.

Using 15five, you can easily see how your employees are feeling and learn what you need to improve your company culture to improve productivity.

#4: ZoomShift

Allow us to include our own tech tool on this list.

ZoomShift makes you a more effective boss because it digitizes your scheduling and time clock software for your hourly employees.

You can use it to simply make work schedules, track time and run your payroll.

Whether you’re using a computer or Apple or Android phone, you can take ZoomShift with you anywhere to manage your schedules and payroll.

The mobile app can even remind your employees that their shift is about to start, reducing the number of late or no-show employees.

The time clock is also usable by any of your employees at anytime and anywhere. With the GPS locator, you will always know if your’ employees clocked in and out from where you expected them to be.

#5: LambdaTest

Your website may look different from different browsers. Which is why cross browser testing has become inevitable to online businesses. However, the major challenge around cross browser testing lies with the infrastructure setup. Not everyone can afford an expensive device lab or a hardware which can help them test their websites over dozens of browsers & OS.

LambdaTest tends to make your cross browser testing experience easier by providing a cloud-based platform with 2000+ real browsers for both mobile & desktop. You can perform live-interactive testing of your website over machines hosted on cloud servers. You can also automate browser testing with their online Selenium Grid.

LambdaTest also helps you test your locally hosted web pages to ensure that your recent code changes look seamless across all browsers even before you launch them in the production environment. Other than cross browser testing, LambdaTest also helps with responsive testing, visual regression testing, and more.

In fact, they’ve recently come up with a browser which is built to take out all of the pain-points around responsive testing. They call it the LT browser.

#6: EmailAnalytics

We really like EmailAnalytics because it lets you visualize your employees’ email activity. You can see essential productivity metrics like emails sent, emails received, and average email response time for each member of your team.

This lets you identify top performers, low performers, and areas for improvement. You can rebalance workloads and encourage your team members to improve their average response times, which is critical for sales and customer service teams.

Plus, EmailAnalytics sends you a daily or weekly email report, which makes it super simple to keep tabs on your team’s email activity, without even needing to leave your inbox.

#7: Expensify

If you or your employees need to utilize expense reports, Expensify is the app for you.

Making everyone more effective, Expensify streamlines the way expenses are reported, approved and exported to your accounting department.

With this app, you and your staff can quickly create, submit and approve expense reports from a smartphone. Just take a photo of your receipts and capture the expense information. Then, toss the receipts and never worry about keeping them again.

Plus, Expensify allows you to manage your travel plans and track mileage.

#8: The Leadership Challenge

If you’re looking for tools to help you be an effective boss, The Leadership Challenge mobile tool is terrific.

With this app, you can take actions to grow your leadership through the five recognized leadership practices:

1. Model the Way
2. Inspire a Shared Vision
3. Challenge the Process
4. Enable Others to Act
5. Encourage the Heart.

Whether you’re a small business owner, restaurant owner or retail store owner, this is a great tech tool.

#9 CallHippo

CallHippo is a leading cloud telephony provider that can handle all your business communication requirements.

With CallHippo, your organization can get a business phone number running in just three minutes. Highly scalable and flexible, CallHippo is an affordable solution that provides complete mobility to businesses.

You can make or receive calls anytime, anywhere without being tied to any specific device or location. CallHippo has versatile and advanced features that facilitate call recording, forwarding, voicemail, and IVR to enhance operational efficiency.

A reliable business phone number provider, CallHippo is an established name in cloud telephony. It is a must-have tool for modern businesses to streamline their communication requirements and increase bottom-line results.

#10: InnerWill Ignitor

Another useful tool to make yourself a better leader, InnerWill Ignitor helps you wade through your personality traits to help you build self-awareness.

It teaches you how to get the best from yourself which in turn makes you a more effective boss.

#11: 2Do

If you’ve never tried this productivity app, it’s time to give it a try.

2Do helps you manage your schedule, making you a more effective boss. You can manage not only your work schedule with this app, but your personal schedule, too. No more scheduling meetings during your son’s soccer game.
You’ll never lose track of your schedule again.

#12. Super Note

We like this app because it helps you be more effective at any time, even walking on your lunch hour.

With Super Note, you can take notes anywhere by using the voice recording option.

Just imagine, you’re driving and you remember something you want to recognize your employee for. You can use Super Note to record your thoughts, add pictures and even color code your notes for later.

#13. Minute

Wouldn’t it be nice to make meetings and agendas easy? With Minute, you can.

An effective boss runs productive meetings, and that starts with the agenda.

Using Minute, you can create agendas for meetings and share the agenda to any mobile device or computer.

You can also use Minute to take notes and capture action items. Then, you can quickly send the minutes to your employees right from the app.

You and your employees can even work in the app in real time, collaborating on action items.

Minute is also exportable to Dropbox, Evernote, email and more.

To Conclude

Now that we’ve looked at 10 apps and tech tools for effective bosses, it’s time to put them to the test. Pick one to try this week, and next week, try another.

Effective bosses have just enough tech savvy to use these apps to increase their own productivity as well as that of their employees.

**Do you have a favorite app or tech tool that increases productivity or makes your life easier? Please comment below to share your tips with others.**

JD Spinoza

JD enjoys teaching people how to use ZoomShift to save time spent on scheduling. He’s curious, likes learning new things everyday and playing the guitar (although it’s a work in progress).