5 Tools to Keep Your Remote Team Connected
Remote working culture is now helping people achieve work-life balance. The best part is that it does not cost businesses their productivity. A laptop and an internet connection by subscribing to Cox internet plans or some other ISP is a duo enough to get started.
However, there are several tools that can make your remote work more productive and keep you connected. You may need tools for communication, sharing files, and project management. Dig into this blog to check out all these tools to assist in remote working.
Microsoft Teams
Communicating with your remote team is important to carry out different tasks on any working day. Sending emails and calling your colleagues can eat up a lot of time that could be otherwise spent doing something productive. So, ditch those outdated means of communication and use communication applications like Microsoft Teams.
You can download this app on your Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android devices. Also, you can start audio and video calls. Lastly, you can have meetings by adding multiple people in a video call and sharing your screen.
Another feature of Microsoft Teams is that you can share documents and folders with it too. So, no checking for emails every five minutes to check email. Focus on work by connecting your team with Microsoft Teams.
Slack
Slack is another communication and file-sharing application. This tool pretty much has all the features of Teams. Mainly, it is because it is a predecessor to Teams. You can share files, send messages, initiate meetings, and so much more with this app. You can use this application on mobile devices, Windows, and Macs.
So, if you are not a fan of using Teams, use Slack instead. There are different Slack apps that can significantly boost productivity and help you. You can even play some coffee break games with your teams on Slack. All these features make Slack a solid choice.
Asana
Assigning tasks to a remote team is different from doing the same with an onsite one. Sometimes dropping a message is not enough of a reminder. Especially, on busy days packed with tasks. Project management software can help significantly on such days.
Asana is one of the popular choices among project management tools. It allows you to assign tasks, create a planner, send messages, and share files. Also, when you assign tasks on the application, the concerned member receives an email notification. You can get started with the free version of Asana. If you like the app, you can get a more feature-packed paid subscription to the service.
Drive
Sometimes, files are too big to upload and download multiple times. Also, working on the same project for multiple members can be quite hectic. An online repository of such files can sort out much of this hassle. Google Drive is an application you can use for this purpose. In case you have a Gmail account, this means you have a Google account. You can use that account to sign in to Google Drive with 15 gigs of (free) storage.
Within Drive, you can access free Google Docs, Sheets, and Google Slides. The work you do on these apps is synced with cloud space. So, even if your computer crashes, you won’t have to create the documents again. As for sharing big files with your colleagues, you can simply share access from your drive. With online documents, you can allow the options of viewing only or editing. By allowing the latter, you can work on the same tasks together.
If 15GB is not enough for you, you can subscribe to the service and get much more file storage. An added benefit of their paid service is that you can use the offline versions of Sheets, Docs, and other tools.
OneDrive
OneDrive is another online drive where you can back up your important files and share them with your colleagues. The features are very similar to Google Drive. But OneDrive is a Microsoft product. Instead of Google’s tools for documentation, you get to use Office 365 applications. It can be an advantage if you are more comfortable with Office tools. However, a shortcoming of Microsoft OneDrive is that you only get 5GB of storage on the free tier.
But you can increase it significantly by selecting a paid tier. You can use Office 365 offline by doing so. Many companies generally prefer OneDrive.
So, these are the 5 tools that can make remote working more productive for you. The best part is that you can use these tools from your mobile devices too.
