There are millions of individuals that are used to a specific lifestyle. Often, they commute to their workplace, where all of their employees interact and collaborate. However, remote work on the rise and many professionals don’t understand what it’s like to work remotely. However, more organizations are pivoting to allow their employees to live a remote work lifestyle.
There are tools at that disposal that can enhance communication and ensure productivity. Some organizations might not time-track employees. Still, they instill a company culture where deadlines are important. Here are some tools to make sure that your company can use remote work to increase revenue and expand accordingly.
Doodle
One of the main issues with remote working is figuring out how timing is going to work. Meeting internally can be hard based on different time zones and schedules.
Doodle is the kind of scheduling app that can help with that situation. For example, team members can even designate their available hours to easily schedule internal meetings. The team packages are not expensive at all, and start from $12.50 for five members! Instead of sending a dozen emails back and forth, why not use one tool to make sure that the meeting happens when it should?
MeetFox
Businesses can have many things going on at once, and it’s up to employees to manage these roles and tasks accordingly. Sometimes, you need more than a messaging app to get your point across. That’s one of the reasons why more companies should consider MeetFox. It is an excellent video conferencing tool that can help remote workers meet their clients online.
Emails can be effective, but sometimes it takes a face-to-face meeting to hash out all of the details, whether you are interviewing or trying to explain a situation or strategy to a coworker. You will need some kind of 1-on-1 video conferencing tool if your remote work wants to stay connected, and MeetFox is the obvious choice.
Trello
There are plenty of competitors out there, but many organizations choose Trello when it comes to managing their workflow. It’s extremely easy to use and intuitive, and the “card” system has been praised for its usability and design.
If you are interested in an easy tool for remote teams – it truly doesn’t get better than Trello. There are other companies out there that produce product management tools with more features. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a simple and effective tool for remote workers: the answer is clear. Trello is what you are looking for.
Chisel
Chisel is a free agile product management software ideal for both small and large organizations. It has many features like kanban boards, team alignment, treemap, roadmap etc. which helps you boost productivity and efficiency. It offers a wide range of customization so that you get the best overall experience. So If you are looking for a product management software Chisel is the way to go.
Clockify
No matter the industry they work in, remote teams need a reliable tool for tracking the time they spend on various tasks throughout the day. This way, employees will have a much clearer picture of how their workdays look like. More importantly, recording time raises accountability and helps workers find out how productive they are.
Clockify is a time tracker that’s easy to use and that provides remote teams with many handy features, such as reports, invoicing, calendar view, just to name a few. Workers get to log their time manually, with a timer, or by using a timesheet. Also, employees can log time from a variety of different devices, since everything gets synced. This is a practical option for all those who prefer to change their workspace during the day. A free plan offers basic functionality, like unlimited tracking and unlimited users. If you need some additional features, you can choose between several paid plans.
Fyle
An AI-powered smart expense management software to keep on top of where money is flowing at all times. Fyle gives employees easy ways to track and report business expenses on the go from apps like Slack, G-Suite, and Office 365. It auto-checks all entries for compliance so your business is always on the right side of tax authorities.
Further, it enables Finance teams to control and optimize spend as it happens and provides them with detailed and real-time spend analytics, helping them drive meaningful change with data-backed insights. Fyle also automates time-consuming and error-prone tasks like reports verification, reimbursement processing, and corporate card reconciliation. Lastly, its tight-knit integrations with major accounting software like QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage Intacct and Zero make the entire pre-accounting process seamless and fully automated.
ProofHub
Remote work is the new normal in the modern work environment, and it seems that the trend will continue for a long time to come. ProofHub is one feature-rich and scalable team collaboration and project management software that can be of great use for remote teams of any size to streamline workflow and achieve optimal collaboration.
ProofHub offers a wide range of features, like Task Management, Time tracking, Online Proofing, File Management, Group chat, etc, which enables widely distributed teams to be on the same platform. Users can also manage their work while on the go through ProofHub’s mobile app. Fixed pricing plans make it an affordable yet powerful choice for seamless project management for remote teams of any size, from any industry.
Spinbackup
No matter how comfortable it feels, working from home involves plenty of security risks. Ransomware, risky apps, account hijacking – it is not an exhaustive list of threats.
Spinbackup is an AI-powered cybersecurity tool and Google’s cloud partner that protects your G Suite and Microsoft 365 environment from the main risks – data loss and data leak. With its user-friendly interface and full data protection, it will give your organization peace of mind while your employees work from home.
TimeCamp
A simple, yet powerful free time tracking app to stay on top of work. Ideal for professionals across all industries for team time tracking. TimeCamp is an essential management tool that gives you clear insight into a project’s efficiency and helps to avoid an overblown workload for your team.
Spark
The average employee receives over 100 emails a day, and numbers like that can be overwhelming. One of the ways to make sure that your remote workers remain productive is to have a tool in place to prioritize work and make sure that they get work done on time. Spark is the kind of email tool that can help categorize accordingly.
Spark markets itself as a “personal email client”, and it’s the kind of investment that will pay off exponentially in terms of productivity. You can pin and reply to important messages instead of sorting through hundreds of emails to find what you are looking for. Moreover, there’s even a free download! Spark is available for Mac, Android, Ipads, and Iphones.
TimeBilling
Remote workers might be working very long hours, and others might take breaks for exercise, coffee, or just to go for a walk. How does an organization hold remote workers accountable for their time and effort in order to compensate them accordingly? TimeBilling is the kind of time tracking solution that can prove integral to businesses of all kinds.
TimeBilling is much more than a time-tracker. It is also calendar features that help you understand the “big picture.” TimeBilling also works on many various devices, which is great for remote workers that work on multiple devices.
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger is a compact remote work tool for small, medium, and large enterprises. This high functionality, low-complexity tool addresses various domain specificities. Team members can interact via instant messaging, audio and video calling, location and file sharing, and by creating unlimited groups on the go.
This Slack alternative allows admins to add vendors, suppliers, and freelancers as orange members who get restricted access to the workspace. Troop Messenger can be integrated with essential apps like Dropbox and Google Drive. With Troop Messenger, your team can migrate their files, documents, and do a lot more than texting.
zipBoard
zipBoard is a design feedback tool that allows the team as well as external stakeholders to annotate over the design and share the feedback. Teams can share images, HTML pages, websites, PDFs, and any other web-hosted assets to seek feedback from anyone at any time.
Read: Tools for remote teams to stay connected
Conclusion
It can be difficult to transition to remote work. Even so, many organizations are realizing that there are very capable individuals in other countries that can prove beneficial to their organization. Also, in some cases, it might even end up saving them money in the long run.
It doesn’t matter whether you are forced to turn to remote work because of specific circumstances, or looking to expand. However, you might find that your organization expands faster with remote workers. As a result, companies should try and find as many tools as possible to make sure that remote workers stay connected, communicative, and productive.
Bonus: Remote Tools – Rising Stars
