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Best Tools and Websites for Furthering Your Workplace Skills
In this article, we'll share the tools and websites that you'll need to explore to further improve your workplace skills.
06:54 30 November 2021
As a hard working individual pushing through the turbulence and confusion of uncertain times that affect your workplace routine, you understand the importance of staying steadfastly on your route to professional betterment so your personal growth doesn’t have to stall because of the circumstances occurring around you. As such, you want to utilize the business world’s best tools and websites that can accelerate you on your professional growth trajectory. Because even if you don’t have a physical workplace to convene, your daily work continues and so does your desire to further your professional skills. We spoke with some of the top working experts in their fields, all with their own credits of business founding and leading, to find out what the best tools and websites for the working professional are in 2021. If you want to stay ahead of your game and sharp in intellect even amidst constantly changing situations, you need the best and brightest tools available. Read on to find just exactly which websites make the list.
Trello
“Trello is one of the best tools for furthering workplace skills. It is a project management tool that helps track all movements and timelines of a project. When you are comfortable working Trello and managing your projects, you become a more productive employee and teammate. Furthering your workplace skills overall,” says Brandon Adcock, Co-Founder and CEO of Nugenix.
Trello is a work collaboration tool that separates tasks into boards and note-card style categories shared amongst team members. It was founded in 2011 and has recently risen to popularity in 2020 when used by many businesses during the pandemic’s remote work period.
Prezi
“Prezi is the perfect website to use for when you need to make a presentation for work. The format is accessible and straightforward to figure out, even for first time users, and it allows you to easily embed photos and videos. Plus, the wide range of premade backgrounds and color schemes coupled with the transitional nature of the slides makes it an aesthetic tool that looks professional and well thought out. Just think of Prezi like Powerpoint’s glamorous older sister,” says Summer Romasco, Brand Strategist and Marketing Director of Burner.
Prezi is a digital presentation platform founded in 2008 and has included the feature Prezi Video for video presentations since 2009.
“LinkedIn is a must-use social platform for upkeeping your professional portfolio. Because your portfolio is public, it’s the perfect app for showing off your skills and achievements on your page. Then through networking and connecting with the other users, from friends, co-workers, and old connections to potential new employers and collaborative partners, you can really expand your professional network. Plus, LinkedIn offers informative courses you can take to broaden your understanding of certain skills and programs. I advise you not to hesitate to take advantage of all the features LinkedIn offers,” says Chris Cronin, Co-Founding Partner of Kitanica.
LinkedIn is an app for users to upload their digital portfolio and connect with others in a professional light. While a business tool for workers, it is also a social media app due to its interface for sharing career news. It was founded in 2003 and is owned by Microsoft.
Flow and Screenhero
“We absolutely love the remote structure thing but one thing we underestimated was how fun it was to be together in person. The team still loves the remote culture but wanted to see each other more often. Because of that, we try to meet in person as a team for a week in a cool part of the world. Sometimes we rent a beach house or a cabin somewhere, and it’s exciting for all of us to look forward to that. We’ve found it’s the best balance.
“We use getflow.com [Flow] for management and Screenhero for chatting and support. We try not to communicate via emails for anything internal. We save it for team chats on Tuesday mornings. Using Flow to communicate forces us to form actionable items for each other based on ideas that are well thought out and not just emails that are half-baked,” says Paul DeJoe, CEO & Co-Founder at Ecquire.
Screenhero is a screen sharing app and Getflow is a task and project management software specifically to be used by workplace teams.
Canva
“Whether or not design is of personal importance to your life, having design ability can really help you in your professional journey. Every business has design work they need done, from their logo to their website to advertising and marketing materials. Large companies will hire or outsource a design team, but small companies may not have their person who handles any design needs that arise. If you have working knowledge of the most current design platforms and an eye for the aesthetic, you can find yourself offering to take on this assignment, which raises you in the leadership team’s eyes as a hard worker willing to come through for the team. Plus, having that design understanding is useful in your personal life as well, and looks great on a resume. I recommend Canva as an up and coming design website that is free and simple to use but creates professional results,” says Mike Pasley, Founder of Famous IRL.
Canva is a design website marketed towards those without professional design experience. Its easy to use tools and features don't require experience or any type of learning like its competitor programs specifically for designers. It was founded in 2012.
HubSpot Academy
“You may know HubSpot as a CRM platform but it’s much more. Its division HubSpot Academy Releases free, professional courses to train you on a new topic or platform. The time commitment ranges from an hour to several hours which you can work through entirely at your own pace. At the end of the learning portion of the course you complete a timed exam on the material you’ve been instructed on. Once you’ve passed the exam you are rewarded with a professional looking certification that you can attach to your resume and LinkedIn profile. I’ve been pleased to personally use HubSpot to gain my knowledge on various topics ranging from marketing to search engine optimization. I’d recommend anyone who has a particular program they want to master or who just wants to advance their professional skills to take a look through the extensive list of courses HubSpot offers,” says Ben Teicher, President and CEO of Healthy Directions.
HubSpot offers cloud-based marketing software to further companies’ online marketing strategies. The HubSpot Academy is a division of HubSpot where they offer free training courses and certifications.
Grammarly
“Everyone needs a little help with grammar and syntax sometimes, as well as advice on the strongest word choice to insert into their correspondence, which is where Grammarly comes in. You can install Grammarly for free onto your computer or your workplace can invest in a group plan. Grammarly works behind the scenes to catch any errors or weak wording so you can make the best adjustments before sending out that important email or company newsletter,” says Ryan Craver, Founder and CEO of Mallary by Matthew.
Grammarly is an installable software that uses advanced AI technology to edit users’ writing. It has been steadily popular since its founding in 2009.
Opportunity
“Opportunity is the new networking platform for making professional connections with other like-minded individuals. You can meet up with others in your field, those looking for others to collaborate with or hire, and form virtually any type of collaboration you can imagine. Whether you connect over your work status, your time working up the corporate ladder, or your common goals for the future, you can make lasting relationships on Opportunity,” says Michael Fischer, Founder of Elite HRT.
Opportunity is a networking platform for working professionals to meet up and collaborate. It uses algorithms to match people with shared goals and career paths. It was founded recently in 2013.
High Brow
“I think High Brow is one of the best up and coming workplace tools to help you expand your knowledge in bite-sized chunks. High Brow sends small courses to the inboxes of those who sign up by sending pieces of the course over the progress of days. This way, during the regular fast act of checking your email--which we all do multiple times a day--you gain knowledge you can lend to your work and personal life. It’s a genius concept that I’ve been happy to enjoy,” says Rahul Khatri, Co-Founder and CXO of Stoggles.
High Brow is a learning tool that sends easily digestible courses to users’ email inboxes so they can learn new skills in the course of checking their email. It was founded in 2014.
iDoneThis
“The biggest thing is over-communication. You have to communicate much more proactively, better and more than you’d think is enough to make up for the physical and psychological distance between everyone. That can mean anything from being more up front about bringing up problems, taking time for informal chat, and even making sure that you’re relating emotional context and what you’re thinking about so that information exchange and transparency isn’t just about robotic reports and plain facts and figures.
We use iDoneThis to stay in sync every day without having to schedule and stop to have more meetings, Hipchat and video hangouts for real-time discussions, and tools like Hackpad, Asana, and Trello, that are open to the whole team, for collaboration. We look for people who can communicate well, meaning they write clearly (since so many of the tools are asynchronous and text-based), can indicate when a message is received so that others aren’t left hanging, and puts in effort to communicate even when they’re having trouble with something (since it’s natural for many of us to go quiet when we’re struggling),” says Janet Choi, Chief Creative Officer at iDoneThis.
iDoneThis is a progress tracking software for teams to keep everyone on the same page. Its features focus on communication, with video and chat, and pairs with other tools teams use.
Skillshare
“Skillshare is a great website to use. The online community has a wealth of educational videos on a variety of subjects. The site also has a number of famous people who are instructors. In addition, High Brow is another option. The free subscription doles out mini-lessons to your email each morning on a range of topics. Coursera is another popular site that offers classes, and even some which offer certificates upon completion,” says Rob Chang, CEO & Director of Gryphon Digital Mining
Skillshare is a knowledge spreading platform that aims to teach new skills to users. It contains classes ranging across a broad range of topics and has both free and paid versions. It was founded in 2010.
Talent Cards
“If you’ve ever worried about keeping your skills or knowledge sharp so they’re ready for you when you need to access them, I recommend you check out Talent Cards. The app is designed for you to install onto your phone and receive bits of microlearning and microtraining to either brush up on your old skills or learn something new. What easier way to gain knowledge and skills?” says Eric Gist, CEO of Awesome OS.
Talent Cards is a mobile based app that sends small bits of training or reinforced skills to its users so they stay sharp with their skills while learning new information. It claims tangible results can be seen after enough time as a subscriber. It was founded recently in 2017.