Please continue to stay safe and take precautions regarding the current coronavirus situation. As of March 17, 2020, there are currently179,112 confirmed cases worldwide, doubling every 15 days.
To reduce the spread of infection, large tech companies, including Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Shopify, have begun requiring employees to work from home. However, some employees may have never worked from home before. The companies were not prepared for this transition.
Remote work can become lonely. It can be difficult to stay focused and communicate with the team, especially if employees have children running around at home. They must also play the role of teacher while managing their daily work.
So, what can you do to manage work during strict work-from-home (WFH) policies? And stay focused, determined, and happy? Check out the ten best remote work tools to get the job done in a distributed team format.
1. Zoom
If you are not familiar withZoom, then it is a video conferencing software that is great for virtual team building. You can use Zoom to host three different types of calls:
- Group check-in:About three days a week, block off an hour and a half for people to pretend they are in the office. People can chat about their day, ask questions about work or other matters, and then socialize. It is very helpful in reducing feelings of loneliness and getting support from teammates.
- One-on-one check-ins:Weekly management holds one-on-one meetings with everyone on the team. You can use Zoom to continue these conversations and help employees think through issues. The agenda is the same as for in-person check-ins, but now it can be done via video chat.
- Weekly team meetings:Unlike group check-ins, team meetings are supported by an agenda and purpose. Participants typically do not engage in “water cooler talk” or other tasks. Everyone can stay aligned on projects, share ideas, and learn.
2. Relaxation
Slackis a rapidly growing cloud-based messaging tool,withHave more than10 million active usersdaily. It is a digital space that allows your team to share ideas and messages in real-time with teammates. You can use Slack to keep conversations focused on specific topics and help people resolve issues quickly. It is like AIM, but on steroids.
Slack also offers apps for iOS and Android, so teams can respond from the comfort of their sofas. Most importantly, when remote workers are ready to log off for the day, they can turn off notifications and engage in non-work-related activities. The messaging tool also enables us to share files, search messages, channels, send GIPHYs, and more.
3. Task Management
Asanacan help you manage your tasks as well as your team, whether in the office or remote. It provides you with everything you need to stay productive while working remotely. You can use @mentions to link tasks, people, and projects, email tasks to your workspace, and integrate Asana with our favorite daily tools like Chrome extensions, Google Calendar, and Slack.
You can also use timelines, calendars, and project backlogs to stay organized and create strategies with due dates. The best part is the unicorn that flies when you complete a task.
4. G Suite
G Suiteis one of the top cloud-based storage and sharing remote work software available today, and you can start for free. Your team can share documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc., in one central location. You can accomplish many different tasks with G-Suite, such as tracking weekly metrics, providing content feedback, planning our editorial calendar, sharing documents, cloud storage, building team calendars, and more.
5. Calendar
Calendlyis a modernappointment scheduling applicationthat offers many features for managing remote employees. It has a free starter version and is easy to use. Remote teams can quickly check each other's availability, schedule appointments, and automatically send bookings to Google Calendar.
Additionally, if you connect Calendly and Zoom, your meetings will sync with the set meeting rooms on the calendar. It also integrates with ManyChat, so you can easily set up team demos in the bot.
6. ManyChat
Changes in workforce management may raise many questions from employees about the company's WFH policy, including training on different remote work software, PTO information, policy issues, and more.
One way to overcome this challenge is to useManyChat. You can set up keywords to trigger processes to answer employees' questions about your staff. This helps reduce the back-and-forth time via email or Slack and makes management and human resources more efficient.
For example, suppose a team member now working from home has a question about flexible working hours. They can ask the companyManyChat bot“What is the policy on flexible working hours?”, and the bot can respond with messages and links to relevant content on your website. If your company has support staff, you can also choose to talk to a human resources person. After clicking, the team member can start a live chat and quickly and easily get answers to employee questions.
7. Concept
Conceptis a great way to keep everyone organized. Concept allows you to manage projects across departments: from product to events, marketing, and analytics. It has all the core features to keep your workflow aligned with easy access to team workspaces, task lists, and channels. All you have to do is invite teammates who can create, edit, and more.
8. Timezone
Timezoneis a remote work tool that helps employees manage work-life balance by tracking when and where people are working. Timezone can help you plan meetings for multinational teams and prevent that email from arriving on your teammate's phone at 10 PM while they are watching Netflix.
9. Data Frame
If you report weekly or monthly metrics, a quick and easy way to share key KPIs is to use a data dashboard (for example,Databox). Databox centralizes all data sources in one place, allowing you to track performance in real-time and discover insights.
10. Otter.ai
Otter.aiis remote work software used for recording phone meetings. For example, our content team meets with the product every Friday. Each meeting is recorded to the Zoom cloud and then transcribed in Otter.ai.
It makes meetings more personalized and effective. If you’re not focused on typing or writing notes, you can ask better questions, check in with teammates, and win big; now you can use a text version of the entire call instead of notes as a substitute for sticky notes.
Choose the best remote work tools for your business
During this transition, there are many different tools available for managing remote work. You just need to figure out where to focus first.
If you want to keep your team engaged and happy, start by using the remote work tools mentioned above. Then continue to identify the pain points and needs of the new remote team, and how different tools can help improve satisfaction and productivity.
Need a good remote work tool to help manage all of this? Get a ManyChat account now. It’s free to get started.
Source: https://manychat.com/blog/