Managers are like the head chefs in a fine dining restaurant—they keep the whole team working together smoothly to deliver delicious results to customers every night. But they’ve got a whole lot of tasks and team members to juggle, not to mention the heat of the kitchen.
And while managers, like chefs, are masters of their trades, they can’t achieve the best results without the right tools. You wouldn’t expect a chef to operate with dull knives, poor-quality pans, and a less-than-functional oven—and you shouldn’t expect to get the best out of your managers without the right tools in place to enable their most critical tasks.
However, few organizations adequately enable their managers: only 20% of managers strongly agree that their organization helps them be successful people managers.
Only 20% of managers strongly agree that their organization helps them be successful people managers.
These nine essential tools for managers will help them tackle everything on their very full plates, from managing team projects to checking in effectively with their direct reports. They’ll free up valuable time so your managers can get back to perfecting that special sauce that makes your organization the powerhouse that it is.
Manager enablement: 9 tools for people managers
1. Bonusly
Delivering frequent, specific feedback to employees is the main ingredient of performance enablement and high-performing cultures. Make that essential task easy for your busy managers by giving them a recognition tool like Bonusly. Not only does it make giving recognition almost effortless, but it also ensures they’ll never forget a work anniversary or employee birthday.
When it’s time to deliver performance reviews, managers will have a wealth of data at their fingertips from Bonusly’s robust data analytics to review, with insights into employee strengths and development areas.
2. Asana
Managers are also project managers, keeping track of team projects, goals, and deliverables. Ensure that nothing gets left behind with Asana, our favorite project management tool (we use it here at Bonusly!). You can use it to track project progress in real time, update everyone who needs to know about action items, and assign tasks to team members with ease.
Asana also leverages automation and AI to keep project updates and assignments flowing smoothly, giving managers time back to focus on more value-add tasks like coaching.
3. Monday
Monday is a very popular work management tool for a reason—it offers managers nearly everything they need to collaborate with employees and manage campaigns and projects, from requests and approvals to resource management and more.
Monday also offers a ton of templates managers can use to plan and execute all kinds of campaigns and goals, customized by industry.
4. Trello
Another great project and task management tool is Trello—its most distinctive feature is “boards” that organize projects, tasks, and to-do lists to keep everything running smoothly. It offers robust automation so no task gets left behind, a great calendar view option, and makes it easy to delegate to direct reports with manageable tasks on bigger projects.
There are so many project management tools on the market these days, and it’s a matter of determining which one works best for you! Most offer a free trial so you can test a few to see what aligns best with your working style and your team.
5. Slack
Maybe this one is already so well-known we don’t have to mention it, but Slack is an absolute lifesaver for managers of remote and hybrid teams in particular. It makes keeping in touch with employees easy and even fun, and it offers integrations with more than 2,600 different tools to seamlessly meld into your workflows.
Plus, who doesn’t love the GIF reaction feature? It’s not only helpful for keeping on top of work projects, but for connecting with the people on your team on a personal level.
6. Loom
Another terrific tool for managers of remote and hybrid teams is Loom, which lets you send screen-recording videos to anyone. It’s a great teaching and coaching tool, as you can show the recipient exactly what to do and explain how something works almost effortlessly—even for the low-tech crowd. Loom makes giving feedback, both positive and constructive, easier and more visual for managers and employees who learn best that way.
7. Google Workspace
If your team doesn’t already use Google Workspace, you should seriously consider it. Their tools like Docs, Sheets, and Drive make collaborating on any kind of project incredibly easy, even across continents (so essential for the international teams out there!). Their Meet tool is vital for setting up internal and external video chats and calls.
For the AI-curious managers and teams out there, it also offers integration with Google’s AI tool Gemini, which could end up saving you tons of time on previously manual tasks. It’s an easy way to begin to incorporate the benefits of AI into your organization.
8. Toggl
Time tracking can seem like the ultimate in micro-management, and some tools can indeed be annoying or downright invasive. Toggl is different: it lets you see how your team is spending their time without invasive tracking, and their logging system is super intuitive.
Managers can use it to measure and balance team workloads as a whole too, ensuring no one is on the road to burnout.
9. Donut
It’s not just a sweet treat—Donut is an employee experience platform that makes connecting with employees easy and fun. It offers capabilities from new hire onboarding (which is a huge lift for managers) to team-building activities like coffee chats. When managers are overwhelmed, these kinds of activities tend to slip by the wayside quickly, so making them simple and integrated into tools you’re already using like Slack makes sure they stay on the agenda.
Takeaways
Just like you can’t get a Michelin star with a kitchen full of ancient knives from the dollar store, you can’t get a high-performing culture without equipping your managers for success. These tools will help you do just that, no matter how big or small your team is, or where you’re working from these days. All of them also offer free trials or free options, so you can take them for a test drive before committing to a new addition to your tech stack.
Enabling your managers is enabling your entire organization—so don’t wait. Try them with your managers today and help them do their best, for their teams and your whole company.
