In recent years, the landscape of the modern workforce has undergone a profound transformation, with remote work emerging as a prevalent and dynamic trend. The rise of remote work has been fueled by technological advancements, shifting attitudes toward work-life balance, and the increasing globalization of businesses. As a result, organizations around the world have been reevaluating their traditional office setups, increasingly opting for remote work arrangements to adapt to this ever-changing professional landscape and remain competitive in hiring top talent.
In this blog post, we will explore the transformative impact of remote tech on building strong remote teams. We will delve into essential remote work software and tools, communication platforms that bridge the distance, collaboration software that enhances teamwork, and the vital considerations in choosing the right technology for remote work success. Let us embark on this journey to discover the immense possibilities that lie ahead for companies seeking to embrace remote work and unlock their teams’ full potential.
Table of Contents
- The rise of remote work and booming productivity
- Remote work software plays a key role in productivity
- Project management tools for remote teams’ collaboration
- Communication and collaboration platforms for remote teams
- Tools that wildly improve your current video conferencing apps
The rise of remote work and booming productivity
One of the most compelling arguments in favor of remote work is its proven potential to boost productivity. While skepticism surrounding remote work once prevailed, numerous studies (like this paper from Fortune, SHRM study dating back nearly a decade, Prodoscore’s 2020 study, and this 2022 McKinsey study) and real-world examples have since revealed that remote teams can, in fact, outperform their in-office counterparts. By leveraging cutting-edge remote work software and collaboration tools, companies can create an environment that nurtures increased efficiency and effectiveness among their distributed workforce.
Remote work software plays a key role in productivity
One of the key reasons remote work enhances productivity lies in its ability to empower employees to work in a manner that suits their individual preferences and rhythms. Freed from the constraints of the traditional office setting, remote workers can tailor their schedules, optimize their workspaces, and find a balance that allows them to be at their most productive. As a result, team members are more likely to experience higher job satisfaction and lower levels of burnout, contributing to a healthier and more motivated workforce, improving turnover rates and making remote brands popular among the most talented job seekers.
Furthermore, remote work software and tools play a pivotal role in streamlining communication and collaboration among remote teams. Platforms like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom facilitate instant messaging, video conferencing, and document sharing, breaking down geographical barriers and promoting real-time interaction. This seamless exchange of ideas fosters a sense of connectedness and unity among remote team members, driving efficiency in project execution and problem-solving, not to mention the glorious rise of asynchronous meetings.
Project management tools for remote teams’ collaboration
Smartsheet.com is a cloud-based work management platform that allows teams and organizations to collaborate, plan, and execute projects efficiently. It provides a range of powerful tools and features designed to streamline project management, task tracking, and team collaboration. It offers automated workflows, file sharing, resource management, reporting and analytics, making it the Swiss Army Knife of team collaboration.
ClickUp proclaims that they too are the “one app to replace them all,” focusing all of a team’s work tasks in one spot, from whiteboards to chat, documents, goal and task tracking, and spiffy dashboards. They’ve added “ClickUp AI” to help teams write more effectively, speed up projects, and create documents like creative briefs from scratch. Pretty neat!
Monday.com is an extremely popular way to foster strong remote teams, offering a cloud-based work operating system and team collaboration platform designed to help teams and organizations manage their projects, workflows, and tasks effectively. With a visual and user-friendly interface and robust mobile app, this tool allows teams to organize and track their work in a flexible and customizable manner. It is used by teams of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises, across various industries and departments.
ProofHub is a cloud-based project management and team collaboration software designed to help businesses and organizations streamline their work processes, enhance collaboration, and improve overall productivity. They take a similar approach by offering task management, file sharing, time tracking, and insights, but differ from competitors with gantt charts, kanban boards, and improved calendaring.
AirTable is a really powerful tool, offering flexible and customizable cloud-based database platform that combines the features of spreadsheets and databases. It allows users to organize, track, and collaborate on various types of data, making it easy to manage projects, tasks, and workflows in a visual and user-friendly interface.
Communication and collaboration platforms for remote teams
Slack has long been a popular cloud-based communication and collaboration platform that enables real-time messaging, file sharing, and team collaboration. It offers a variety of channels and integrations, allowing teams to streamline communication, centralize information, and work efficiently, making it a key tool for remote and distributed teams.
Confluence (now an Atlassian product) is a remote team app designed for collaborative content creation and knowledge sharing. It offers an intuitive platform for teams to create, organize, and discuss documents, meeting notes, and project documentation in real-time. Its integration with other project management tools makes it valuable for distributed teams.
Trello (also now an Atlassian product) is beloved for teams that are less tech savvy as the onboarding learning curve is considerably low, using the kanban method (which is similar to a series of sticky notes in a row that team members can add notes and files to, dragging and dropping to other columns). It is a visual project management tool that utilizes boards, lists, and cards to help teams organize and prioritize tasks. It offers an intuitive and flexible interface and a simple mobile app, making it easy to track progress, collaborate, and manage projects efficiently.
Tools that wildly improve your current video conferencing apps
- Lucky Carrot – this employee engagement platform helps teams feel more appreciated
- Bonjour – view and update Salesforce from within Zoom
- Verbally – meeting assistant with timers, agendas, invites, and more
- BlueSky Timer – provides clocks, simple countdowns, agenda timers, and participation trackers
- Virtually – Accurately detect when members join or leave live sessions, and keep unwanted guests (Zoombombers) out of meetings
- tl;dv – (short for “too long, didn’t view”) transcribes meetings, highlights relevant moments, and lets folks watch asynchronously
- Listener – bookmarks important moments and turns long recordings into bite-sized video clips
- Video Player – play pre-recorded videos in Zoom meetings since screen sharing still isn’t stable on Zoom
- Airgram – live transcription, speaker detection, collaborative notes with timestamps, plus Slack integration
- VirtualOffice – a branded virtual office for remote team Zoom meetings
- LEAD.bot – virtual coffees-buddy matching app in Microsoft Teams for remote employees
- SignalZen – customer support directly from Microsoft Teams via live chat widget on your website, linked to your inboxes
- Fireflies.ai – automatically record, search, and collaborate your team meetings
- Karmabot – peer recognition and appreciation for business chats
- Communities – natively within Microsoft Teams, it’s a place to connect and collaborate in a group setting
- Vtiger CRM – link your Microsoft Teams accounts to a CRM to streamline communication
- Trivia – virtual team building with real-time games, quizzes, puzzles, polls, and challenges
- Magical – suggests preferred meeting times, drafts agendas, and uses AI to nix pointless meetings
- CaptionSaver Pro – auto-save live captions from Google Meet remote meetings directly into your Google Drive
- Verbally – meeting assistant with timers, agendas, invites, and more
- tl;dv – (short for “too long, didn’t view”) transcribes meetings, highlights relevant moments, and lets folks watch asynchronously
- Enhancement Suite – this app adds grid layout, auto-join, better member management, quick emoji reactions, and push-to-talk features
- Airgram – live transcription, speaker detection, collaborative notes with timestamps, plus Slack integration
- Loopin – AI meeting assistant for customer-facing teams that offers summaries, automated recaps, and a conversational assistant
- Spinach.io – aligns teams in one visual space for better daily standups and built-in note taking for less follow up meetings
Tips for successful implementation of remote work software
First and foremost, data security is critical for all sized businesses when it comes to remote work. Whether you send devices to team members to use or they’re on their own computers, being vigilant with security protocols as well as data protection policies is urgently important, given that the majority of corporate hacking is aimed at American businesses. Here is an easy to digest guide for maintaining cybersecurity for remote workers.
Choosing any of the above tools takes careful consideration, keeping in mind each team’s specific needs and requirements, and taking into account the costs versus the scalability and future growth of your company. Carefully read user reviews and test internally before rolling any tools out to entire teams, large or small.
Conduct thorough onboarding and training sessions, making sure all team members understand the product(s) fully and have all questions answered. Encourage adoption and provide ongoing support, especially for tools used less frequently. Evaluate performance and make necessary adjustments as you go.
In Conclusion
Strong remote teams don’t just happen, they take time and effort in building and maintaining, with diligence in onboarding team members to each tool puts your workforce one step closer towards maximum performance (not to mention improved retention rates).
Helping your remote teams adopt software that improves their workflows and helps productivity while also building team cohesiveness is a legitimate win-win in the workforce. We encourage you to continue exploring and investing in the right tools to set your remote teams up for success!
