Years ago, people who worked remotely were considered to have low-paying customer service jobs. However, as times have changed, more people are beginning to see remote work as a full-time career. With advances in technology, we are now able to do the same job from anywhere in the world. This change is requiring people all over the globe to adapt to new technologies. Businesses are also trying to keep up with these changes in order to remain competitive and to attract talent from different parts of the world.
How To Manage Remote Teams
As a project manager, it is your responsibility to set up a path for your team’s success when working remotely.
The growing trend in remote working
Here are the main reasons why remote working is growing in trend:
- Setting your working schedule
- The comfort of being at home
- Chance to travel more
- Less stress
- Better time management for personal life
- More satisfying
There are many advantages to working remotely, but you will have to explore the best practices for remote team management. Let’s take a look at some tools that will simplify the process of managing remote workers and keeping them productive.
What Is a Remote Working Software?
Software that allows you to work remotely can be helpful no matter where you are. This type of software can include communication and networking systems, like video chat applications or messaging tools, as well as cloud storage, task and project management systems, and apps for managing remote teams.
The software should be able to integrate with a wide range of other tools and be easy for other members of the team to use so that they can work together remotely seamlessly. The software should also make it easy to onboard new employees.
Without any more delay, let’s see the most popular remote working tools that have been tried and tested by experienced remote workers.
Work Tools for Remote Teams
Best Project management Tool
Instead of communicating through dangerous emails, some teams opt to use project management systems. These systems help organize documents and tasks, making it simpler for virtual teams to communicate and stay on the same page.
ProofHub
ProofHub is a project management software that is used by hundreds of remote teams. It allows team members to interact with each other and with clients. ProofHub comes with many features, such as online proofing, discussions, chat, and remote project management.
Nuclino
Nuclino was inspired by the idea of a collective brain. It’s a unified workspace where remote teams can bring all their knowledge, docs, and projects together in one place, replacing multiple other remote work tools. You can use Nuclino to build your company wiki, manage projects and tasks, share and work on documents in real-time, onboard new remote employees, and more – all without the chaos of files and folders, context switching, or silos. The List, Board, and Graph views help you organize your docs and projects in a way that best fits your workflow.
Nuclino has a clean interface and is easy to use. It is also fast. It has everything you need to get things done, without distractions.
Nuclino is very easy to use and does not require any prior knowledge.
Basecamp
Basecamp is popular among managers and teams for its simple functionality, clean design, and elegant usability. It helps you manage projects and communicate with clients in a meaningful way.
This text is discussing a tool that allows for collaboration and communication between team members. The tool has features that allow users to share ideas, stay organized, and stay on the same page.
There are some limitations to Basecamp, like no time tracking, no ability to archive topics, no subtasks, no professional team hierarchy, only outside integrations, etc. These limitations might be why some organizations and teams are looking for alternatives to Basecamp.
Every tool has its own set of pros and cons and it all comes down to what your specific needs are for your business. If Basecamp seems like it would be a good fit for you, then give it a shot!
Best Team Collaboration Tool
As more and more companies adopt distributed workforces, it’s becoming increasingly common for team members to be located in different countries. This can lead to communication problems, since it’s harder to collaborate when you’re not in the same room.
Troop Messenger
This tool is perfect for companies that need to communicate remotely, as it is compact and allows for instant messaging, audio and video calling, location and file sharing, and unlimited group creation.
This messaging app is a great alternative to Slack that has many features that are beneficial for businesses. Users are able to integrate this app with Dropbox and Google Drive. This app also allows admins to add vendors, suppliers, and freelancers as orange members who get restricted access to the workspace. By using this app, teams are able to communicate effectively and efficiently while working from home.
Bit.ai
Bit.ai is a next-generation document management and collaboration platform that helps teams to communicate and share knowledge more effectively. With Bit’s smart documents, you can weave together digital rich content from a variety of sources into collaborative documents. This includes attaching files, adding code blocks, and displaying rich media from applications such as Google Sheets, Typeform surveys, Airtable databases, and Figma designs.
The best thing about Bit is that you can do all of this and more while working together in real-time. Bit is one of the smartest ways for your team to work on internal communication, project documentation, technical docs, processes, training manuals, internal knowledge bases, client-facing content, on a company blog, and much more.
A great feature of this software is that your team can collaborate with guests on documents and create workspace data rooms. This is really useful if your workflows require you to collaborate with people outside of your organization, like clients, consultants, and vendors.
If you want to be productive and organized, start using Bit.ai to store and share all of your team’s knowledge in one place. Bit.ai makes it easy to track and manage your team’s information.
Slack
Slack is a messaging tool for remote work that everybody loves. It provides a digital space for communication among teammates, sharing ideas, and commenting in real-time so everything moves swiftly. With Slack, you can have all your team communication in one place wherever you go. When teams are remote, they can use Slack channels for instant messaging and collaboration. Slack offers fully native apps for iOS and Android to give you complete functionality.
For Meeting Scheduling
If you want your organization to have an uninterrupted flow of information, you should have regular meetings. However, scheduling these meetings can be difficult if you have to check each team member’s availability separately to find a time that works for everyone. Meeting scheduling software can help solve this problem.
10to8 Meeting Scheduling Software
If you manage a remote team, you know how important it is to keep everyone on the same page. 10to8 Meeting Scheduling Software can help you with that by easily arranging regular meetings, like daily standups and weekly team meetings, as well as ad-hoc phone calls whenever it’s convenient for all participants.
This software can handle having staff in different time zones and has a native integration with Zoom to easily start video calls straight from the app. It also integrates with most other calendars to avoid double-bookings.
I love that I can check my colleague’s availability without interrupting them, and that 10to8 makes scheduling external meetings easy. I also appreciate the automated reminders that help me, my teammates, and potential business partners never miss a meeting.
Soapbox
Soapbox helps you make the most of your remote team meetings by providing an agenda tool and facilitating discussion. If you work remotely, you won’t have the same opportunity to have informal conversations with coworkers that people who work on-site have. This means that when you do meet, you’ll want to use that time effectively. Soapbox is a tool that can help you make the most of meetings with your remote team by providing an agenda and helping to facilitate discussion.
The Soapbox app provides a place for team members to collaborate on shared agendas, take notes, assign next steps, and share feedback. It also includes suggested questions to help drive meaningful conversations, a library of agenda templates, and AI-powered meeting insights. These insights are based on conversations and cover four areas: growth, motivation, communication, and work.
Soapbox helps remote teams to communicate and work together effectively.
Remote working tools for video chat & calls
Video calls are essential for the success of distributed teams. Face-time helps employees stay in the loop and is essential for employee retention. Video-on chats help create the illusion of physical meetings and help avoid the danger of isolation and loneliness.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams lets you work together in more ways; you can chat, have a group meeting, call a co-worker, and collaborate in other ways.
Microsoft Teams has all the basic features of a video call like screen and file sharing, virtual backgrounds, and app integrations. However, what sets it apart is the new ‘Together mode’ that is being rolled out. This enables teams to work together even when working from home. This digital working space was created for those who just like to sit “together” with others while working remotely.
Microsoft takes security and compliance seriously to give you peace of mind during your meetings.
Zoom Video Conferencing
Would you like to have a conversation? With Zoom Video Conferencing, you can discuss topics that need more explanation. In addition, you can do screen shares to demonstrate to the person on the other end how to do something.
This app also offers the ability to host webinars or larger team meetings. You can set up invitation-only meetings, so only those who have been invited will be able to access the video conference. This means that you won’t be interrupted by random calls, as this app is tailored for serious (or not so serious) meetings.
Zoom offers a unique feature called ‘Zoom Rooms,’ which are conference rooms designed specifically for team collaboration. This is one of the things that sets Zoom apart from its competitors, as it shows that the company is making an effort to provide a professional space for teams to share and implement ideas.
The sales team also appreciates the recording option. They can record a session with an enquirer and allow the enquirer to watch the demo again or share it with decision-makers.
Zoom is easy to use and has a lot of integrations, for example it syncs with 10to8 which makes online video appointments much easier. It also has a fun virtual background which is an added bonus!
VirtualOffice
“Do you have a virtual office?” I’ve been asked this a lot recently, and it’s thanks to VirtualOffice, a tool that lets you create virtual office backgrounds.
It’s true that not all of us have the most amazing, trendy, always-tidy home office. I know I don’t! I’ve had a lot of fun attending video calls from the beach, the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, or even outer space, but I eventually got bored of it.
VirtualOffice offers a good selection of video backgrounds that mimic a home office. But the best part is you can add your business’s logo to the office, and it looks fairly natural.
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