Amidst the International chaos caused due to the emergence of COVID-19, the Government of Kuwait initiated a lock-down to ensure the safety of its citizens and residents. All private and government sector entities were instructed to either allow their employees to work from home or grant them leave.
To continue and ensure the smooth workflow in our organization and to overcome this situation; these are the few platforms that we are using at the moment to maintain internal and external communications.
Google Hangouts.
Google Hangouts are a feature of the G Suite. The platform offers free communication including; text messages, video and voice calls with a person or a group.
Hangouts allows the creation of a group chat with up to 150 members - allowing its user to be able to maintain communication with a large number of people at ease. It also offers a 10 person free group video call which works best in case of online meetings within the organization.
It allows its users to keep in touch with other users across Android, iOS, and the web. Hangouts also ensures that all chats are synced across all devices (linked to one account). This allows the user to be able to easily navigate through the history of the chat using multiple devices that are linked to the same account, without missing any important information.
The use of photos, videos, maps, emoji, stickers, and animated GIFs is supported. Google Hangouts also allows its user to connect their Google Voice account; enabling calls and SMS features.
An example of a recent use for Google Hangouts is that; our General Manager needed to address the entire team. For this, he arranged a Google Hangouts meeting on which all our employees were able to join, listen, watch a presentation, and discuss our concerns regarding the matter. For similar situations and constant communication amongst each other, we turn to Hangouts.
Trello
Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. It allows you to view what’s being worked on by who. A Trello board can be thought of as a portable bulletin board, it also contains color-tags or post-its that include progress bars, attachments, and more. Trello is a great tool for personal use and it also helps department managers keep track of work progress
Trello makes enhanced project management simpler because it is based on the simple ideology that; for effective project management one should be able to flexibly rearrange and reorganize data as priorities change.
Trello also allows you to create checklists that simplify tasks. Checklists can also be shared with a group and can help to manage group tasks. Trello allows you to allot tasks to particular users, hence, notifying the right person for what needs to be done. Trello also allows its users to add deadlines to each task to ensure that everything is done in its right time. The deadline addition also notifies the right person in time (if the notifications are switched on).
Trello can be used to follow your production workflow. Manage development schedule. Manage a content marketing campaign. Organize upcoming projects. You could also use Trello to keep track of the hiring process at your company. Your dedicated board will show you what needs to be done including the status of all tasks. Trello has virtually limitless possibilities so you can shape it to whatever project you have.
For example, my personal Trello board has a list of tasks that I have to accomplish daily and weekly. I assign deadlines to the tasks and can rearrange them according to their priorities. This makes it easier for me to remember what needs to be done and when it needs to be delivered.
Another means of communication that we use at Cinemagic is WhatsApp. The free texting and calling web-based application that is available across the majority of platforms, allows us to stay in touch with each other.
With end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp offers top-notch security and as it is a people's favorite application, all our employees are quick to respond to WhatsApp calls and messages. This makes it our go-to application during emergencies. WhatsApp also allows free international calls, which helps us maintain communications with our overseas employees and clients.
The majority of WhatsApp users use the platform to keep in touch with their friends and family. Many organizations use it to maintain communication amongst their employees. Ever since the emergence of WhatsApp, people have reduced the use of SMS and shifted on to using WhatsApp for texting and calling. This is why, if something needs to be done sooner rather than later, a WhatsApp call or text is the right way to reach our employees.
GMail
GMail is a free emailing service developed by Google which has rapidly become the most famous, free emailing hosting platform. Well, like a lot of Google’s products, Gmail is very fast and effective. Gmail thrives at offering excellent spam protection that is tremendously important in today’s e-mail environment. At the top of all of that, Gmail supplies confidence and security. The majority of Cinemagic's external communication takes place over GMail. To establish and maintain external communication, GMail is our favorite.
Comment below and let us know what tools do you use at your workplace!
