What We Do\nTime Doctor is a work insights company that tracks and analyzes how companies use their time to provide clear direction on how to improve performance and productivity

Time Doctor

timedoctor

I am excited to introduce you to the PARMA project that’s been brewing. A revolutionary healthcare application designed to streamline patient record management for healthcare institutions. I built it with the goal of empowering providers to efficiently manage their processes while maintaining details, accurate, and secure profiles. 😀 : With a deep understanding of both front-end and back-end technologies, James is the driving force behind our app's technical architecture. His passion for delivering a seamless user experience across web and mobile platforms is infectious. James Koduah Full-stack Developer : That's me! I bring to the table a versatile skill set that allows me to tackle various aspects of this project. From crafting elegant front-end interfaces to optimizing back-end functionalities, I'm here to ensure our app shines on all fronts. Farai Ushe: Full-stack Developer Why this project? It all began when I was testing datasets for a school management system, a job that seemed worlds away from healthcare and disease prevention. Zimbabwe, particularly in the southern region, faces its fair share of health challenges. Diseases like cholera and malaria often rear their ugly heads, causing suffering and loss. The local healthcare system, while valiantly striving, is undeniably stretched thin. It was against this backdrop that the spark for our project was kindled. My thoughts often drifted to how technology could make a difference in the realm of healthcare, especially in a place like Zimbabwe. I couldn't help but wonder if we could harness the power of data and machine learning to predict and prevent disease outbreaks before they spiral out of control. While the Zimbabwean healthcare system may have its challenges, it's also filled with dedicated individuals working tirelessly to make a difference. Diseases like cholera and malaria can be curbed if we have the right tools and insights at our disposal. This project isn't just about coding; it's about making a meaningful impact on the health and well-being of my community and beyond. It's about taking the skills I've learned and using them to address real-world challenges. It's a reminder that sometimes, the most unexpected journeys lead to the most rewarding destinations. Together with my amazing teammates, James, and our shared vision, we're determined to make a difference, one line of code at a time. Accomplishments with the HealthCare App Project One of the key achievements of our project is the successful implementation of robust authentication and authorization mechanisms. I've ensured that only authorized users can access patient records and other sensitive data within the application, enhancing security and privacy. Authentication and Authorization: I've developed a set of APIs that enable crucial functionalities within the HealthCare App. These APIs allow for booking patients, registering new patients with Medical IDs, and providing doctors with a dedicated dashboard to view booked patients, queued patients, and the next patient in line. This feature streamlines the workflow of healthcare professionals, making patient management more efficient. API Development: Our application's database architecture is designed for both performance and data integrity. I've employed a primary database for write operations, ensuring data consistency and durability. Additionally, I've implemented a replica database to distribute read traffic, improving overall system performance and providing data redundancy for failover scenarios. Database Architecture: To ensure optimal utilization and responsiveness, I've integrated a load balancer into our architecture. This load balancer evenly distributes user requests across multiple identical servers, enhancing the application's scalability and reliability. Load Balancing: Technologies and Technology Choices: For the front end, I opted to use HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript without additional frameworks. This choice allowed us to focus on solidifying our understanding of JavaScript and create a responsive and user-friendly interface. HTML, CSS, JavaScript (Vanilla): For the backend, we chose Flask Python due to its simplicity, flexibility, and efficiency. Flask's lightweight nature made it an ideal choice for rapid development and scaling as our project expanded. Flask Python: As our primary database management system, MySQL provides the data consistency and durability required for our healthcare application. Its relational database structure suits the nature of patient records and medical data. MySQL: Notable features: I've implemented a secure and user-friendly authentication system, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access sensitive patient data. Authentication and Authorization: Our system allows healthcare providers to efficiently book patients, streamlining the scheduling process and improving patient care. Booking Patients: Doctors have access to a dedicated dashboard that provides essential information about booked patients, queued patients, and the next patient in line, enhancing their ability to manage patient appointments effectively. Doctor's Dashboard: Challenges I faced In our HealthCare App project, I grappled with the task of dynamically selecting available doctors for patient appointments. However, the API consistently threw a "Doctor not defined" error, hindering our ability to recognize the values being passed. Our challenge was clear: enable nurses to efficiently select doctors actively logged into the system for patient appointments. This necessitated real-time availability tracking and a seamless user experience. To conquer this obstacle. Firstly, I introduced real-time doctor availability tracking, monitoring login and logout activities. This updated doctors' statuses to "Available" upon login and "Unavailable" upon logout, supported by an extended data model. Secondly, I adapted API calls for nurses' interfaces, enabling them to filter doctors based on their up-to-the-minute availability status. Nurses received clear, real-time feedback on each doctor's availability status, empowering informed scheduling decisions. Our solution succeeded. Nurses could now effortlessly select from a list of actively logged-in doctors, streamlining patient appointment scheduling. Technical takeaways Implementing real-time doctor availability tracking was a significant technical challenge. It taught me the importance of data synchronization in real-time applications and how to design systems that can handle constant data updates efficiently. Extending the data model to accommodate real-time status updates for doctors was a valuable lesson in database design. It showed me how a well-thought-out data model can simplify complex application features. This project is reinforcing my belief in the power of collaboration and teamwork. Working closely with my teammates, each with their unique skills and perspectives is instrumental in overcoming technical challenges. Being open to trying different technologies and approaches, as we did with real-time tracking, can lead to innovative solutions. Questioned Beliefs While I held the belief that planning is essential, this project reaffirmed that adaptability and agility are equally crucial in the fast-paced world of software development. It's essential to strike a balance between planning and the ability to pivot when needed. LINKS My LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/farai-ushe-b29368109 Landing page: http://parma.jaskin.tech/ Github: https://github.com/James-koduah/parma

Future of Telemedicine: Lessons I've Learnt From Building my  HealthCare App MVP

A Floating City and The Blockade Runners by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Chapter X here CHAPTER X. In spite of the ship’s disorderly conduct, life on board was becoming organized, for with the Anglo-Saxon nothing is more simple. The steam-boat is his street and his house for the time being; the Frenchman, on the contrary, always looks like a traveller. When the weather was favourable, the boulevards were thronged with promenaders, who managed to maintain the perpendicular, in spite of the ship’s motion, but with the peculiar gyrations of tipsy men. When the passengers did not go on deck, they remained either in their private sitting rooms or in the grand saloon, and then began the noisy discords of pianos, all played at the same time, which, however, seemed not to affect Saxon ears in the least. Among these amateurs, I noticed a tall, bony woman, who must have been a good musician, for, in order to facilitate reading her piece of music, she had marked all the notes with a number, and the piano-keys with a number corresponding, so that if it was note twenty-seven, she struck key twenty-seven, if fifty-three, key fifty-three, and so on, perfectly indifferent to the noise around her, or the sound of other pianos in the adjoining saloons, and her equanimity was not even disturbed when some disagreeable little children thumped with their fists on the unoccupied keys. Whilst this concert was going on, a bystander would carelessly take up one of the books scattered here and there on the tables, and, having found an interesting passage, would read it aloud, whilst his audience listened good-humouredly, and complimented him with a flattering murmur of applause. Newspapers were scattered on the sofas, generally American and English, which always look old, although the pages have never been cut; it is a very tiresome operation reading these great sheets, which take up so much room, but the fashion being to leave them uncut, so they remain. One day I had the patience to read the from beginning to end under these circumstances, and judge if I was rewarded for my trouble when I turned to the column headed “Private:” “M. X. begs the pretty Miss Z——, whom he met yesterday in Twenty-fifth Street omnibus, to come to him to-morrow, at his rooms, No. 17, St. Nicholas Hotel; he wishes to speak of marriage with her.” What did the pretty Miss Z— do? I don’t even care to know. New York Herald I passed the whole of the afternoon in the grand saloon talking, and observing what was going on about me. Conversation could not fail to be interesting, for my friend Dean Pitferge was sitting near me. “Have you quite recovered from the effects of your tumble?” I asked him. “Perfectly,” replied he, “but it’s no go.” “What is no go? You?” “No, our steam-ship; the screw boilers are not working well; we cannot get enough pressure.” “You are anxious, then, to get to New York?” “Not in the least, I speak as an engineer, that is all. I am very comfortable here, and shall sincerely regret leaving this collection of originals which chance has thrown together ... for my recreation.” “Originals!” cried I, looking at the passengers who crowded the saloon; “but all those people are very much alike.” “Nonsense!” exclaimed the Doctor, “one can see you have hardly looked at them, the species is the same, I allow, but in that species what a variety there is! Just notice that group of men down there, with their easy-going air, their legs stretched on the sofas, and hats screwed down on their heads. They are Yankees, pure Yankees, from the small states of Maine, Vermont, and Connecticut, the produce of New England. Energetic and intelligent men, rather too much influenced by ‘the Reverends,’ and who have the disagreeable fault of never putting their hands before their mouths when they sneeze. Ah! my dear sir, they are true Saxons, always keenly alive to a bargain; put two Yankees in a room together, and in an hour they will each have gained ten dollars from the other.” “I will not ask how,” replied I, smiling at the Doctor, “but among them I see a little man with a consequential air, looking like a weather-cock, and dressed in a long overcoat, with rather short black trousers,—who is that gentleman?” “He is a Protestant minister, a man of ‘importance’ in Massachusetts, where he is going to join his wife, an ex-governess advantageously implicated in a celebrated lawsuit.” “And that tall, gloomy-looking fellow, who seems to be absorbed in calculation?” “That man calculates: in fact,” said the Doctor, “he is for ever calculating.” “Problems?” “No, his fortune, he is a man of ‘importance,’ at any moment he knows almost to a farthing what he is worth; he is rich, a fourth part of New York is built on his land; a quarter of an hour ago he possessed 1,625,367 dollars and a half, but now he has only 1,625,367 dollars and a quarter.” “How came this difference in his fortune?” “Well! he has just smoked a quarter-dollar cigar.” Doctor Dean Pitferge amused me with his clever repartees, so I pointed out to him another group stowed away in a corner of the saloon. “They,” said he, “are people from the Far West, the tallest, who looks like a head clerk, is a man of ‘importance,’ the head of a Chicago bank, he always carries an album under his arm, with the principal views of his beloved city. He is, and has reason to be, proud of a city founded in a desert in 1836, which at the present day has a population of more than 400,000 souls. Near him you see a Californian couple, the young wife is delicate and charming, her well-polished husband was once a plough-boy, who one fine day turned up some nuggets. That gentleman—” “Is a man of ‘importance,’” said I. “Undoubtedly,” replied the Doctor, “for his assets count by the million.” “And pray who may this tall individual be, who moves his head backwards and forwards like the pendulum of a clock?” “That person,” replied the Doctor, “is the celebrated Cockburn of Rochester, the universal statistician, who has weighed, measured, proportioned, and calculated everything. Question this harmless maniac, he will tell you how much bread a man of fifty has eaten in his life, and how many cubic feet of air he has breathed. He will tell you how many volumes in quarto the words of a Temple lawyer would fill, and how many miles the postman goes daily carrying nothing but love-letters; he will tell you the number of widows who pass in one hour over London Bridge, and what would be the height of a pile of sandwiches consumed by the citizens of the Union in a year; he will tell you—” The Doctor, in his excitement, would have continued for a long time in this strain, but other passengers passing us were attracted by the inexhaustible stock of his original remarks. What different characters there were in this crowd of passengers! not one idler, however, for one does not go from one continent to the other without some serious motive. The most part of them were undoubtedly going to seek their fortunes on American ground, forgetting that at twenty years of age a Yankee has made his fortune, and that at twenty-five he is already too old to begin the struggle. Among these adventurers, inventors, and fortune-hunters, Dean Pitferge pointed out to me some singularly interesting characters. Here was a chemist, a rival of Dr. Liebig, who pretended to have discovered the art of condensing all the nutritious parts of a cow into a meat-tablet, no larger than a five-shilling piece. He was going to coin money out of the cattle of the Pampas. Another, the inventor of a portable motive-power—a steam horse in a watch-case—was going to exhibit his patent in New England. Another, a Frenchman from the “Rue Chapon,” was carrying to America 30,000 cardboard dolls, which said “papa” with a very successful Yankee accent, and he had no doubt but that his fortune was made. But besides these originals, there were still others whose secrets we could not guess; perhaps among them was some cashier flying from his empty cash-box, and a detective making friends with him, only waiting for the end of the passage to take him by the collar; perhaps also we might have found in this crowd clever genii, who always find people ready to believe in them, even when they advocate the affairs of “The Oceanic Company for lighting Polynesia with gas,” or “The Royal Society for making incombustible coal.” But at this moment my attention was attracted by the entrance of a young couple who seemed to be under the influence of a precocious weariness. “They are Peruvians, my dear sir,” said the Doctor, “a couple married a year ago, who have been to all parts of the world for their honeymoon. They adored each other in Japan, loved in Australia, bore with one another in India, bored each other in France, quarrelled in England, and will undoubtedly separate in America.” “And,” said I, “who is that tall, haughty-looking man just coming in? from his appearance I should take him for an officer.” “He is a Mormon,” replied the doctor, “an elder, Mr. Hatch, one of the great preachers in the city of Saints. What a fine type of manhood he is! Look at his proud eye, his noble countenance, and dignified bearing, so different from the Yankee. Mr. Hatch is returning from Germany and England, where he has preached Mormonism with great success, for there are numbers of this sect in Europe, who are allowed to conform to the laws of their country.” “Indeed!” said I; “I quite thought that polygamy was forbidden them in Europe.” “Undoubtedly, my dear sir, but do not think that polygamy is obligatory on Mormons; Brigham Young has his harem, because it suits him, but all his followers do not imitate him, not even those dwelling on the banks of the Salt Lake.” “Indeed! and Mr. Hatch?” “Mr. Hatch has only one wife, and he finds that quite enough; besides, he proposes to explain his system in a meeting that he will hold one of these evenings.” “The saloon will be filled.” “Yes,” said Pitferge, “if the gambling does not attract too many of the audience; you know that they play in a room at the bows? There is an Englishman there with an evil, disagreeable face, who seems to take the lead among them, he is a bad man, with a detestable reputation. Have you noticed him?” From the Doctor’s description, I had no doubt but that he was the same man who that morning had made himself conspicuous by his foolish wagers with regard to the waif. My opinion of him was not wrong. Dean Pitferge told me his name was Harry Drake, and that he was the son of a merchant at Calcutta, a gambler, a dissolute character, a duellist, and now that he was almost ruined, he was most likely going to America to try a life of adventures. “Such people,” added the Doctor, “always find followers willing to flatter them, and this fellow has already formed his circle of scamps, of which he is the centre. Among them I have noticed a little short man, with a round face, a turned-up nose, wearing gold spectacles, and having the appearance of a German Jew; he calls himself a doctor, on the way to Quebec; but I take him for a low actor and one of Drake’s admirers.” At this moment Dean Pitferge, who easily skipped from one subject to another, nudged my elbow. I turned my head towards the saloon door: a young man about twenty-eight, and a girl of seventeen, were coming in arm in arm. “A newly-married pair?” asked I. “No,” replied the Doctor, in a softened tone, “an engaged couple, who are only waiting for their arrival in New York to get married, they have just made the tour of Europe, of course with their family’s consent, and they know now that they are made for one another. Nice young people; it is a pleasure to look at them. I often see them leaning over the railings of the engine-rooms, counting the turns of the wheels, which do not go half fast enough for their liking. Ah! sir, if our boilers were heated like those two youthful hearts, see how our speed would increase!” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (2022). A Floating City and The Blockade Runners. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/67829/67829-h/67829-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

In spite of the ship’s disorderly conduct, life on board was becoming organized

Five Weeks in a Balloon by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Chapter XXVII here CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH. Terrific Heat.—Hallucinations.—The Last Drops of Water.—Nights of Despair.—An Attempt at Suicide.—The Simoom.—The Oasis.—The Lion and Lioness. The doctor’s first care, on the morrow, was to consult the barometer. He found that the mercury had scarcely undergone any perceptible depression. “Nothing!” he murmured, “nothing!” He got out of the car and scrutinized the weather; there was only the same heat, the same cloudless sky, the same merciless drought. “Must we, then, give up to despair?” he exclaimed, in agony. Joe did not open his lips. He was buried in his own thoughts, and planning the expedition he had proposed. Kennedy got up, feeling very ill, and a prey to nervous agitation. He was suffering horribly with thirst, and his swollen tongue and lips could hardly articulate a syllable. There still remained a few drops of water. Each of them knew this, and each was thinking of it, and felt himself drawn toward them; but neither of the three dared to take a step. Those three men, friends and companions as they were, fixed their haggard eyes upon each other with an instinct of ferocious longing, which was most plainly revealed in the hardy Scot, whose vigorous constitution yielded the soonest to these unnatural privations. Throughout the day he was delirious, pacing up and down, uttering hoarse cries, gnawing his clinched fists, and ready to open his veins and drink his own hot blood. “Ah!” he cried, “land of thirst! Well might you be called the land of despair!” At length he sank down in utter prostration, and his friends heard no other sound from him than the hissing of his breath between his parched and swollen lips. Toward evening, Joe had his turn of delirium. The vast expanse of sand appeared to him an immense pond, full of clear and limpid water; and, more than once, he dashed himself upon the scorching waste to drink long draughts, and rose again with his mouth clogged with hot dust. “Curses on it!” he yelled, in his madness, “it’s nothing but salt water!” Then, while Ferguson and Kennedy lay there motionless, the resistless longing came over him to drain the last few drops of water that had been kept in reserve. The natural instinct proved too strong. He dragged himself toward the car, on his knees; he glared at the bottle containing the precious fluid; he gave one wild, eager glance, seized the treasured store, and bore it to his lips. At that instant he heard a heart-rending cry close beside him—“Water! water!” It was Kennedy, who had crawled up close to him, and was begging there, upon his knees, and weeping piteously. Joe, himself in tears, gave the poor wretch the bottle, and Kennedy drained the last drop with savage haste. “Thanks!” he murmured hoarsely, but Joe did not hear him, for both alike had dropped fainting on the sand. What took place during that fearful night neither of them knew, but, on Tuesday morning, under those showers of heat which the sun poured down upon them, the unfortunate men felt their limbs gradually drying up, and when Joe attempted to rise he found it impossible. He looked around him. In the car, the doctor, completely overwhelmed, sat with his arms folded on his breast, gazing with idiotic fixedness upon some imaginary point in space. Kennedy was frightful to behold. He was rolling his head from right to left like a wild beast in a cage. All at once, his eyes rested on the butt of his rifle, which jutted above the rim of the car. “Ah!” he screamed, raising himself with a superhuman effort. Desperate, mad, he snatched at the weapon, and turned the barrel toward his mouth. “Kennedy!” shouted Joe, throwing himself upon his friend. “Let go! hands off!” moaned the Scot, in a hoarse, grating voice—and then the two struggled desperately for the rifle. “Let go, or I’ll kill you!” repeated Kennedy. But Joe clung to him only the more fiercely, and they had been contending thus without the doctor seeing them for many seconds, when, suddenly the rifle went off. At the sound of its discharge, the doctor rose up erect, like a spectre, and glared around him. But all at once his glance grew more animated; he extended his hand toward the horizon, and in a voice no longer human shrieked: “There! there—off there!” There was such fearful force in the cry that Kennedy and Joe released each other, and both looked where the doctor pointed. The plain was agitated like the sea shaken by the fury of a tempest; billows of sand went tossing over each other amid blinding clouds of dust; an immense pillar was seen whirling toward them through the air from the southeast, with terrific velocity; the sun was disappearing behind an opaque veil of cloud whose enormous barrier extended clear to the horizon, while the grains of fine sand went gliding together with all the supple ease of liquid particles, and the rising dust-tide gained more and more with every second. Ferguson’s eyes gleamed with a ray of energetic hope. “The simoom!” he exclaimed. “The simoom!” repeated Joe, without exactly knowing what it meant. “So much the better!” said Kennedy, with the bitterness of despair. “So much the better—we shall die!” “So much the better!” echoed the doctor, “for we shall live!” and, so saying, he began rapidly to throw out the sand that encumbered the car. At length his companions understood him, and took their places at his side. “And now, Joe,” said the doctor, “throw out some fifty pounds of your ore, there!” Joe no longer hesitated, although he still felt a fleeting pang of regret. The balloon at once began to ascend. “It was high time!” said the doctor. The simoom, in fact, came rushing on like a thunderbolt, and a moment later the balloon would have been crushed, torn to atoms, annihilated. The awful whirlwind was almost upon it, and it was already pelted with showers of sand driven like hail by the storm. “Out with more ballast!” shouted the doctor. “There!” responded Joe, tossing over a huge fragment of quartz. With this, the rose swiftly above the range of the whirling column, but, caught in the vast displacement of the atmosphere thereby occasioned, it was borne along with incalculable rapidity away above this foaming sea. Victoria The three travellers did not speak. They gazed, and hoped, and even felt refreshed by the breath of the tempest. About three o’clock, the whirlwind ceased; the sand, falling again upon the desert, formed numberless little hillocks, and the sky resumed its former tranquillity. The balloon, which had again lost its momentum, was floating in sight of an oasis, a sort of islet studded with green trees, thrown up upon the surface of this sandy ocean. “Water! we’ll find water there!” said the doctor. And, instantly, opening the upper valve, he let some hydrogen escape, and slowly descended, taking the ground at about two hundred feet from the edge of the oasis. In four hours the travellers had swept over a distance of two hundred and forty miles! The car was at once ballasted, and Kennedy, closely followed by Joe, leaped out. “Take your guns with you!” said the doctor; “take your guns, and be careful!” Dick grasped his rifle, and Joe took one of the fowling-pieces. They then rapidly made for the trees, and disappeared under the fresh verdure, which announced the presence of abundant springs. As they hurried on, they had not taken notice of certain large footprints and fresh tracks of some living creature marked here and there in the damp soil. Suddenly, a dull roar was heard not twenty paces from them. “The roar of a lion!” said Joe. “Good for that!” said the excited hunter; “we’ll fight him. A man feels strong when only a fight’s in question.” “But be careful, Mr. Kennedy; be careful! The lives of all depend upon the life of one.” But Kennedy no longer heard him; he was pushing on, his eye blazing; his rifle cocked; fearful to behold in his daring rashness. There, under a palm-tree, stood an enormous black-maned lion, crouching for a spring on his antagonist. Scarcely had he caught a glimpse of the hunter, when he bounded through the air; but he had not touched the ground ere a bullet pierced his heart, and he fell to the earth dead. “Hurrah! hurrah!” shouted Joe, with wild exultation. Kennedy rushed toward the well, slid down the dampened steps, and flung himself at full length by the side of a fresh spring, in which he plunged his parched lips. Joe followed suit, and for some minutes nothing was heard but the sound they made with their mouths, drinking more like maddened beasts than men. “Take care, Mr. Kennedy,” said Joe at last; “let us not overdo the thing!” and he panted for breath. But Kennedy, without a word, drank on. He even plunged his hands, and then his head, into the delicious tide—he fairly revelled in its coolness. “But the doctor?” said Joe; “our friend, Dr. Ferguson?” That one word recalled Kennedy to himself, and, hastily filling a flask that he had brought with him, he started on a run up the steps of the well. But what was his amazement when he saw an opaque body of enormous dimensions blocking up the passage! Joe, who was close upon Kennedy’s heels, recoiled with him. “We are blocked in—entrapped!” “Impossible! What does that mean?—” Dick had no time to finish; a terrific roar made him only too quickly aware what foe confronted him. “Another lion!” exclaimed Joe. “A lioness, rather,” said Kennedy. “Ah! ferocious brute!” he added, “I’ll settle you in a moment more!” and swiftly reloaded his rifle. In another instant he fired, but the animal had disappeared. “Onward!” shouted Kennedy. “No!” interposed the other, “that shot did not kill her; her body would have rolled down the steps; she’s up there, ready to spring upon the first of us who appears, and he would be a lost man!” “But what are we to do? We must get out of this, and the doctor is expecting us.” “Let us decoy the animal. Take my piece, and give me your rifle.” “What is your plan?” “You’ll see.” And Joe, taking off his linen jacket, hung it on the end of the rifle, and thrust it above the top of the steps. The lioness flung herself furiously upon it. Kennedy was on the alert for her, and his bullet broke her shoulder. The lioness, with a frightful howl of agony, rolled down the steps, overturning Joe in her fall. The poor fellow imagined that he could already feel the enormous paws of the savage beast in his flesh, when a second detonation resounded in the narrow passage, and Dr. Ferguson appeared at the opening above with his gun in hand, and still smoking from the discharge. Joe leaped to his feet, clambered over the body of the dead lioness, and handed up the flask full of sparkling water to his master. To carry it to his lips, and to half empty it at a draught, was the work of an instant, and the three travellers offered up thanks from the depths of their hearts to that Providence who had so miraculously saved them. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (2002). Five Weeks in a Balloon. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3526/pg3526-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

The doctor’s first care

Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1931, by Astounding Stories is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . The Exile of Time: Chapter I: Mysterious Girl Presently there was not one Robot, but three! Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1931: The Exile of Time BEGINNING A FOUR-PART NOVEL By Ray Cummings CHAPTER I. Mysterious Girl The extraordinary incidents began about 1 A.M. in the night of June 8-9, 1935. I was walking through Patton Place, in New York City, with my friend Larry Gregory. My name is George Rankin. My business—and Larry's—are details quite unimportant to this narrative. We had been friends in college. Both of us were working in New York; and with all our relatives in the middle west we were sharing an apartment on this Patton Place—a short crooked, little-known street of not particularly impressive residential buildings lying near the section known as Greenwich Village, where towering office buildings of the business districts encroach close upon it. This night at 1 A. M. it was deserted. A taxi stood at a corner; its chauffeur had left it there, and evidently gone to a nearby lunch room. The street lights were, as always, inadequate. The night was sultry and dark, with a leaden sky and a breathless humidity that presaged a thunder storm. The houses were mostly unlighted at this hour. There was an occasional apartment house among them, but mostly they were low, ramshackle affairs of brick and stone. We were still three blocks from our apartment when without warning the incidents began which were to plunge us and all the city into disaster. We were upon the threshold of a mystery weird and strange, but we did not know it. Mysterious portals were swinging to engulf us. And all unknowing, we walked into them. Larry was saying, "Wish we would get a storm to clear this air—what the devil? George, did you hear that?" We stood listening. There had sounded a choking, muffled scream. We were midway in the block. There was not a pedestrian in sight, nor any vehicle save the abandoned taxi at the corner. "A woman," he said. "Did it come from this house?" We were standing before a three-story brick residence. All its windows were dark. There was a front stoop of several steps, and a basement entryway. The windows were all closed, and the place had the look of being unoccupied. "Not in there, Larry," I answered. "It's closed for the summer—" But I got no further; we heard it again. And this time it sounded, not like a scream, but like a woman's voice calling to attract our attention. "George! Look there!" Larry cried. The glow from a street light illumined the basement entryway, and behind one of the dark windows a girl's face was pressed against the pane. Larry stood gripping me, then drew me forward and down the steps of the entryway. There was a girl in the front basement room. Darkness was behind her, but we could see her white frightened face close to the glass. She tapped on the pane, and in the silence we heard her muffled voice: "Let me out! Oh, let me get out!" The basement door had a locked iron gate. I rattled it. "No way of getting in," I said, then stopped short with surprise. "What the devil—" I joined Larry by the window. The girl was only a few inches from us. She had a pale, frightened face; wide, terrified eyes. Even with that first glimpse, I was transfixed by her beauty. And startled; there was something weird about her. A low-necked, white satin dress disclosed her snowy shoulders; her head was surmounted by a pile of snow-white hair, with dangling white curls framing her pale ethereal beauty. She called again. "What's the matter with you?" Larry demanded. "Are you alone in there? What is it?" She backed from the window; we could see her only as a white blob in the darkness of the basement room. I called, "Can you hear us? What is it?" Then she screamed again. A low scream; but there was infinite terror in it. And again she was at the window. "You will not hurt me? Let me—oh please let me come out!" Her fists pounded the casement. What I would have done I don't know. I recall wondering if the policeman would be at our corner down the block; he very seldom was there. I heard Larry saying: "What the hell!—I'll get her out. George, get me that brick.... Now, get back, girl—I'm going to smash the window." But the girl kept her face pressed against the pane. I had never seen such terrified eyes. Terrified at something behind her in the house; and equally frightened at us. I call to her: "Come to the door. Can't you come to the door and open it?" I pointed to the basement gate. "Open it! Can you hear me?" "Yes—I can hear you, and you speak my language. But you—you will not hurt me? Where am I? This—this was my house a moment ago. I was living here." Demented! It flashed to me. An insane girl, locked in this empty house. I gripped Larry; said to him: "Take it easy; there's something queer about this. We can't smash windows. Let's—" "You open the door," he called to the girl. "I cannot." "Why? Is it locked on the inside?" "I don't know. Because—oh, hurry! If he—if it comes again—!" We could see her turn to look behind her. Larry demanded, "Are you alone in there?" "Yes—now. But, oh! a moment ago he was here!" "Then come to the door." "I cannot. I don't know where it is. This is so strange and dark a place. And yet it was my home, just a little time ago." Demented! And it seemed to me that her accent was very queer. A foreigner, perhaps. She went suddenly into frantic fear. Her fists beat the window glass almost hard enough to shatter it. "We'd better get her out," I agreed. "Smash it, Larry." "Yes." He waved at the girl. "Get back. I'll break the glass. Get away so you won't get hurt." The girl receded into the dimness. "Watch your hand," I cautioned. Larry took off his coat and wrapped his hand and the brick in it. I gazed behind us. The street was still empty. The slight commotion we had made had attracted no attention. The girl cried out again as Larry smashed the pane. "Easy," I called to her. "Take it easy. We won't hurt you." The splintering glass fell inward, and Larry pounded around the casement until it was all clear. The rectangular opening was fairly large. We could see a dim basement room of dilapidated furniture: a door opening into a back room; the girl; nearby, a white shape watching us. There seemed no one else. "Come on," I said. "You can get out here." But she backed away. I was half in the window so I swung my legs over the sill. Larry came after me, and together we advanced on the girl, who shrank before us. Then suddenly she ran to meet us, and I had the sudden feeling that she was not insane. Her fear of us was overshadowed by her terror at something else in this dark, deserted house. The terror communicated itself to Larry and me. Something eery, here. "Come on," Larry muttered. "Let's get her out of here." I had indeed no desire to investigate anything further. The girl let us help her through the window. I stood in the entryway holding her arms. Her dress was of billowing white satin with a single red rose at the breast; her snowy arms and shoulders were bare; white hair was piled high on her small head. Her face, still terrified, showed parted red lips; a little round black beauty patch adorned one of her powdered cheeks. The thought flashed to me that this was a girl in a fancy dress costume. This was a white wig she was wearing! I stood with the girl in the entryway, at a loss what to do. I held her soft warm arms; the perfume of her enveloped me. "What do you want us to do with you?" I demanded softly. McGuire, the policeman on the block, might at any moment pass. "We might get arrested! What's the matter with you? Can't you explain? Are you hurt?" She was staring as though I were a ghost, or some strange animal. "Oh, take me away from this place! I will talk—though I do not know what to say—" Demented or sane, I had no desire to have her fall into the clutches of the police. Nor could we very well take her to our apartment. But there was my friend Dr. Alten, alienist, who lived within a mile of here. "We'll take her to Alten's," I said to Larry, "and find out what this means. She isn't crazy." A sudden wild emotion swept me, then. Whatever this mystery, more than anything in the world I did not want the girl to be insane! Larry said, "There was a taxi down the street." It came, now, slowly along the deserted block. The chauffeur had perhaps heard us, and was cruising past to see if we were possible fares. He halted at the curb. The girl had quieted; but when she saw the taxi her face registered wildest terror, and she shrank against me. "No! No! Don't let it kill me!" Larry and I were pulling her forward. "What the devil's the matter with you?" Larry demanded again. She was suddenly wildly fighting with us. "No! That—that mechanism—" "Get her in it!" Larry panted. "We'll have the neighborhood on us!" It seemed the only thing to do. We flung her, scrambling and fighting, into the taxi. To the half-frightened, reluctant driver, Larry said vigorously: "It's all right; we're just taking her to a doctor. Hurry and get us away from here. There's good money in it for you!" The promise—and the reassurance of the physician's address—convinced the chauffeur. We whirled off toward Washington Square. Within the swaying taxi I sat holding the trembling girl. She was sobbing now, but quieting. "There," I murmured. "We won't hurt you; we're just taking you to a doctor. You can explain to him. He's very intelligent." "Yes," she said softly. "Yes. Thank you. I'm all right now." She relaxed against me. So beautiful, so dainty a creature. Larry leaned toward us. "You're better now?" "Yes." "That's fine. You'll be all right. Don't think about it." He was convinced she was insane. I breathed again the vague hope that it might not be so. She was huddled against me. Her face, upturned to mine, had color in it now; red lips; a faint rose tint in the pale cheeks. She murmured, "Is this New York?" My heart sank. "Yes," I answered. "Of course it is." "But when?" "What do you mean?" "I mean, what year?" "Why, 1935!" She caught her breath. "And your name is—" "George Rankin." "And I,"—her laugh had a queer break in it—"I am Mistress Mary Atwood. But just a few minutes ago—oh, am I dreaming? Surely I'm not insane!" Larry again leaned over us. "What are you talking about?" "You're friendly, you two. Like men; strange, so very strange-looking young men. This—this carriage without any horses—I know now it won't hurt me." She sat up. "Take me to your doctor. And then to the general of your army. I must see him, and warn him. Warn you all." She was turning half hysterical again. She laughed wildly. "Your general—he won't be General Washington, of course. But I must warn him." She gripped me. "You think I am demented. But I am not. I am Mary Atwood, daughter of Major Charles Atwood, of General Washington's staff. That was my home, where you broke the window. But it did not look like that a few moments ago. You tell me this is the year 1935, but just a few moments ago I was living in the year 1777!" About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various. 2009. Astounding Stories of Super-Science, April 1931. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30452/30452-h/30452-h.htm#Page_26 . This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

The Exile of Time: Mysterious Girl

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to confusion and isolation for our global workforce, as companies have had to turn completely to remote working. But technology makes it easier to work remotely. Understanding how to implement tech tools to enhance productivity while working remotely is crucial for any company. In this post, you’ll find 10 tech tips and hacks to make remote working productive and fun. 1. Use Slack to Collaborate With Teams Tools like Slack are becoming the preferred tool to communicate with teams that are in the office together, as well as remote. , and integrations, that can be used to make daily efforts in the workplace easier. Slack has a treasure of bots and apps 2. Recreate the Office Environment On Slack Slack can help you to “Live” the office environment. When you’re in doubt, ask your question in the group channel. And asking in private chats is like whispering in someone’s ears (as you do in office). 🙂 Use the emojis to show your emotions. Do a Slack call when you need to talk to your teammates. Play quizzes and games in Slack to be relaxed. 3. Track and Manage Projects in Real-time Project-management tools are something that you should be looking to be using. These tools solve the problem of virtual teams to help organize documents and tasks, to make it easier for the teams. Asana is a tool that enables users to easily work with teams and track and manage projects. For those just looking to get started, consider something like Basecamp or Trello. 4. Manage Your (and Your Team’s) To-do List How you manage your tasks depends entirely on YOU. Are you looking for a simple interface, or are you hoping to color-code and categorize hundreds of tasks at once? Is this a to-do list for yourself or your entire team? There are a number of to-do list tools out there, such as Trello, Asana, TickTick, Google Keep, and more. These tools make it easier for a remote team to plan their work by using online to-do lists. 5. Track Your (and Your Team’s) Time Tracking your time (or your team’s time) is one of the best ways to improve productivity when . Time tracking can help you best understand where your time goes. working remotely Tools like Toggl, TimeDoctor, and RescueTime, track and monitor how much time you or your remote team spends on a specific task or app. It will keep your remote workforce productive. 6. Block Distractions Tools like SelfControl and Serene cut out distractions and help you stay focused and complete the work faster. SelfControl is a free and open-source application for macOS that lets you temporarily block the distracting websites, Twitter, Instagram, or any other. Serene also shields you from distractions by blocking distracting apps & websites. Serene can also silence your phone, control Philips Hue lights, update your Slack status, and more. 7. Zoom’s Outer Space Background Take a trip to space with Zoom’s outer space virtual background. Just click on the small caret next to the camera icon and you’ll see the option to enable one of its virtual backgrounds. You can also upload as many backgrounds as you’d like, and switch them whenever you please. It helps to hide any background clutter when working remotely and makes your Zoom meetings more beautiful and fun. 8. Brainstorming It’s hard to hold a brainstorming session without a board to note down thoughts, so in a  remote environment, an online whiteboard is a solution. PinInTo.me is a simple and free tool that allows you and your team to collaborate and create their own notes and drag and drop them across the virtual corkboard. Share and brainstorm ideas. 9. Mute Background Noise During Calls Are you having trouble with your audio in your team meeting calls? Try Krisp app to mute background noise during your video calls. Have noise-free meetings with your team members by giving them more flexibility and happiness. 10. Check Out the Time Zones of Fellow Remote Employees Do you have people in your team from different time zones? It’s tough to know who’s working and who’s asleep when you work with a distributed team across the globe. Tools like Every Time Zone and Worldtimebuddy lets you compare multiple time zones, plan conference calls, and web meetings for business.

10 Ways to Cope with Remote Work to Make Working From Home Enjoyable

The past year has created a tremendous shift in the way the majority of businesses in the world operate. Remote work has become the main way for organizations worldwide to continue forward with their business. People that previously worked in a specific location, like in an office, could now transition to from the safety of their homes. From being the prerogative of flexible tech companies, remote work became the reality of everyone, including large corporations from conservative industries, such as banks and government organizations. working remotely As the supply of vaccines increases and more people become vaccinated, organizations are thinking ahead to what future workspaces will look like. But now we know things that weren’t clear before 2020. The last year served as a test case, which showed that it’s possible to conduct business with a large segment of the workforce doing so remotely. Moreover, companies were able to significantly cut down on the costs of maintaining extremely expensive offices in city centers during the pandemic. Finally, a large share of employees prefers to work remotely at least part of the time and sees this as a competitive advantage for their employer. So, no matter how much we would like to forget the madness of 2020, there’s no going back to the pre-COVID times. Most companies will never be able to completely return to the office. As they’re working on their return-to-office plan, there’s one notion that we’re hearing more and more often: the hybrid work model. And unlike the past year, now we have enough time to prepare for it. What does hybrid work mean? The continuum of remote to office work models has a lot of grades in between: remote first, workplace flexibility, flextime, office-optional, hours of presence, etc. Basically, the hybrid-work model represents any combination of splitting employees’ time between working in the office and from home (or in another location). Liam Martin, the co-founder of Time Doctor, as “a single department or a percentage of the company that works remotely and a certain percentage of the company that works in an office.” defines hybrid work He leads a team of employees in more than 40 countries. Why hybrid is a growing trend Hybrid work aims to combine the best parts of working from home and working in an office to shape the new normal. It gives employees the flexibility they desire and solves the problem of isolation in remote work. One of the challenges with remote work is its limited amount of human connection with creative tasks, like brainstorming. You may be able to chat virtually or get on a video call, but you miss out on social cues. There’s something powerful about having team members tackling an issue or problem in person. Opportunities for aha moments can arise face to face, which a video chat can’t replace. There’s also a stronger sense of camaraderie—the idea that you belong to something larger than yourself. Apple, IBM, and Cisco are just a few organizations that have recently switched to the hybrid work model. Even a giant from the conservative financial industry, HSBC Bank, has announced across the whole organization, including the executive team. For them, such a shift went hand in hand with switching to a flexible workspace without assigned tables to foster social interaction in the new office. it’ll be going hybrid In an , Apple CEO Tim Cook highlighted how working together in person fuels innovation: “My gut says that, for us, it’s still very important to physically be in touch with one another because collaboration isn’t always a planned activity.” He added, “Innovation isn’t always a planned activity.” interview with People Cook also praised remote work during the conversation: “We have realized and learned that there are some things that are perfectly great to do virtually across Zoom or WebEx, whatever, or FaceTime, whatever you might have. So I think it’ll be, I’ll call it a hybrid environment [for] a little bit.” How hybrid work will change companies One of the fastest ways to get ahead is to learn from others. Specifically, learn from those who have already accomplished what you want to do. Joshua Waitzkin, a learning expert, talks about being prepared in his book The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance. “The road to success is not easy or else everyone would be the greatest at what they do—we need to be psychologically prepared to face the unavoidable challenges along our way, and when it comes down to it, the only way to learn how to swim is by getting in the water.” will empower specific work trends that companies should be ready for. Hybrid work models Culture becomes more important The founder of Buffer, Joel Gascoigne, : “When you just have a few people remote, they can easily feel like second-class citizens without full access to information.” With hybrid work models, it’s vital for the company leaders to equalize employee experience and make all work opportunities accessible to everyone. Not only should the flexibility of hybrid work be accessible to all job functions in the company, but people working remotely should also have the same access to information and social interactions as office employees. touches on a struggle with remote workers This can be solved by using a set of the right communication tools and rules. For instance, some companies have a rule of running a meeting over Zoom instead of broadcasting an in-person office meeting—even if there’s only one remote employee on the call. This gives remote employees the feeling that they’re equal team members. You may also have an internal wiki that any employee can explore. Then you may use asynchronous tools, like a project management app, along with a team chat. A good company culture gives employees a strong feeling of belonging and a shared vision of the future. People want to be a part of something bigger—it motivates them and makes them stay longer in companies when the employers’ competition is growing. Corporate culture is a big notion that comprises the values, communication style, the way conflicts are handled, etc. In many companies, this was built spontaneously, but the switch to hybrid makes it indispensable to re-think these rules and make them clear in order to maintain high team productivity. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on long-term success. He suggests being stubborn on vision and flexible on details. This is a great principle to have behind building your company’s culture—your team needs to be very clear about where they want to get to, but use various tactics to get there. advocates for a relentless focus Asynchronous communication is key Asynchronous communication is a proven tool for effective teams, regardless of if they’re remote or not. In this style of communication, the exchange of information happens when it’s convenient for both sides. A team member can leave a written, audio, or video message, and the second person replies with a time gap. While asynchronous communication is particularly efficient for working across multiple time zones, studies have shown that it allows team members to be more productive, cut down meeting times, and focus more deeply on their work without interruption. David Heinemeier Hansson, an evangelist for remote work, : “I don’t think it’s a good idea to run a company through meetings as the primary and first mode of communication. I think it is far better to run your company, whether it’s remote or not, with writing as your first mode of communication.” talks about the power of writing When you choose to work asynchronously, you give employees time to do meaningful work. The computer science professor, Cal Newport, has named this deep work. Newport tapped into the wisdom of the author Winifred Gallagher to help explain the concept in his book Deep Work: “Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.” By collaborating asynchronously, you empower members of your team to communicate when they’re at their best. You can ask a team member a question, knowing that they’ll get back to you without the expectation of an instant response. Asynchronous communication maximizes the time that a team member can spend focused on doing work that has an impact. So, when should you switch to asynchronous communication? , CEO of Wildbit, “If a conversation or discussion is running too long, let’s move it to real-time...because what we are doing with real-time meetings is we are actually optimizing for focus work.” According to Natalie Nagele In other words, prioritize asynchronous communication. Then tap into communicating synchronously as needed to work through any challenges or problems swiftly. More contractors and independent workers The flexibility of hybrid work applies to companies’ hiring models as well. More people are starting working outside of the standard 40-hour week, preferring part-time work or being a contractor for several employers. Companies also get the advantage of hiring candidates from a larger pool that includes other cities and, sometimes, even other countries. If you decide to hire internationally or hire location-independent specialists (that spend several months per year in different countries), this implies legal and tax issues for your overseas employees. Employment of record companies provide you with full compliance by hiring employees on behalf of their local entities in various countries. When you transition to a hybrid work model, your team will likely split their time between home and your organization’s office. The question of fairness may arise. The best way to answer this question is to kick off a team discussion to consider different perspectives. In doing so, you’ll allow members of your team to share how they feel and avoid feelings of resentment. Look for patterns and insights to guide your decision. Hybrid work is the new remote work A sense of control can impact an employee’s performance in a positive way. Three researchers (Edward Deci, Richard Ryan, and Paul Baard) conducted a on employees at a bank in the United States. They discovered that job satisfaction was positively correlated with managers who provided autonomy support. Specifically, the bosses maintained support in these ways: 2004 study - Considering an employee’s point of view - Sharing meaningful feedback - Providing a say in what to do and how to do it - Nudging employees to take on new projects The results were surprising. Employees shared they were more satisfied with their jobs thanks to having a level of autonomy. Working remotely offers a sense of autonomy. For instance, a team member who works from home can choose a distinct spot to work from. Although small, this has a profound impact on hybrid work. Hybrid work matters because it will offer even more autonomy. Suman Gopalan, chief HR officer at Freshworks, from studies that compared in office and remote work. shares her findings - Creation of a common culture - Faster decision making - Team collaboration - Innovation - Overall performance - Job satisfaction She found that in office work had an edge for creating a common culture and faster decision making. Team collaboration and innovation were about the same. Remote work took the lead for overall performance. Job satisfaction wasn’t conclusive and varied based on the number of days that someone worked remotely per week. Professional chefs have a saying called mise en place. This French phrase translates to “putting in place.” Mise en place means gathering and preparing the ingredients that you need to make a delicious dish. This system works because you have prepped ahead of time and have what you need in front of you. Remember that hybrid work is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to create your mise en place for hybrid work where you take the ingredients (the best parts of remote and in-office work) to create a winning workplace for your team. Your transition to hybrid: what to start with Lance Robbins, an international remote work consultant, that “the most common hybrid policy rollout mistakes that I see companies make fall into three categories: messaging, templatizing, or discrimination.” shares the insight Let’s say you’re building your dream home. Before you can install a roof, you need a structure. And before you can set up the structure, you need a strong foundation to build on. Starting with a solid foundation that covers the basics will set you up for success. When transitioning to hybrid, the leadership needs to start with informing the workforce about the mutual benefits of this transition. Then, they need to build actionable templates for the team management built on the remote work best practices. Finally, they need to ensure an equally accessible hybrid workplace for all team members. A recently hosted on Running Remote was an insightful discussion with experts represented organizations of varying sizes, ranging from small teams, where everyone knows each other by their first name, to thousands of employees. panel on hybrid work Here are three things that the panelists agreed on beginning with: 1) Be clear about which roles require being in the office and which can be done remotely. 2) Document systems and processes. 3) Create opportunities for building human connection. The takeaway is to be deliberate in building a playbook for moving your team’s work forward, even in uncertain times. As former Navy SEAL commander, Mark Divine, writes in his book Unbeatable Mind, “Great teams strive to standardize routine tasks like those above (the list applies to any type of training, not just physical skill training) so that time is not wasted reinventing the push up every time someone new comes on the team.”

What is Hybrid Work and Why is it the New Norm?

The massive shift towards remote work has redefined the way companies manage their employees. The lack of in-person communication makes it harder to maintain healthy relationships within the team, control and reward employees to keep everyone happy. That’s why it’s good to look at some new and useful tools that would help build the team management process in 2021. Here is the list of five great applications to implement in your company. – All-in-One HR Management System BrainyHR This tool combines features for the whole range of HR tasks from employee onboarding to performance review. For the remote team, making the onboarding more efficient is crucial for keeping productivity high. With dedicated and adjustable onboarding (and offboarding!) task lists, the HR manager will not skip a single step of the process. Another great feature is Rewards and Recognition. The comprehensive monitoring system tracks tasks accomplished by employees and assigns them points. Afterward, these points are used to determine people eligible for multiple rewards. The whole process is transparent, which makes it festive and engaging for the team members. – Project Management Software ProofHub This tool is an uber project and team management solution that helps companies plan, collaborate, organize, and deliver projects successfully. ProofHub provides the HR and management team with a 360-degree view of the current workload and progress. Proofhub is excellent for creating tasks with deadlines and breaking them into subtasks. The software also features the online proofing tool to approve files in rea-time, lots of project reports and Gannt charts, and even a built-in chat. – Time Tracking and Employee Monitoring Time Doctor When the remote team grows, it gets harder and harder to monitor the performance. Time Doctor is a perfect way to stay on top of the business processes and fully understand your team members' efficiency. The tool tracks the productive time spent on specific tasks and calculates the wasted time. The solution makes screenshots of employee's monitors at specific intervals so that there is no way to trick the system. The software can also track the location of an employee, time spent online (crucial for checking support agents' attendance), and on work-related websites. The overall performance data is collected in the comprehensive report, which is very convenient for the reward program. : A Simple Tool To Sync Between Timezones World Time Buddy Distributed teams quite often have a presence in different time zones. It is quite common even for a small company to have team members in the US, team members in Europe, and team members in Asia. One of the biggest challenges such a team face is that of time. And more specifically, what time is it for whom? World Time Buddy is a simple yet effective timezones calculator that allows team members to rapidly sync and determine time slots suitable for online conferences or chats for all who need to participate. The HR department should implement the policy for using this tool, as this will reduce the number of missed communications and improve your remote team's overall efficiency. :  Employee Feedback Meter Chimp or Champ Do you know how happy your team feels this week? This is a question the whole product is built around. Many HRs and managers don't know that, and so, Chimp or Champ can be an excellent fit to collect that information finally. Once implemented, the app starts sending employees out an anonymous survey every week and then collecting and collating the results. The report is then instantly available, and HRs can see how the team feels like a collective and react accordingly. The tool itself can't turn an unhappy employee into a happy one, but it can signal the problem and measure the effectiveness of the actions taken. The workplace is evolving faster than ever before. Tools such as these are really helping our distributed team. What tools are helping yours?

How to Hack Your Team: Top 5 Tools For Team Management Automation in 2021

Everyone knows that acquiring high-quality , from sites with better domain authority, is an essential component of any SEO strategy. A quick search on Google will return a ton of great strategies for this. It's also well known that getting your customers to write reviews on sites like G2 or Capterra or even Google Places can lead to a nice bump in traffic. But these two marketing approaches aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Well, they are, but they don't have to be. backlinks The truth is, writing a might be the easiest way to get a backlink from a high ranking site that would otherwise ignore your request. product review This article will walk you through a white-hat approach to getting backlinks from high-value websites by writing detailed product reviews. This strategy can be useful for just about any marketing professional but is particularly valuable for newcomers who are struggling to get links from high ranking websites. Importance of Domain Authority For some context, let's quickly review the function of . One of the key indicators of how well your SEO strategy is working is your domain authority. Google uses a proprietary formula to determine how authoritative your website is. This rating is a major factor in whether your website shows up in organic search results or not. And while Google doesn't publish your rating, several sites can give you a pretty good idea of where you stand. Most SEO professionals rely on popular Domain Rating (DR) calculations from either Ahrefs and Moz. And the primary factor that drives your DR is backlinks. But of course, not all backlinks are equal. domain authority Generally speaking, backlinks from sites with higher DR will cause your domain rating to increase. To that end, finding effective ways to get backlinks from websites with significantly higher DR than yours is how you grow your organic search traffic. Getting Links from High DR Sites is Challenging Whether you are building a SaaS business, a service organization, a marketing company, or anything else, your domain authority starts at zero. But you need inbound links from sites that rank higher than yours to see your domain rating increase. It's a classic chick-and-egg scenario. And if you've already tried some link request outreach, you're probably gotten a lot of no's. This isn't surprising because why would a site with a DR of 80 give a link to a site with a DR of 10? Even if you offer a link in return, the benefit is massively one-sided, for you. The key to getting links from sites with better domain rating than yours is to give them something equally valuable in return. Guest posts, expert quotes, and useful metrics are one approach that works. But you have something else you can give them right now that you might not realize — personalized product reviews. Product Reviews are Valuable to Any Business Regardless of the type of business, you are in, customer feedback and user reviews are highly coveted. That's why many businesses have marketing programs designed to solicit reviews from their users. However, product reviews don't exclusively live on platforms like G2, Capterra, and Google. Just search for your favorite product or service with the keyword "review" and you'll find independent and largely unsolicited blog post reviews by passionate users. You can do this too. And companies will almost certainly link back to your post regardless of your domain rating. What Companies Should You Write Product Review Articles For You already use a bunch of tools and services every day. If not Notion, then Evernote. If not Slack, then Microsoft Teams. If not Canva, then Figma. Some of these tools you love. Start there. Make a list of all the SaaS products, online services, and software apps you use frequently, especially those you pay for. Then use Ahrefs Site Explorer to lookup traffic and domain rating and rank the list. Notion, for example, ranks 2,775 with a DR of 87. That's quite strong. image source If this is your first attempt, start with a few products in the 60-70 DR range and choose companies that are a little less established, they'll be more likely to say yes. Be sure to check out the blogs of each site and get a sense of their content marketing strategy. Are they actively writing content and building their backlinks? If they have a high DR, they probably are doing similar activities to build their domain strength. Startups or pre-series A funded companies are also more likely to respond. It's going to be a lot easier to get to the right person in an organization if they are also trying to grow their organic search. More than likely the company will have a dedicated person or department for content marketing and link building. To recap, look for software and services that: Focus on products you already know how to use or even pay for Choose companies with active blogs and thoughtful keyword researched titles Pick a business with a domain rating between 60-70 (for your first few, then go up from there) Find one or more people with the title content marketer, content manager, or similar on LinkedIn Look for startups or companies that are Series A funded or earlier After you get a few of these done, you can reference your previous product review articles in future outreach efforts — it's going to be a lot easier after that. Outreach Effort and Formulating the Pitch Once you've identified a handful of companies that you can confidently write a detailed product review for, it's time to do outreach. There are a few approaches and best practices you might consider: You'll probably have more luck if you make the effort to write the product review article first and ask for a link and maybe some social posting in return. This is a risk however because you're doing a lot of work upfront with no guaranteed result. And because the article is specific to that product or service, you can't pitch to another site if they say no. Still, content is content; and just because they don't respond or say no at first, you can always go back and ask again once your site becomes more established. I'm still waiting for a yes on my Notion vs. Evernote article I wrote six months ago. But I still get value. My article is the 4th result on Google for search "Notion vs. Evernote". 1. Write the Article, Send it To Them, and Ask for a Backlink image source As you get a few under your belt, you can switch your approach and write your article after they've said yes. As of writing this piece I've got a yes from Chargebee and Timedoctor, two high ranking SaaS products with extremely popular blogs. 2. Pitch the Idea First and Ask for a Backlink After They Approve and This approach guarantees a link back before you write the product review article. And you can create a pipeline of upcoming articles so you know exactly what you're working on next. And while you're going to want to still do to optimize your title and body, it's much less critical since the goal is to get a high-quality backlink but not necessarily get organic traffic from search. That said, you will get traffic from the link on their blog. image source image source keyword research When you reach out to your target companies, do some research ahead of time to figure out where they could best link to your article. This is a general rule of thumb for any backlinking outreach strategy. Give the target partners as little work as possible to add the backlink. Find a blog post and show them the specific block of text that contextually makes sense to link to your product review. Here's an example for one I recently did for Planable. 3. Ask for a Link in a Relevant Blog Post Don't forget to ask for social sharing. This is a no-skin-off-their-back ask that costs them almost nothing but can be very valuable for you. If they agree, but forget to do it, just post the article on your social channels and @mention them. They'll almost certainly like and re-share it. Pro Tip: What to Write in Your Product Review Now comes the fun part, writing the article. If you chose a product you already know and love, this is going to be a piece of cake. This was very much the case for the Notion vs. Evernote article I did. I had been using Evernote for the better part of a decade and had recently switched to Notion. I knew both products well and I was able to point out some aspects of the tools that weren't generally common knowledge. This is going to be important in your review. If the product or service you're targeting is already popular, then others have already written reviews. Unique content always works better so try to write about features and benefits that most people don't know, and especially aspects that aren't on the home page of their site already. While your goal is getting a backlink, the article needs to be informative and valuable to readers. Take the stance that people reading your product review aren't current customers of the service. They're going to want to see how and why you use it. They want to know why it's better than competitors or alternatives. They want to be convinced, by a peer, that this product is something they should consider. 1. Focus on Features and Benefits You don't need to cover every last feature, show them the parts of the product you love, and tell them why it works. Include stats from your own experience if possible. And know that product reviews from users are often more than the corporate website is. And in this case, your product review doesn't live on a review platform, it's on your blog, it's unsolicited by the company, and very authentic. image source trusted by consumers Of course, you want to write a positive review or the company is not going to get behind it. But be authentic and include a few things that could be improved. Incidentally, I frequently add a "would be nice" feature in my product reviews, and in more than one case the company ended up building that feature after reading my review. Also, make the review . You aren't running a professional product review site. This article is your personal experience with the product or service and that's what potential users are interested in. So be yourself. Write as if you were passionately sharing with a friend or colleague how strongly you recommend the solution. 2. Be Authentic, Personal, and Point Out A Few Shortcomings personal Bonus: After writing a review for one of my favorite Gmail and app management products, Shift, they were so excited about my experience they not only linked to my article but also wrote an entire on me! case study 3. Use Annotations to Showcase How You Use it Your words will say a lot, but can help people understand your ideas quickly. Remember, this is a product review, people want to see the product in action not just pretty Unsplash images. Showcase important features and aspects of the solution that you want people to remember. screenshots and annotations image source And, don't forget, images get indexed by search engines too. More than comes from image clicks. And annotated images are more likely to get noticed as you can see from this example: 20% of traffic from google.com image source 4. Use Stats to Backup Your Opinions Since you are writing about your personal experience, most of your commentary is going to be an opinion. And that's fine. But if you can back up your opinion with actual stats, that's even better. I like to use Frase.io to search for stats in other articles. As an example, if I was writing an article about a tool for product managers, I might include some stats about the role. A quick search for "product manager salary" returns a ton of data points from other blog posts. image source Be sure to cite any stats and try to link back to the original source even if you initially find the stat on another blog. Conclusion Just like any white hat backlinking strategy, the approach outlined in this article does take work. But it's straightforward, scalable, and is going to have a much higher success rate than just about anything else you try. You are creating real value for another company when you write a detailed review of their product or service. This is how you get a much higher-ranked site link back to your much lower-ranked site. In 4 months of testing this strategy here are the results: Writing product reviews as a way to get high DR links back to your blog is just one approach that I know works. But remember, you can't do everything, especially if you're small. You need to pick and choose the SEO strategies that are going to make an impact and that you are well suited to execute on — leave the rest for later. As HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan likes to say, than starvation. If this concept resonates, give it a try. You're unlikely to be disappointed with the results. more companies fail from overeating

A Guide to Link Building: How to Use Product Reviews to Increase Ranking

2020 will go down in history as the year that turned the trend that was working from home into the norm for businesses across the globe. Everyone who can feasibly work from home is now doing so. As you’d imagine with this rapid and drastic shift in the way you and your employees work, it’s come with its own set of productivity and motivational challenges. While there is a heap of , like the fact your employees won’t have to make the long commute to the office, there are a few things you as an employer need to bear in mind. Working from home can make employees feel too comfortable during working hours… even lazy at times. It can also make other employees feel incapable of clocking off work on time (also known as ‘work from home guilt’), thus affecting their sleep and overall wellbeing. positives that come with WFH So, how do you create balance for your employees? How do you motivate them to work hard while also ensuring they look after themselves in the process? Experts believe that the answer lies in a combination of adopting flexible management practices, along with help their employees. utilizing technology to help employers A guide to keeping remote employees productive and motivated The most important place to start is ensuring your employees create a dedicated workspace in their own homes. The designated workspace should ideally be separated from their living space. This will not only have a positive impact on the work they produce but also on their mental well-being. has shown that combining workspace with personal space can cause employees to either work too hard or too little. They either feel as though they don’t have to work, or don’t allow themselves to tune off from work and deprive themselves of sleep. Research 1. Get organized and prioritize tasks It’s best to encourage your employees to perform the most crucial tasks first. This is the best way to get them to complete complicated tasks on time. A good method for sorting tasks is the Getting Things Done (GTD) method. Getting Things Done (GTD) is a productivity method developed by David Allen that is broadly accepted as one of the most efficient personal organization methodologies around. Simply put, you capture your tasks and ideas, clarify what you have to do, organize the items by importance and priority, reflect on your to-do list, and then get to work. The GTD method is just one method out of many, though. Other popular methods include: “Don’t Break the Chain”, “Eat the Frogs First”, and “Timeboxing”. 2. Stay connected Within all human relationships, – this is especially true in the professional environment. Keeping your team connected allows everyone to touch base on the progress of the team as a whole. It also provides an opportunity for employees to voice any concerns, sing each other’s praises, and generally remember that they are part of a supportive team. communication is key I work as part of a 100% remote team and we use Zoom to keep us connected. We have weekly department meetings, one on ones with managers, and a monthly all-hands meeting. Seeing as my company is a remote work app, you’d hope that we’d be good at managing our remote workflow processes – which include hosting meetings and over-communicating with each other. Process Street 3. Establish a time-tracking technique Independent work schedules can make it difficult to track every remote employee’s productive work hours, a problem that is amplified if they’re working in different time-zones. The best way to overcome this is to establish a time tracking system for monitoring productivity or to communicate with them. Apps you can use for time-tracking include: Paymo Timecamp Toggl Time Doctor Harvest Work with your employees to establish mutually agreed timeframes for completion of work. This will not only motivate them to work but will also instill a sense of accountability. 4. Encourage your employees to connect with each other With your entire workforce WFH it’s important to take steps to allow them to communicate with one another as though they were in an office. Coffee breaks and water cooler chats help your employees to bond. As an employer, it is important to keep lines of communication open between your team. Fortunately, there’s an app for that – well actually, there are a few. is a great tool for communication between team members. It is efficient and has integrations with Zoom, Google Docs, and other apps. Slack encourages digital coffee break style chats through an integration with the app which has the feature “donut calls”. Donut calls randomly pair employees together so that they can meet at a time that suits their schedules (its integration with Google Calendar allows this to happen smoothly). We use Donut calls at Process Street and it is a great way to break up the week and get to know fellow employees. Slack Donut 5. Avoid Micromanaging Employees “Micromanagement is the destroyer of momentum.” ― Miles Anthony Smith Yes, keeping track of your employee’s productivity and scheduled activities is important. That said, pestering them every hour asking for an update is not going to help them achieve their tasks. Regular catch up calls and open communication streams between your team and you are enough. If your employees have a problem, they should feel comfortable coming to you. If you successfully achieve this then you will not need to pester as work will get done when it is meant to get done and if it doesn’t, you’ll have been informed of the reason why without even asking. 6. Limit social media use This can be a tough one. One minute you’re telling your employees to stay connected and the next you are discouraging them from using social media. Nevertheless, it’s a vital step to take to ensure your employees are achieving their full potential and being productive. Here are five ways that limit social media usage: Remember the saying “out of sight, out of mind”? Apply this to your social media apps Set time limits for each app Assign a dedicated time to hobbies that do not involve the use of your screen . Avoid eating meals with your phone in reach And don’t take your phone into your bedroom at night. 7. Use the cloud is a safe and secure space to store, access, and share work and projects. It allows for easy collaboration between team members. By using the cloud you and your business can rent access to anything from applications to storage from a cloud service provider. The cloud Moving forward as a truly productive WFH workforce With the WFH norm in full swing, ensuring that your employees are being productive from home should be a priority. Fortunately, implementing the aforementioned tips will allow them to be just as productive at home as they would be in the office. Who knows, once employees have fully embraced and gotten used to the WFH lifestyle, they may even find themselves preferring this method of working and upping their productivity by a huge degree.

7 Best Ways to Increase Workforce Productivity

In an ever-changing world, staying up to date with modern business technologies can provide business owners with the leverage they need to be successful. This means being prosperous in their ventures and relevant in the competitive market. In most cases, using the correct types of technology will facilitate greater efficiency and even productivity. Many different components contribute to the success of a small business. These include providing excellent customer service and maximizing revenues. The right types of technology can help small businesses achieve and exceed all of their business objectives. Let’s have a look at five crucial technologies any small business owner shouldn’t ignore: Effective Logo Making Applications Some small business owners may think that creating the initial logo design and website is a once-off job. They may even plan to use that very same logo and site forever. This is in fact not the way to go. Your online presence, and this includes your business logo, needs ongoing tweaking and improving. Not only is your logo the foundation of your brand identity, but it also distinguishes you from everyone else. Logo Maker by LogoDesign.net A good logo maker software that upholds different types of brand images is so much easier to work with than hiring an expensive graphic designer if your budget is low. This will make it easier to tweak any changes in the early days of your business’s online presence as you explore different designs and decide on what works for your audience. An effective logo and logo making program will be the first step in creating brand awareness among customers wishing to identify with your brand. A few words of advice about logo design. Your logo must be a professional representation of your company. Be professional, yet engaging. Do some research on several different types of logos to get the general idea of what works. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and don’t hesitate to rope in a professional to help. Using a design company that offers support or has an interactive application to use after the fact is always a plus. WFH Technologies With the world finding itself in the grips of a global pandemic, working from home (WFH) is a lot more common than a few months ago. Running your small business from home can be very challenging if you don’t have the right programs or applications to assist you. Luckily, advanced apps can keep you in contact with your employees and customers. Shipping Software for Online Business Some of the applications you can consider include the following: : This app is ideal for businesses where products are sold online and shipped. It allows the business owner to process online orders, track shipments and provide customers with their shipping information. ShipStation Allows users to create docs, spreadsheets, and presentations. It combines basic business functions and eliminates the need for multiple apps to run the various aspects of your business. G-Suite: This nifty app facilitates collecting signatures online or via a mobile device. Using this app ensures that processes aren’t delayed because of a signature that’s short on a document. It also means work can still get done despite lockdown regulations regarding social interactions. DocuSign: Allows business owners to chat, delegate, or assist employees and team members via video conferencing. Having constant communication with your employees will keep morale up and ensure productivity isn’t hampered. A similar program to Skype is Zoom, which is also a popular way of having meetings, doing training and interacting with employees and customers. Skype: This app allows business owners to record employees’ working hours. It prevents payroll confusion and discrepancies. Time Doctor: Mobile Optimization Google estimates that customers spend more time performing searches on their mobiles than on desktops. As a small business owner you’d be wise to cash in on this. The content of your pages should allow for a strong user experience, even when they’re viewing it via mobile devices. Let’s look at a few ways you can improve your site’s mobile experience: 	All videos across your pages should be compatible with smart devices. 	Make sure to use responsive templates for all aspects, including emails, query pages, and contact requests. 	Use short paragraphs and sentences. Potential customers using their mobile devices on the go won’t have time to read through long explanations. 	Use high-quality images. They should also be cropped to maximize the detail you’re trying to advertise. For instance, if you’re selling handbags, the image you use should have the handbag as the focal point. It shouldn’t be somewhere in the background. 	Buttons on the screen should be easy to use on any device. You don’t want a potential customer to have to log in via a computer to view your products because they’ll skip past you and navigate to a competitor’s page. 	Content should be accurate, up to date, and most of all scrollable. Mobile users don’t want to scroll and click through multiple pages just to view the basics. A program called will assist you in testing how effective your mobile optimization is. Enter your URL, wait a few seconds and get a score of how mobile friendly your site is. This will give you an indication of any changes you can make to improve your site. Mobile Website Speed Testing Chatbot Many . Chatbot is an AI program that imitates human interaction. Chatbots interpret questions by potential customers and provide pre-set answers. This technology allows small businesses, without extensive resources, provide answers to general queries that customers may have. small businesses make use of a chatbot program Image Credit Istock/ Blue Planet Studio The chatbot program also helps the small business provide better customer service by answering simple queries immediately where possible. Have you seen a dialog box popping up on the bottom right of your screen when you visit a new page? That’s the chatbot asking you if you need assistance. Simply select a platform, follow the prompts and you’ll have your own chatbot in no time. Some of the popular chatbot platforms available to small businesses include the following: Aivo ItsAlive Bold360 Meya AI MobileMonkey Cyber Security In this day and age where , every person or business with an online presence is at greater risk of exposure. Every small business needs to ensure the cyber safety of employees and customers using their websites and online products. cybercrime is on the increase Investing in firewall protection, security software, and safe backup systems will keep your customers’ personal information secure. Invest in security protocols like password protection, anti-virus software, and secure servers. It’s important to protect sensitive data, banking data and personal information. Invest in known anti-virus protection software with firewall options. Examples of software with effective cyber security features are Norton, AVG, and Also, remember to keep your software up to date. Kaspersky. Conclusion When it comes to the success of your small business, making a great product is only the first step. Correctly marketing your product and the service you offer is equally important. Competing with bigger more diverse companies can be challenging enough for small businesses. So, don’t add to your challenges. Rather build your success story by investing in the basic technologies to enhance and grow your business. By including some of our suggested technologies in your company, you’ll be announcing to the world that your business is here to stay!

5 Small Business Technologies You Can’t Afford to Ignore

Many companies today install various tracking apps on their employees’ computers and check if their team members are productive during the working day. Such an extreme approach to monitoring what the staff is doing is due to the at the workplace and to the employer’s desire to prevent and other unwanted actions. Before we go through the list of the most popular and effective programs to monitor employees’ activities at the workplace, let’s take a look at the most efficient ways to find out if your company is monitoring you. lack of employees’ efficiency data leakage How to Tell If Your Company Is Monitoring You? On devices, it’s helpful to go to the well-known Task Manager and check the Processes tab. Pay attention to the background processes that are using up a lot of system resources. Spyware has usually obscure names that you can’t recognize. Installing an antivirus program is also worth a try, though some monitoring programs are not detected by antivirus software. You can also view what applications on your PC are accessing the web. In the taskbar search, enter “cmd”, right-click on the Command Prompt result, and choose Run as administrator. Once the window opens, enter the command [ netstat -b -n ], press Enter, and look for the programs with unknown weird names. Windows If your office machine supports , you can use Activity Monitor instead of the Task Manager to look for spying apps. Check out both the CPU and Network tabs for suspicious programs. Additionally, monitoring apps usually run at startup, so it’s also helpful to check which programs are starting up with macOS (System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login items). And last but not least, you can also check monitoring programs accessing the web on your macOS device. macOS If you have found out that your boss is monitoring your office computer, first of all, don’t panic. Remember that your company wants you to be efficient at the workplace and needs to prevent data leakage, they are not interested in your personal emails or other intimate data. The best way to protect yourself is to stop any behavior that can lead to problems at work. For instance, you must not use your office machine for surfing the Net purposelessly, watching YouTube videos, and texting with your partner on Facebook. In other words, at the office, you should stop performing any activities that are not related to the workflow. After all, your managers pay you not for being distracted from business tasks, don’t they? :) Why Must Employers Notify Their Teams About Monitoring Software? Generally, CEOs can track any activity on their company-owned devices, including laptops and gadgets outside the workplace, but provided by the company. Broadly, in the US, employee monitoring is legal and mostly unregulated. However, some states like Connecticut and Delaware require employers to inform their team members of the fact that their office devices are being tracked. Additionally, the hidden monitoring of employees is hugely unethical and likely to cause much resentment. Therefore, companies should establish a clear company policy and make sure that all team members are notified of being monitored beforehand. Monitoring software used by employers usually varies in features and functionality. The programs that are mostly used in companies to keep an eye on team members include , , and . Let’s look through the best solutions from each category. employee monitoring software time tracking applications remote access programs Best Employee Monitoring Software for Windows & macOS #1 Spyrix Employee Monitoring When it comes to checking what your employees are doing on their office machines, Spyrix comes into play. This program is the best solution for employee monitoring by far thanks to the advanced tracking features. The main features include keylogging, clipboard control, screenshot capturing, IMs activity recording, tracking of social networks, time control, and productivity statistics with detailed reports. What’s more, Spyrix for Windows is the only employee monitoring software with the ability to record calls made with instant messengers and social applications like Viber, Zoom, Skype, Slack, Telegram, Facebook, etc. : Pros a free trial; remote access to the data via a secured online account; call recording on Windows devices; the software gives you total control over employees’ activities. Spyrix also records live surroundings via the microphones and webcams as well as monitors removable drives letting companies prevent data leakage. The program is available for both Windows and macOS devices. #2 Teramind Teramind employee monitoring software takes second place on our list. This program offers real-time activity tracking covering emails, keystrokes, web usage, used apps, and more. Any malicious activity can be detected with the intelligent behavior analysis system. What’s more, the program provides managers with detailed reports of how their team members use applications and websites and analytics of productive and idle time of every employee. Other features include: screen recording; audio recording; session monitoring; identifying unproductive sites; instant messengers tracking; activity blocking; clipboard control. This ultimate monitoring solution is a perfect tool to keep track of the team’s activities remotely, to check their productivity, and to prevent corporate data leakage. #3 TimeDoctor This is another good software to find out how your team spends their work hours. The application records time spent working and on breaks as well as tracks social chats and visited websites. Besides, TimeDoctor captures screenshots and sends powerful reports to the CEO. The software can also be used to check how much time an employee has spent on this or that project or client. Unlike other monitoring apps, TimeDoctor allows processing billing and payroll automatically which saves you much time. If the system notices that a team member is distracted from work, the program will remind them of ongoing tasks. Pros: attendance tracking; breaks monitoring; a white-labeled portal for clients to monitor your projects; alerts reminding the team to stay off time-wasting apps; compatibility with Windows, macOS, as well as smartphones. #4 Hubstaff Hubstaff is a widely-used program for productivity monitoring and time tracking purposes. Whatever your tracking needs are, the application will suit you due to its powerful features. The program lets managers stay in the loop with optional screenshots and view work in progress as it happens. It records user activities along with visited websites and running applications and helps you focus more on growing your business instead of making sure the work is getting done. Some extra features include: GPS tracking; online timesheets; payroll tools; scheduling and attendance reporting. Hubstaff is suitable for Windows and Mac devices. #5 Kickidler Kickidler makes the employee monitoring process smooth and easy thanks to the features it offers. First of all, it broadcasts employees’ desktop activities in real-time giving you a vivid picture of what’s going on at the office when you’re not present. Secondly, the application offers an advanced time-tracking option which allows monitoring work hours of employees and even whole departments. Moreover, the software records computer screens just in case you’ll need to check the team’s past activities. Other Kickidler features are: violations monitoring and recording; performance control; remote access to computers with one click; file transfer; remote keyboard and mouse control. #6 ActivTrak This employee monitoring software for Windows and macOS is a perfect solution for analyzing the team’s activity and discovering how work gets done. In addition to the basic monitoring features, the program allows you to ensure employee privacy and create a culture of trust due to an ability to make sensitive information secure. Identifying top performance and lazybones gets easy with ActivTrak since it provides you with productivity analytics for every team member. Besides, ActivTrak: detects anomalous behavior and prevents employees’ unlawful actions; blocks access to risky websites; keeps track of all used applications; lets you share the reports with your team for transparency. #7 StaffCounter StaffCounter is an employee tracking program for effective management. The application is a good and reliable tool to supervise the work discipline and to identify productive leaders and loafers. What’s more, StaffCounter keeps records of search queries, used applications, and visited websites informing you of the staff’s mood and plans. Additionally, it records Skype chats, captures screenshots, monitors keystrokes, and more. The application is available for Windows and macOS office machines. #8 WorkAuditor As the name suggests, this employee monitoring solution helps you find out how many hours your employees are working a day and enhance productivity in your company. The program records all user activities (keystrokes, system events, screenshots, clipboard, app usage) and offers advanced remote control features: live screen viewing, live webcam, remote site blocking, USB device blocking, computer time limiting, and more. The program is cloud-based and is suitable for Windows and macOS computers. #9 Veriato Vision Veriato is a perfect solution for monitoring employees working from home or in the office. It lets you track any kind of user activities, including chats, emails, web searches, visited websites, social networks, printers, USB usage, etc. Unlike other applications from the list, Veriato lets employers record downloads. The software generates productivity reports and notifies you when suspicious activities take place. The program is cloud-based and the installation process takes up to five minutes. Best Time Tracking Apps for Windows and macOS # 10 Everhour If you don’t want to monitor all user activities of your employees but need to ensure that the team is productive, a time-tracking app will be a good solution for your company. Everhour is a powerful tool to review employees’ time spent on projects and to know the hours of work and breaks of every team member. Besides, Everhour helps employers manage cost and budget since it provides an easy-to-read financial picture of all ongoing projects. The application is easy to use and syncs with all widely-used apps (Jira, Asana, Trello, Github, etc). #11 Harvest Using Harvest helps company owners manage their teams more intelligently. It gives you a visual summary of where your employees’ time is going and lets you monitor your projects. Employees will also find Harvest useful thanks to the possibility to keep a record of your work activities and to self-control your productivity. Further, the application allows teams to automatically create invoices based on the billable time and expenses they’ve tracked. The application supports all available platforms, including Windows and Mac. #12 TimeCamp TimeCamp is a powerful time-tracking solution to stay on top of work. It gives teams a clear insight into projects’ efficiency thanks to its advanced monitoring features. At a glance, managers can check how their teams are performing and how many hours they spend on tasks and projects. With TimeCamp, employers can also monitor the usage of certain applications and identify productive and time-wasting programs. The tool can be used as an attendance reporting program as well. #13 Paydirt Initially designed for freelancers and agencies, this smart time-tracker will be also helpful for small companies and huge enterprises. In one click, your team members can start a timer for any task and keep an eye on their productivity. Further, Paydirt sends intelligent reminders to your coworkers in case they are distracted by non-productive activities. Employers can easily view what the team members are doing and also approve timesheets for the next week. Additionally, the application is perfect for tracking the time of remote employees. #14 Timely Timely is one of the most popular time-trackers available for Windows and macOS devices. It is helpful when it comes to analyzing overtime and missing hours of every team member.  With a few clicks, you can effortlessly schedule project resources, monitor budgets, pull reports, and check how work time is spent by your team. The program offers a 2-week free trial with all available features, including location tracking on iOS and Android smartphones, app integrations, and team planning. #15 Clockify Clockify is used by millions of team members from all over the world. Its popularity is due to its powerful time management features like an easy-to-use timer, customizable reports, live viewing of employees’ activity, and timesheets. What’s more, the time-tracker allows employers to view team members’ hourly rates, mark time as billable, and categorize time by projects. The program is available for all platforms (Mac, Windows, Android, iOS, Chrome, Linux) and is free of charge. #16 Toggl Toggl lets you track time for any workflow online, offline, and on the go, and it offers solutions for web, desktop, smartphones as well as browser extensions. You can track your time across any of the platforms with a few clicks. Further, there’s no need to turn on the timer each time you open a new app or website - Toggl offers a background tracking feature that monitors your time automatically. Besides, the tracker can generate reports and send them to any email address. #17 Hours The Hours app is another time tracking solution that may be helpful for businesses. Other than in-built timers, it offers extra features for flexible and easy invoicing. For employers, the app creates detailed reports of their team’s work hours to check who is productive and where the team’s time is spent during the business day. You can try this solution for free on any device covering Windows and Mac. Best Remote Access Programs for Windows & Mac #18 RemotePC Monitoring your team remotely is not only about improving their productivity. As an employer, you may sometimes need to access the data on the coworker’s device or to make sure that the corporate information is secure. That’s why remote desktop tools are also helpful when it comes to tracking your employees. RemotePC is the best solution to connect to your team’s devices from afar. The program is platform-independent, meaning that once you install the program on the employee’s computer, you can access it from any other device, be it a Macbook, a Windows computer, an iOS or Android smartphone. Further, the program allows file access and sharing, document printing, and working with multiple monitors simultaneously. #19 SupRemo Being a suitable remote control app for companies, freelancers, and private users, SupRemo is also included in our list of the best tools for employee monitoring. The program has an abundance of features, including unattended access, file transfer, and a live chat tool. Further, your employees can share their screens with you remotely to show you how the job is being done. The software doesn't require the configuration of a router or firewall so it’s pretty easy to use. The price for businesses starts with 5 € per connection/month. #20 LogMeIn LogMeIn is a perfect tool to control any of your team members' computers from afar. The program allows you to share files across your company devices, to control the desktop on the go from a mobile app, and what’s more important, to view multiple screens simultaneously in live mode. The only disadvantage of the application - it doesn’t offer a free option for even private users. Fortunately, it has a free trial during which you can try its main features. #21 ConnectWise With ConnectWise, managers can confidently monitor office machines thanks to its ultimate features. The solution provides you with safe remote access to the team’s devices with out-of-the-box security features. What’s more, you can connect to the target devices without disrupting the end users. File transfer, monitoring on the go, and remote deployment are also included in the list of its main features. #22 GoToMyPC GoToMyPC is another reliable solution for remote control over employees' devices. The application helps the users to share important files, to connect to any Mac or PC, and to view the full displays of the connected computers. It’s a perfect solution for viewing the employees’ screens in real-time and for accessing the data stored on their devices. Built to the highest standards of performance and security, GoToMyPC is the best app to connect in seconds and to enjoy a reliable in-session performance. #23 Parallels The Parallels solution enables employers to access teams’ applications and files in a few clicks. With it, you can navigate the hard drive remotely and easily find a document or a media file on the employee’s computer. The application makes it possible to connect to Mac and Windows devices from any desktop and smartphone at any time. To start using the program, you need to install the Parallels agent on a Mac or Windows device and to register an online account on the website. #24 Splashtop Splashtop is a fast and secure remote access program for teams and individuals. It lets the users remotely access any Windows and macOS computer from smartphones, desktops, and tablets. The features include remote access and file transfer, an in-built chat, and remote viewing of multiple screens. Unlike many other apps of this category, Splashtop allows remote reboot of the target computer. For security purposes, employers can record user sessions and to use the recordings as evidence in case of employees’ unwanted actions. #25 Zoho Assist Initially designed as remote support software, Zoho is also helpful for tracking needs. With it, you can manage any computer efficiently on the go and access the necessary corporate data distantly. The program supports both Windows and Mac. You can also navigate between several computer screens and detect active monitors in use. Additionally, the app lets you reboot the computer without losing control over it. Conclusion As you see, there are plenty of employee monitoring solutions that help you make your team more productive and prevent unwanted activities at the office. Such solutions can be divided into 3 groups according to employers' tracking needs: employee monitoring software, time-trackers, and remote access applications. You can try out several apps from the list and check which one suits you most. Also, remember that sometimes using employee engagement activities will be enough for productivity improvement at the workplace. You can always boost the motivation of your team with some time-tested methods like workplace parties, competitions, trainings, sports events, and team-building activities. Note that it’s on you to create an engaging atmosphere at the company where the team is motivated and interested in company growth.

Top 25 Employee Monitoring and Time Tracking Apps for Windows/MAC

If you are a business owner or member of senior management, it would be a surprise if you haven’t asked yourself whether you need to be using some software to help monitor your employee performance, and if not, then you probably should do! Now, more than ever there is a requirement to ensure that your business is firing on all cylinders and with more staff than ever previously also adopting a schedule which is more focused on working from home rather than the traditional office space, being on top of staff workload can make all the difference. This is especially the case if your company has a lot of data, timesheets, workload schedules and more to keep tabs on. It is, of course or paramount importance that you first have a team surrounding you which you are confident enough in trusting to independently handle the tasks which are required of them. However, there isn’t always the luxury of having a watertight team and working processes and, as such, keeping arbitrary track of various KPIs is key to combatting the pitfalls of undermanagement and inefficiency. There are many different solutions out there you can use in your quest to maximise your businesses output, but here will cover five of the absolute best options and illustrate just why they are so beneficial to you and your business’s needs. Meet: Time Doctor One of the top pieces of software which stand out right now is Time Doctor. A surplus of management resources makes it a doddle for you to keep tabs on your business. Features include time tracking and the ability to monitor employee’s progress on projects, sorting out your payroll, web and app options. Additionally, you can employ the use of time alerts for idle employees and accounting tools come as part of this package. Of all the software in our list, Time Doctor is, perhaps, the most expensive of the lot. As such, you’ve to weigh its advantages against the cost effectiveness of this solution. The application has plenty of features but will certainly require a larger working budget than other options out there. Time doctor is the choice of US network supplier Verizon and technology company Ericsson. Get Control of Your Hours My Hours has pushed its way into contention at many top businesses over the last year. The focus of this software differs slightly from Time Doctor in that the developers have put a lot of attention into the collaboration side of things. Real-time tracking allows monitoring of individual employee’s progress with a certain task and this to be factored into overall group progress. There is also work rate reporting, as well as scheduling and timeline features all part and parcel of what My Hours can offer your business. My Hours is a piece of software which is easy to customise, and features can be upgraded based on your business needs. As has been touched upon briefly, My Hours is one which will be most useful to those who are seeking to manage team projects more effectively due to its collaborative nature and the features which centre around streamlining of time management. Toggl Could Be for You Toggl is perhaps most ideal for those people running small businesses with few employees. It is a mobile-based app and allows for quick tracking, as well as reminders. You can easily use Toggl to keep tabs on your profits vs expenses, and there is a general dashboard which is accessible for all employees, allowing you to stay in communication. Toggl can also be integrated with over 100 other online apps. This solution isn’t necessarily the most all-encompassing but does offer a good tailored range of features which will suit SMEs and certain industry types especially well. It also carries the benefit of being able to choose your plan type based upon individual tiered plans based upon the feature types you desire. Monday.com Monday.com is the only fully online solution which is considered within this piece. It is marketed as a single online platform for ‘better teamwork’. There are comprehensive enough planning and tracking modules which exist within one workspace for communication and workload monitoring. Also, there are useful automation tools that have been included to avoid ‘human error’ and streamline certain aspects such as emails. There also exists decent reporting which uses simple graphic representation of spend, progress and revenue. One notable inclusion is the ability to utilise 24/7 customer support should you have any issues / want any clarification on features. Many large companies such as BBC and Adobe use Monday.com in some shape or form. Clockify for Your Business? For those who want something a touch different, there is Clockify. This funky-sounding piece of software is perfect for companies on a budget. It has a free basic package which features time trackers, dashboard options, and allows you to form schedules easily. In terms of timekeeping, you are able to track employee hours using a timer, log these into a timesheet and split work hours between different billable hours, thus feeding into payroll. Reporting allows visualisation of the time breakdowns which can be exported and shared with others in traditional office formats such as PDF, CSV and Excel docs. There are also team activity features which allow live time activity tracking, scheduling and task breakdowns. Paying a little more can also see you obtain upgraded features, many of which are like the software packages listed above. Overall, Clockify is a well-reviewed and comprehensive piece of kit which offers a decent level of flexibility. Using Deputy to Schedule Your Staff Our final entry is , and this is a very much a modular style piece of software, making it ideal for all businesses due to your ability to key in and out of the various aspects of the tool. Deputy Deputy can provide you with all manner of scheduling options as well as extensive communication software. Alternatively, it can be used to track attendances and export your timesheets to payroll. It has the useful ability to be paired with many payroll and accounting software including Sage and Xero, as well as HR tools like BambooHR.  There exists the attractive possibility to upgrade the software so that it consists of both modules. In addition, you can opt for a supreme package which offers a variety of complex solutions for businesses which need custom configurations. Deputy is the software used by Amazon and beauty brand Aesop for their scheduling and monitoring needs and ultimately, it is the piece of software which stands out on this list, as it caters to all. Of course, it comes down to the individual needs of a business and their complexity as to whether or not a fully modular and extensive system like Deputy is required, but in terms of being the most impressive, this one wasn’t hard to recommend. Pricing Can Often Be the Key Pricing can often play a part in which package you go with. It often ends up being the deciding factors between two or more similar pieces of software. Although, it is often recommended in life to consider other aspects in a decision-making process rather than just the price, as this is often how poor decisions can be made! To summarise, both Clockify and Hours are free to use with their basic package. However, you do have the option to upgrade to more extensive features if you wish. They are a little limited for full scale business use above anything other than a semi informal SME basis if only used at this level. Toggle and Deputy come with 30 and 31-day free trials, respectively. Toggle then costs $10 a month. Deputy can offer you scheduling and time/attendance packages for $2.50 per month apiece, raising to $4.50 a month if you want both modules. Optionally, the Enterprise Edition (for fully customisable solutions) comes with a custom price-plan. By contrast, Time Doctor has no free trial and has a set rate of $9.99 a month for the basic package. Conclusion It is not easy to recommend a single piece of software for all companies because of the huge range of factors covered throughout the individual product reviews. What it is safe to summarise, however, is that if customisable software and low costs are for you, Deputy is the stand-out piece of software on our list. It has a more diverse range of options than your standard piece of software and you are able to trial these for a period of up to 31 days before you make any commitment and then the tiered system including a premium package which is only £3 per user per month including a wealth of features encompassing employee scheduling, timesheets, payroll and point of sale integration, leave management, a newsfeed, tasking, 24/7 support and a wealth of reporting options too. It must be said that Clockify, Monday.com and Time Doctor also have their positives and are worthy of an honourable mention.

4 Employee Performance Monitoring Software To Enhance Productivity

So, you've hired a freelance developer. Now, the critical part of your journey begins – successfully managing the freelance project, which isn’t an easy task. Of course, if you managed to hire the right freelancer, this task becomes much easier. However, it is critical to note that in many cases, freelance engagements fail not due to a poor freelancer, but because of insufficient structures put in place to manage work. Therefore, to maximise project success you also need to have other supporting frameworks. In this article, we will outline some concepts that when incorporated, can ensure smooth execution of freelance engagements. As we discuss each one, we’ll also cover the challenges faced while managing freelance projects. Challenges in managing freelance projects Freelance projects have peculiar problems because of two main reasons: - Shorter affiliation between parties vs. employer-employee relationships - These projects typically happen in a remote setting (i.e. everyone isn’t present in one physical space) These two major reasons result in the following challenges: 1. Communication One of the main reasons for failure not just when managing freelance projects, but most collaborations is a lack of proper communication. The effect of bad communication is amplified when it comes to freelance projects, due to limited F2F interactions. Hence, it is paramount to be crystal clear in any form of communication that takes place throughout the engagement. How to implement better communication At the very outset, define expectations with absolute clarity. Well-defined project requirements, explicit agreement on deadlines, the number of touch-points, and periodic catch-ups are some of the areas that need to be immediately looked into. Clear expectations: During the course of a project, there are various kinds of discussions. Therefore, the channels for discussing them also have to align with the need for conversation. For example, you can use Slack for day-to-day chats, and video calls for discussing ideas. Structuring based on the type of communication: Additionally, you can use tools such as Notion for documentation, and Github for bugs and project management. Here is an interesting framework that you can use to decide the right channel for interaction: . communication framework Irrespective of the clarity of expectations, having regular check-ins with the freelance developer is critical. This helps in any course correction, removal of bottlenecks, or even getting a concise status update. Regular check-ins: Choose tools that complement your working style. Ensure that they easily integrate into one another and that both parties are equally comfortable using them. has a well-organised list of software products for each use case. You can pick and choose those that suit your requirements. In the site, some key categories relevant to managing freelance projects are Project Management, Video Communication, Chat Communication, and Time Tracking. Choose the right tools: Remote Tools You might also work with freelancers who are not in the same timezone as you. This results in a situation where overlap in work timings is rather limited. Employing asynchronous communication is the solution for such a scenario – it is a practice to basically exchange messages with one another without the expectation of an immediate response. The conversation takes place intermittently. Tackle timezones with asynchronous communication: However, even in such a setup, to eliminate bottlenecks and pile up of work, live meetings should be held regularly. To learn more about asynchronous communication and managing remote teams, is a great resource. this guide 2. Use time-based compensation In freelance engagements, two types of compensation models are prevalent: project-based and time-based. The former is when you pay a predetermined fixed amount to the freelancer, and the onus is on them to deliver the completed product. In contrast, time-based compensation is contingent upon the number of hours that the freelancer has worked for on your project. You pay them for the billable hours. This can understood in greater detail in . our earlier article In most software projects, the requirements evolve as you build a product. Accordingly, the compensation model needs to recognise and support this need for flexibility. Time-based compensation models are the way to go - A time-based model aligns to project success in a better fashion than a fixed-price model - This is because, in a fixed-price model, the success of the project hinges on the accuracy of the estimates (time and cost) before any work has begun. As even senior members of the tech industry can attest to, making highly accurate estimates is hard. With the estimates made, it also leaves no scope for making improvements or implementing changes, once the project has begun. - Since time-based models provide more flexibility, it is no surprise that such payment models fare much better in software development than their fixed-price counterparts. - In time-based compensation models, accurate time-tracking becomes a necessary hygiene factor. As in any working relationship, even in freelance engagements, there needs to be an element of trust between parties. However, if required, you can use time-tracking tools to facilitate a smooth workflow and prevent any unnecessary conversations around productivity. So, let’s discuss the implementation of such a process. How to implement time-tracking practices - There are several , to suit almost every need. Some of the most popular apps are TimeDoctor, Harvest, and Toggl. time-tracking websites and apps - Although it is true that time-tracking gives you more of a picture on the quantity, and not the quality of work done, some of these apps also have built-in features like screenshots and activity logs to ensure employers get to know the exact areas freelancers spent their time on. - Experiment with different solutions and use the one that matches your use-case. At , we use a simple Google Sheets document with shared access to both the client and the freelancer to track the time taken for a pre-determined set of tasks. This itself serves the purpose of tracking time while not being invasive. Flexiple 3. Inclusion in the team As mentioned above, time-based payment models are a good way to track the progress of the project and the effort that is being put in. However, one of its immediate concerns is tracking productivity. Tracking productivity isn’t just relevant when managing freelance projects; this challenge is prevalent even while managing regular employees. Therefore, a simple solution is to mimic the same structure you use for in-house talent. Ways to get freelancers more involved in your team So, let’s detail the workflow that can be used for freelancers based on existing process used for employees: To minimise downtime and start work as soon as possible, you have to make sure that the freelancer feels at home, and is able to settle in quickly with the team. For this, you can consider including them in meetings and more informal meet-ups as well as regularly engaging with them on Slack channels. Minimise onboarding and downtime: For freelance developers, you can consider having weekly/fortnightly sprints with clear goals for each sprint. Conducting daily/ bi-weekly/ weekly standups are also a good way to assess the freelancer’s progress while providing a touch-point to quickly convey feedback and highlight any concerns. Weekly sprints: While this point has been discussed earlier, it is again pertinent to stress upon using the right tools that enable the freelancer to feel more comfortable and included. Often, the high friction in obtaining even trivial information might bring about frustration for individuals. If the individual is working remotely, numerous collaboration tools allow for easy organization. In fact, there are tools that even help everyone to . Use the right tools: appreciate and recognise one another You have to ensure that the point of contact (PoC) for the freelancer within your company is someone who understands tech. Having a tech PoC translates to having a better grip of how the project is progressing as well as an enhanced ability to identify and solve any potential problems proactively. Appoint a tech point of contact: 4. Payments An often neglected detail is having a defined, agreed-upon channel for making timely and safe payments. Deciding on the frequency, deadlines and mode of payment before the project starts is very important to avoid any unnecessary kinks later during the course of the engagement. While many freelancers have their own preferences of payment platforms, a lot of them would be open to others modes when it comes to accepting payments. It just needs to be secure, fast, and should offer a smooth experience. Choosing a reliable and easy mode of payment - Convenience is one of the most important factors to consider while choosing a mode of payment. Many online freelancer platforms allow the option of attaching a bank account or online payments account. This facilitates a fast and easy way to process payments. - If you’re working with international freelancers, it is best to use universal platforms like PayPal or TransferWise, rather than the regional payments services. - You can also use direct banking services and credit the amount via wire transfer between bank accounts. Conclusion Last, but certainly not the least, it is important to harbour a good relationship with the freelancers you employ. While they do offer more flexibility, they should not be taken for granted as a temporary solution. Most freelancers require some onboarding time to understand your business and your goals, as well as to get a better handle on the working culture of your company. It is up to the leaders to get freelancers integrated into the team seamlessly and ensure they have everything in place to put their best foot forward. Remember, however, that the process of managing freelance projects becomes a lot less painstaking if you . A quality freelancer will have the required skillsets to make most of these challenges easier to manage. hire the right freelancer The above article is part of our extensive guide on hiring freelancer developers .

4 Practical Tips to Help You Manage Freelancers More Effectively

On managing remote teams and creating an atmosphere similar to your office: Recently, I did a webinar with TIE and fellow women founders on Managing remote teams. A lot of you asked for the extensive list of tools that I mentioned in the webinar. So, here it is! When we are in an office environment, we have the luxury of meeting each other, share our learnings, provide instant feedback, infrastructure, facilities, etc. which helps teams to be productive and well-bonded. Unfortunately, we don’t get all these facilities in a virtual team and environment. Here's my list of the best alternatives to in-person situations, for remote teams: Best alternatives to Physical, In-Person Team or One-to-One Meetings When working virtually it’s advised to avoid channels that can cause misinterpretation. It’s better to avoid textual channels when doing important discussions. Make a practice of using the following channels in the given order: 1. Video Calls (even if it is a 2 min conversation, prefer this mode) 2. Audio Calls (only if the video call is not possible) 3. Chats (nonurgent & important communications) 4. Emails (only for official communications) For video calls, you can use tools like — In a free account, it allows up to 100 participants for 40 mins. After 40 min, you need to rejoin the meeting. It also has features like Recording the meeting, screen sharing, whiteboard, private meeting links, chats, file sharing, etc. Zoom — During Coronavirus pandemic, they’ve made it free for up to 100 participants and there is no limit on meeting duration. Features are similar to Zoom. Webex Others: , , , (Paid), etc. Google Hangout Skype GoTo Meetings Doodle Best alternatives to replace Water Cooler Conversations For co-learning & team-bonding, it’s important to create virtual spaces where people can share their learnings, hobbies, good reads, etc. You can know who is active, who is working, online, offline, etc in such tools. You can create channels or virtual groups in the following tools. —In the free account, all standard features like …….. are available with limitation of search possible in only recent 10k messages. Slack — In the free account, they have unlimited chats and video callings. Meetings can’t be scheduled in the free plan. Microsoft Teams Others: , (for geeks), , Flock Discord Fugu You can also organize games for your teams on video conferencing tools. Let me know in the comments if you want to know how we did it in our company? hite-boards & Brainstorming Best alternatives to W Being able to visually represent your thoughts, research, and ideas is the core of a team brainstorming session. It gives clarity to the other person. — It's very easy to use and has features like mind-mapping, flow charts, sticky notes with the ability of real-time collaboration. It has 100s of use cases that you can find in their templates. the free plan, you can have up to 3 boards. Miro — You can do flow charts, wireframing, sticky-notes, and mindmaps. In the free account, you can have up to 4 boards. Whimsical Others: , Draw.io, , , , (Paid) Lucid charts Awwapp Witeboard Mindmeister Mural Best alternatives to In-Person Feedback: Recording your screen to provide feedback effectively If you review your colleague’s work use a video medium to provide the feedback instead of screenshots or texts. — You can do your screen recordings along with your audio and video. It generates a cloud link that can be shared. It also gives statistics if someone opens or watches the recording. It’s easy to use and during Coronavirus pandemic they’ve increased the limit of recordings from 25 to unlimited. Loom — Similar to Loom. In the free account, you get 50 videos with each video being 10 minutes long. Screencastify Others: , , , , etc. Recordit Bubbles HippoVideo AwesomeScreenshot Best tools for remote Documentation & Collaboration Documentation is key for working remotely. Using a cloud tool makes it easy to share and access anytime. — Simple to use, create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. It allows multiple people to edit the same document in real-time along with the version history. It’s free to use for up to 15GB of storage. Google Drive — You can create notes, docs, knowledgebase, databases, etc in one interface. No juggling required. In the free account, you can use up to 1000 elements. Notion : Collaboration on social media posts. It’s free and has numerous attractive templates. Canva Others: , , , , , Dropbox Slite Confluence Coda Tettra Best tools for remote Task Management You need a tool for managing all team tasks and goals. It’s an old saying that . You can use the following tools to track your tasks What Doesn’t Get Measured Doesn’t Get Done — Easy to use and free to use. It helps you organize, assign, and prioritize the tasks. It also shows them in a calendar. Trello — Unlimited, tasks, calendar, users, discussions. Freedcamp Others: , , , , , (Paid), etc. GoodDay Quire Basecamp Asana Startinfinity Jell Best Tools for Recording Productivity & Time spent on each task If you want to know how your team is spending their time without indulging in micro-managing. It’s good to know where the money is flowing and can help in making smart decisions. Use the following tools: — Create timesheets in a simple interface. Just press the toggl button when you start working on a task and do the same to stop. It has browser extensions and desktop apps. Free to use Toggl — Advance time-tracking, automated screenshots, web and app usage, etc. It’s a paid tool starting at $12/user/month. Time Doctor Other: , WhenIWork IDoneThis Best tools for Scheduling Meetings and Managing Calendars remotely Fixing a meeting requires a lot of to and fro communication. In the virtual team’s meeting scheduling tools saves a lot of time which is wasted in such conversations. — Put your available meeting slots and let others book it. It’s simple to use and directly integrates with your phone or PC calendars. It’ll not let someone book slots that are already booked in your calendar. In the free account, you can use it for one type of meeting only. Calendly — Shared calendar for teams to know who is working on what. Free for up to 8 calendars for 8 users. Teamup Others: Hubspot meetings Best tools for Getting Signatures on contracts remotely: Use e-sign instead of physical signatures Speed up your approval processes by using an e-sign solution for your business documents, contracts, proposals, etc. You can save up to weeks of time which is wasted in transporting a document from one location to another. — Adobe eSign Services helps you to electronically sign and send business documents. It’s free for 3 months than at a very nominal price annually. Adobe e-sign —Sales teams can share branded proposals, contracts, quotations, etc. with clients over email and can get it digitally signed. They can know when the email is opened or the document is opened. During Coronavirus Pandemic you can pay for one year and use it forever. Gridle.one Other: , , , HelloSign Docusign Pandadoc Smallpdf Best tools for remote HR Management and Tracking Team Attendance If you want to manage your team’s attendance and leaves, use the following tools: — it allows check-ins and checkouts with selfies for unlimited users in the free plan. Jibble Other: Keka Best tools for To-Do Lists and Checklists If your team does some repetitive works and there are no processes then productivity will leak through cracks and you will not even know. If not complex processes, you can start with simple checklists for publishing content, doing a release, creating videos, etc. Few checklists tools: , , , , Trello Todoist Any.do Pipefy ProcessSt If you have found any tool which is helping your Team to work effectively, do share in the comments. We will add them to the list mentioning your name, and it’ll help others. :)

All the Tools You Need to Emulate the Experience of Being in a Physical Office

With as much as 70% of startups failing to reach the ten-year mark, according to the Entrepreneur, the odds are stacked against these budding businesses. For them, every resource counts, from time to cash flows. If there is any kind of wastage of resources, the consequences can be dire. Startup struggles Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/metaphor-tug-rope-competition-3694454/ Even worse, startup owners have to compete against already established enterprises with budgets that run deep. However, this will be a non-issue as long as your startup has a great business model and a unique product that customers want. Luckily, today’s startups can rely on a bevy of tools to avoid wastage and increase the efficiency of their business. Other than reducing the cost of running your business, such tools can give you a competitive advantage against established businesses and other startups. Here are four tools your startup should invest in: Accounting and Invoicing Software Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/calculator-calculation-insurance-1680905/ Filing taxes and bookkeeping are among the most tedious tasks for small business owners. While the tasks can be too vital to assign to a specific employee, outsourcing might be too expensive. Ideally, this leaves the business owners with the burden of having to crunch numbers a few days at the end of every month while entering business data into spreadsheets. If any mistake is made during this process, it could be detrimental to your clients, employees, and your entire business. Luckily, there is a diversity of cloud-based accounting and invoicing solutions that can take the trouble away. Solutions like Freshbooks, Zoho, and Quickbooks are created with the small business owner in mind. They make it easy to input data and calculate the necessary parts for each accounting period. If a client is late in settling their invoice, they have in-built systems to remind them, which only requires you pressing a few buttons. If your business’ receipts are largely paper-based, worry not. You can always scan them and use OCR solutions to make them easy to manipulate using the software, according to Tag Gun - . https://www.taggun.io/ Customer Relationship Management Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/office-people-accused-accusing-2539844/ Customers want personalized service. They should feel that your business cares for their every need, and that’s what a customer relationship management platform helps with. It can help you store customer information- everything from their likes to their contact details. Instead of having to ask customers for this information every time you are in contact with them, you can rely on the software to make service delivery seamless. For instance, if an employee falls sick, other employees can manage to cover up for them without having to learn about the customer from scratch. Remember, customers are the reason why you are in business, and replacing them will always be more expensive than maintaining them. CRM platforms come in many formats, with some being ideal for small businesses. Some of them include Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, HubSpot CRM, Freshsales, and Salesforce CRM. Productivity and Time Tracking Software Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/businessman-control-success-3492380/ If ten members of your workforce manage to save five minutes of your business’ time per day, you will have saved 17 hours by the end of each month. This is time you can use to earn something extra and grow your business. Sadly, time is wasted in small things within businesses, from spending time to poor communication. In other cases, lacking to prioritize tasks can steal from your productivity too. on social media Ideally, you should invest in productivity and time tracking tools to optimize every business minute. Some great solutions for planning your day and productivity include Todoist, Trello, and Slack. If you want to focus on time tracking, you can rely on RescueTime, Toggl, and Time Doctor. Assess the different apps to pick the best one for your business. Marketing Management Tools Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/paper-business-finance-document-3213924/ Startups need as much marketing as possible to gain traction and have a competitive advantage. While you might have an amazing product, it will be in vain if the word isn’t out there with the customer. However, marketing isn’t always about forcing your brand message down customers’ throats. You need to be smart in how you approach customers and picking the right tools will help. Ideally, the right tool for your business will greatly depend on your customers, your business, and your budget. For instance, if your customers spend most of their time on social media, leveraging a social media management tool is wise. In case you want to optimize your business for search engines, there is a bevy of SEO tools out there. Luckily, marketing tools come with a diversity of price tags tied to them, from high-end premium tools to free tools. Here is a you should consider using as a startup. list of marketing tools Conclusion Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/code-code-editor-coding-computer-1839406/ When choosing the tools for your startup, consider your growth rate. The ideal tool should be scalable enough to keep up with business changes, as well as have reliable support staff. Build your software stack wisely to improve your business’ productivity.

Essential Tool Stack Serious Startup Need To Use

Source: Pexels A recent shows a 159% increase in the number of workers working remote since 2005. The study also found that these 4.7 million people in the U.S who currently telecommute, are not the only Americans interested. 89% of those who replied to the survey said that they’d prefer to telecommute up to 100% of the time. FlexJobs study With a more mature remote-work culture emerging, it’s also a great time for employers to take a closer look at what a fully remote workforce may entail. There are a lot of resources now available from articles illustrating “ ” to conferences where business owners can learn from others who have successfully navigated the (smooth) waters like (who also happens to have a very popular ). 10 Ways to Improve Employee Efficiency Running Remote podcast Many of these savvy business owners know that one of the most important tools they can rely on is an employee time tracking app and we’ve done the research to outline the 10 best employee monitoring software for you, below. 1. Time Doctor Time Doctor is the leader in the industry when it comes to employee monitoring software. Time Doctor makes managing a distributed team a synch with easy to use employee tools and robust employer management resources. Features Time Tracking The timer is easy to use when an employee starts a new task or project, with just one-click, they are on their way. Managers can track the time spent by each employee categorized by client, project or task. This allows the manager to easily make changes to workload, project assignments and more. API and Integrations Have other web applications that you use to manage your business or team? Great, Time Doctor has a seamless and fast API that allows both reading and writing abilities to plug directly into your other systems. You’ll have powerful information right at your fingertips with useful insights into your employee time tracking app and your other platforms that speak directly to each other through the API. Time Doctor integrates with all leading project management and accounting tools including JIRA, Asana, Trello, GitHub, Basecamp, Slack, Salesforce, Teamwork.com, Todoist, Podio, QuickBooks, Freshdesk, Redmine, Google Apps, Zoho, Yammer, and more. Billing You can automatically calculate your payroll using either fixed salaries or the hours that have been tracked. You can also manage client billing, down to the minute – allowing you ultimate productivity as well! Time Use Alerts If an employee sits idle for too long, they will receive a pop alert asking if they need to make an adjustment to their time card. This pop up also appears if an employee strays onto a non-work related website or app, helping to keep the employee engaged and focused. Web and App Usage You’ll get a clear and accurate picture of the websites and apps your employees are using so you can take the opportunity to coach them proactively. If you see that an employee is spending too long a particular site, there may be a need for additional training. Being proactive can help reduce friction later. Powerful Reporting Time Doctor allows you to receive daily and weekly reports that give you insight into hours, website and app usage, tasks worked on, client breakdowns and much more. Employees also receive these powerful insights in order to identify productivity-wasting behaviors and make adjustments in order to stay on track. Pricing With costs as low as $9.99/month per user, Time Doctor is the best choice for your employee time tracking app needs as it has the most robust feature set. . They also offer a 14 day free trial to test the platform that does not require a credit card 2. Toggl Toggl is an employee time tracking app that is also an affordable choice mostly for small teams and freelancers. Features Time Tracking Toggl has a one-click time tracking app that allows easy toggling between projects that can be super useful for the freelancer who likes to switch between projects and clients often. 100+ App Integrations With over 100 integrations that embed the Toggl Button inside other online apps, this employee monitoring software, seamlessly integrates. Tracking Reminders The Toggl Button and Desktop app not only remind employees that they may have forgotten to start a timer but it also tracks idle time to let the employee and potentially, manager know that the employee has been idle. These nudges can be great for productivity. Profits vs Labor Costs Data visualization is super easy with Toggl. You can easily see which projects are most profitable with their simple reporting tools. Team Dashboard The dashboard feature allows you to make sure that no individual employee has more work than they can handle and helps you redistribute as necessary. Pricing Toggl offers a free 30-day trial and pricing starts at for monthly plans and goes up from there. $10 a month 3. Everhour Everhour is an employee time tracking app that can be used for billing, payroll and more. It works inside many popular project management platforms. Features One-click time tracking Employees can utilize the simple one-click timer to start and stop tracking when working on multiple tasks or projects at once. There is also a manual recording option. Copy recent Everhour allows employees to save time by copying recent timecards for recurring projects, tasks or clients. Timeline Employees can view their day at a glance through the handy timeline feature. They can then see if they have any gaps and easily adjust. Pricing Pricing for teams is $7/user per month with a minimum of $35/month (5 users). Pricing for individual users is $8/month. Learn more . here 4. Hours Hours recently became a contender for teams as this employee monitoring software now allows for better collaboration. Features Real time tracking You can have multiple projects running at one time which is helpful for employees who like to switch between projects instead of taking a single project to completion before moving on to the next. Reports Helpful reports allow for you to see what all your employees are working on and better manage the workflow. Timeline Making adjustments to a workday is easy by viewing the timeline view. The employee can see any gaps or misreporting to easily adjust. Pricing Hours is free to get started and you can upgrade as needed to meet your team’s needs. Pricing can be determined by signing up on the . Hours website 5. Harvest Harvest is a popular employee monitoring software with creative agencies. Since 2006, Harvest has been helping companies track employee time and expenses. Features Time tracking Employees can track time using the mobile or desktop app and can also make adjustments to their timesheets as needed. Project Tools Harvest allows you to set budgets for projects and assign time to the budgeted time which is super helpful for improving project scoping and management. Integrations As expected from any employee time tracking app, Harvest has many integration partnerships to take advantage of. Expense tracking Harvest allows employees to seamless track expenses along with their time, which is really useful for managing overall project costs and a feature that agencies really enjoy. Invoicing Invoicing clients is very easy through the Harvest tool and will simplify accounting processes. Pricing One person with up to two projects is free using Harvest and if you need more, prices start at $12/month per user. Harvest also offers a free 30-day trial. 6. TSheets With more than 20,000 five-star reviews, TSheets employee monitoring software can track time on any device and help streamline both payroll and invoicing. Features Time Tracking Employees using TSheets can easily switch between job codes, record breaks, and clock in and out with one click. GPS Tracking In scenarios when a dispatcher needs to know which employee can have the fastest response time; GPS tracking comes in very handy. Overtime Do you have issues with paying too much overtime? TSheets has a useful feature to alert both you and your employee when the employee is close to going into overtime to help manage costs and expectations. Scheduling Easily edit shifts and post schedules for the team to see using the scheduling feature. Pricing With a 14-day free trial you can see if TSheets meets the needs of your team. Prices include a base fee plus a per-user fee per month and can alternatively be paid annually. Visit their website for . more detailed pricing 7. Tick Tick is an employee time tracking app that was created for the service industry and believes that time should be tracked just like inventory. Think of Tick as you would any other inventory management solution. Features Timecards and Running Timers Here’s how Tick works: select your project, select the task, and enter your time. Like many employee monitoring software, you can also enter notes and toggle between running timers. Budget feedback You can easily view time-to-budget within each time tracker so employees can stay on top of the budget. Enter time from anywhere Tick believes that you can track time to a project even when you’re away from your computer so they allow you to easily track time from any device. Pricing The first project is free and then goes up from there from . They also offer a 30-Day free trial. $19/month and beyond 8. Timely Timely records everything throughout a time period and then uses AI technology to learn what should be recorded and gets better and better at suggesting appropriate time spent. The employee can make adjustments to teach the employee time tracking app what it should be recording and everything else is discarded. Features Time tracking Timely’s Memory Tracker records everything that an employee works on and presents a timeline for the employee to review. Suggest Using AI, Timely suggests appropriate tags for work that was recorded. The suggested times can be edited so it can learn what should be tracked and based on the employee’s feedback, how time should be. Train The employee can teach Timely to be smarter by renaming tags, titles, and adjusting grouped activities. Overtime the employee trains Timely to accurately record the time it tracks. Project time management This employee time tracking app also helps busy teams stay on top of their priorities and project budgets through their project time management feature. Pricing Individual prices start at and teams starts at $99/month for 5 seats. $7/month 9. Hubstaff Hubstaff is an employee time tracking app that also has many useful features that can be added-on depending on the needs of the organization. Features Time tracking Hubstaff offers a time tracking element to their software that works on desktop, web, or via mobile device like most of the employee monitoring software out there. Calendar Views You can check-in on your employee’s progress and productivity with daily or weekly views of their calendars. Online timesheets Hubstaff has a feature that allows for simple timesheet management online, reducing the need to remind your team that it’s time to turn in their timesheets in order to get paid. Easy Payroll By setting up employee pay rates, you can easily pay your team from the online timesheets, which will greatly simplify your bookkeeping time. Team Scheduling Better plan and track employee attendance through this handy team-scheduling feature. You’ll have a simple picture of who is scheduled and who has shown up for their shift. Pricing Pricing starts at $20/user per month depending on the features. For more information, . check out their pricing page 10. Clockify Clockify has a free version of their employee time tracking app that you can utilize for unlimited users and projects. If you find you need additional features, you can pay to gain access to more. Features Time Tracker Employees can keep track of billable time easily as well as set up easy timers using the simple time tracker. Dashboard You can view all of your team’s time output by using the dashboard. The dashboard shows charts and at-a-glance information to make it easy to get a quick update on what your team is up to. Pricing You can view the pricing and upgrade but their basic package is free of charge. options on their website Summary Understanding how to get the most from your remote team is vital to running a profitable business. Adding an employee time tracking app to your toolbox will allow you to start with data and manage according to what your team is actually doing. Your employees likely want to be working remotely and with a time tracking app you can trust that they will still produce amazing results. Best of luck to you and your distributed workforce!

10 Best Employee Monitoring Software

Is front-end development having a identity crisis? — Part II Late in 2018 I wrote as the first part of this series. I was surprised by how popular it was not because of it’s obvious click-bait title (guilty); but by how well it resonated with the community. When I gave Part II as a talk early in 2019, the nods in the crowd were almost unanimous — this is clearly something we need to talk about. Ultimately many developers feel the same: Front-end development as a role has become ambiguous. Is front-end development having an identity crisis A short summary of Part I Species evolve into many variants or sub-species as a result of natural selection. These sub-species all have different attributes and qualities and ultimately make each of them unique. Technology is no different. In a way, technology has given rise to hundreds of sub-species of programming languages, paradigms, frameworks and libraries, each with its own unique properties and challenges. Take JavaScript as an example. Credit to reddit user u/TheDoctorWumbology JavaScript has evolved into several massive technologies for both the back- and front-end. The problem with this is that the lines between front-end and back-end, or application and website, or designer and developer, have become blurry. The concept of “front-end development” has almost lost its meaning. We need to ask ourselves three questions: So what is a front-end developer anyway? — As developers we have the option of building for multiple platforms: Mobile, desktop, web or server. Front-end traditionally dealt with the user interface of an application but the rapid development of JavaScript has shifted the role into almost all of these platforms. 1. What platform are we developing for? — This shift in platform contributed to the rise of technologies like React and Angular, each with their own set of rules and paradigms. Languages like PHP, Python and C# have also become part of the front-end stack in many organizations as they enable us to build services and APIs. 2. What language are we developing in? — The lack of clarity on platforms and languages result in a mixed bag of job specifications that takes away from our understanding of the title. Some front-end roles require back-end skills and some engineering roles require UI design skills. None of these roles are standardized. 3. What is my skill level and job title? So why does any of this matter? Ambiguous job specs In the example below, on the left, the developer is asked to know both Angular and Ionic. Granted there is some overlap between the two technologies, but they are both large frameworks each with their own nuances. Pair this with the graphic design requirement (which has nothing to do with front-end) and you've got yourself a very demanding role. Example of front-end job posts on LinkedIn. You can read more about my findings in Part I. The post on the right requires experience in Angular, Java, REST and MongoDB. This role is basically a full-stack, but the salary on offer is measly and the title of this role is front-end developer. Barrier to entry These job posts seem harmless, but they actually create a . Recently, a friend wanted to change his career path to something he felt was more future-proof— so he asked me how he could get into web development. barrier to entry — the road to master front-end is long and full of terrors**.** Is there even any benefit in learning HTML and CSS when you’re just starting out, considering how demanding entry-level front-end roles are? Honestly I had no idea what to tell him I look at this ES6 snippet and honestly question how a junior is meant to memorize and understand this level of code. The reality is that this level of understanding has become an expectation for front-end developers and my view is that this leads to developers getting . burnt out Burnout In 2016 I came to the conclusion that I would become obsolete as a front-end developer unless I jumped on the React or Angular bandwagon. I spent some time learning React and realized that I would have to include Node in my stack as well. At one point in time I was learning ES6, Node and React at the same time. This was hard. My days turned to 15 hours as I was juggling training and delivering massive projects at work. I was getting up earlier and getting less sleep and the stress of it all compounded. Yes, a year later I knew React and Node, but I was paying the price. This burnout had a massive impact on my personal life and my work and in a way I am still recovering. Technical interviews Despite my burnout I was feeling confident in the skills I had learned so I started looking for new opportunities. React at the time was a rare skill in South Africa so I got invited to do interviews fairly quickly. The first interview is always easy, but I was not prepared for the technical interrogation that followed them. I prepared for these technical interviews but still flunked anyway. Technical interviews can be hard, especially if you are just starting out as a developer or if you are new to a technology. Technical interviews are important when hiring a developer, but they rely too heavily on our ability to remember technical jargon. Job titles Let’s say you ace your technical interview and get hired, now your title is You walk into your first meeting with stakeholders and the project manager asks the table to introduce themselves. Sally goes first: “I’m the head of digital and I look after the sales funnel of business unit X.” Joe goes next and introduces himself as “the product owner and project lead”. It’s your turn and you mutter “I’m the front-end developer” under your breath. front-end developer. You instantly lose authority in that room. The reality is that titles do matter. They carry authority and with that authority comes things like compensation and career growth. Often circumstances force us to accept titles that don’t necessarily fit our experience or outputs and this can quickly box us into a role. How do we solve this? Now that we understand the problem in a bit more detail, what can we actually do about it? Firstly we need to . Organizations often don’t understand the roles they are hiring for and we are partly responsible for this. educate recruiters and organizations Company leaders just hear stuff on YouTube or BuzzFeed and slap it into their job descriptions willy-nilly, not realizing that they’re seeking a brilliant, made-up unicorn employee. A comment by Ruth Reyer on dev.to, Part I of this series As team leaders, it is our responsibility to educate our organization and ensure that their job specifications are accurate to the role it needs to fill. We are also responsible as developers for questioning our roles and responsibilities and making our leaders aware of these discrepancies. Lastly we don’t challenge recruiters enough. They cast a wide net on platforms like LinkedIn and very quickly dismiss you based on criteria that they don’t even understand. I have personally found that recruiters are very open to hearing feedback on their job spec; and this feedback also positions you as an expert. We need to . Titles are muddy and lack hierarchy which can disable a developer’s authority. This has a direct impact on our compensation and career growth. call roles what they are I am really struggling with where I currently identify as a developer. I primarily do custom-built WordPress sites and am most fluent in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. A comment by Jenna Schultz on dev.to, Part I of this series Organisations and leaders need to make a clear split between front-end, back-end, full-stack and software engineering as titles. This will help us standardize roles and responsibilities; and ensures that compensation associated with roles are fair. We need to . Technical interviews are a necessary evil, but perhaps we should be testing the problem solving skills of a candidate rather than their memory. reconsider the way we hire Tech deep divers are off the table for me. I only do conversational style interviews. I try to feel them out as much as possible but if I get in an interview and it slips into deep-dive I just say “I don’t know” to everything and end it ASAP A comment by Sean Anderson on dev.to, Part I of this series Test candidates in an environment similar to the one they will be working in. Most developers work in an environment where they can use resources like StackOverflow to solve problems, so why do we expect them to solve problems blindly under immense pressure and scrutiny? Rather than testing candidates on a phone call, give them a problem they can solve in the comfort of their home with all the tools they’ll have access to at work. The problem doesn't have to be easy, but this will give you a good sense of the quality of code they write and their problem solving abilities. If you still need to do a telephonic technical interview, ask them questions that test their problem solving abilities rather than whether they can recite a for loop. Allow candidates to — lead them to success rather than expecting them to be rock stars from day one. learn on the job Lastly remember to . We are all eternal students and often face the same challenges — it takes practice and patience. Sometimes we just need to take a step back and remind ourselves to enjoy the journey. cut yourself some slack Follow me Medium Dev.to LinkedIn Twitter

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