From an infection-control standpoint, remote work is a great initiative, but at a production company where the deliverable itself is the main basis for evaluation, one challenge is how to keep work efficient even from home.

This time, we'll introduce work-efficiency tools recommended by a production company that has adopted remote work. Of course, we'll also cover services that are easy to use for office-based companies or individuals, so please use this as a reference!

What is work efficiency?

The way I see it, work efficiency is about "getting an organization into a state with as little waste as possible."

That's because something that looks "inefficient" from an individual's perspective might dramatically streamline work for a given organization.

So it's only natural that the points that need improving, and the challenges involved, differ from company to company and from department to department — each issue needs the right approach.

Making things doable by anyone

• Turn tacit knowledge into documented know-how
• Reduce tasks that only you can do, and avoid over-reliance on specific individuals
• Eliminate information known only to specific people, and increase transparency

If there's something in an organization that only one person can do, or an implicit rule that only they know, it's important to avoid that kind of over-reliance on individuals and increase the transparency of information.

For example, if there's a task that only one specific person can handle, work grinds to a halt the moment that person takes time off — or worse, leaves the company.

Simply setting up an environment where anyone can quickly access information and learn the know-how eliminates work that "can't be done unless a specific person is around," which leads to greater efficiency across the whole organization.

Making things doable anytime

• Synchronous communication like phone calls (which require being in the same place, or coordinating timing) takes up the other person's time, so it should normally be avoided
• Make time to talk for urgent matters or difficult topics that are hard to sort out without a conversation (in other words, handle routine notices via text-based communication)

A situation where you can't move forward or get work done without coordinating schedules significantly lowers work efficiency.

In particular, synchronous communication like phone calls eats into the other person's time, so it's better to avoid it except for emergencies or cases that are genuinely hard to resolve without talking.

Simply making text communication the default lets you exchange messages between other tasks, which reduces the chances that other work grinds to a halt.

Making things easy to do

• Simplify and automate routine work
• Reduce human error through automation

For routine or simple tasks, simplifying and automating them matters too. For example, when a new employee joins, spending a lot of time teaching simple, non-core tasks costs both the trainer and the new hire.

Actively adopting IT tools to automate what can be automated frees up time for other core work, and also helps reduce human error.

How to choose work-efficiency tools

There are all kinds of work-efficiency tools out there, and many people aren't sure which one to pick.

Generally speaking, you should weigh cost, usability, and the quality of support, but it would defeat the purpose to pick a service that's within budget yet offers no support after adoption — so you should choose from multiple angles to find the better service.

Cost structure (e.g., per-user billing)

The cost structure of work-efficiency tools is typically based on the number of users, with the price increasing as you add more.

Some tools are free to use, but there may be strict limits — for example, only a handful of users, or expensive add-ons — so caution is needed.

If you're still at the consideration stage, try a few free or low-cost options first to get a feel for them before rolling one out in earnest. That way you can gauge how much value you get relative to the cost.

Quality of support

Many people haven't adopted IT tools like work-efficiency tools before, and there's always a chance of running into trouble while using them, so it's worth using the availability of support — both before and after adoption — as one of your criteria.

That said, official sites may only publish favorable information. So it's a good idea to check user reviews and articles about the service, read through the impressions of people actually using it, and pick up any tips on how to make the most of it.

The importance of UI

Once a work-efficiency tool is adopted, employees will keep using it. That's why it's important to have a UI that's intuitive even for older employees or new hires who aren't used to IT tools.

Also, even among tools with similar features, differences often show up in the design and small interactions. In that case, it might make sense to judge not just by usability but also by whether the look and feel makes you want to use it — whether it feels "polished" or "stylish."

Recommended work-efficiency tools

Notion

https://www.notion.so/ja-jp/customers

Notion is a documentation tool that lets you consolidate know-how and work progress by project or by organization. Anyone can access the information, creating a state where "anyone can do it."

It's packed with handy features like linking between pages and creating templates, so you can turn work-related information into documentation much like building a wiki. Documents you create can also be shared as-is, so you avoid a situation where only one person knows a given piece of work information.

At GiFT, with many projects running in parallel, information can easily become scattered — Notion has been invaluable as a central place to consolidate it. Once you create a single page for a project, you can keep customizing it to be more useful as the project progresses.

Individuals can use it for free, so start by using Notion to jot down your own notes.

Slack

https://slack.com/intl/ja-jp/customer-stories?geocode=ja-jp

Slack is a communication tool that lets you stay connected with people inside and outside your company at any time. You can message one-on-one or create groups, so if you've ever used LINE, you'll find it intuitive to operate.

With email in particular, you often have to decide who to send it to each time, and it can take a while to dig up information later. With Slack, on the other hand, you can search and look back through both group chats and direct messages.

Slack also has a feature called "huddles," which let you make free calls right from Slack — so if something absolutely needs to be discussed in the middle of a text conversation, you can jump on a call right away and resolve it.

At GiFT, we split channels by project and keep in close contact as we work. We plan to cover more about how we approach remote work in a separate article.

Some features are limited, but there's a free plan available too, so it might be worth trying it out with a small team without creating too many channels at first.

freee

https://www.freee.co.jp/cases/

freee is a work-efficiency tool that automates HR and accounting tasks. HR and accounting departments handle critical work like managing employee salaries and the company's finances, and mistakes there can affect the company's credibility. Accounting work in particular often can't be done without specialized knowledge, making it especially prone to over-reliance on specific individuals.

Using a tool that automatically carries out work that used to require human effort — without needing that specialized knowledge — helps prevent the drop in efficiency caused by human error or over-reliance on individuals.

If nothing fits, you can also have one built

Tools you can just sign up and start using are easy to adopt, but they don't always fit your workflow. In that case, commissioning custom tool development is one option worth considering.

When developing a tool, keep the following three points in mind.

1. Don't try to build something 100% complete from the start

If you're building a work-efficiency tool tailored to your company, you might want to build something that covers 100% of cases — but that's a mistake. Day-to-day work is full of "exceptions," and IT tools are notoriously bad at handling exceptions.

If you aim for complete automation from the outset, trying to cover every possible case, development time and cost can balloon.

It's more important to set an achievable goal first — for example, "it's fine if this cuts the work in half" — and start by automating the simple tasks.

2. Think about the people who will use it

The nature of a work-efficiency tool can change a lot depending on who's using it. To take an extreme example, for someone who can't use the tool at all, doing the work by hand might actually be faster than using it.

So rather than commissioning development purely based on the work itself, it's important to identify who's actually in the field, where they're spending too much time, and to keep that on-the-ground perspective front and center when selecting and rolling out a tool.

3. Consider combining it with what you already have

Many work-efficiency tools can be combined with existing services and tools. For example, Slack can integrate with task management tools and calendars.

So when moving forward with development, you don't need to build everything from scratch — reviewing the tools you're already using and integrating them can broaden how you use them, and can boost efficiency across multiple areas of work at once.

To clarify challenges and address them precisely, it's important to keep the following points in mind for work efficiency:

• Making things doable by anyone
• Making things doable anytime
• Making things easy to do

Conversely, wherever the workload currently feels heavy, there's a good chance it's because that work relies on specific individuals, can't proceed without coordinating timing, or is prone to human error. Looking for issues from that reverse angle might make them surprisingly easy to spot.

If you can't find a work-efficiency tool that fits your current challenges, please consider commissioning custom development.