With the advancement in technology there is a rise in the number of organizations opting for remote working or Work from Home(WFH), and rightly so.
It gives an individual the freedom to execute their work at their convenience whilst balancing their work and personal lives with flexibility. But since your employees are distant, it brings to attention the need for the best technology to tackle the challenges of coordinating and collaborating with everyone.
Following are the top 5 business tools you will need to boost the productivity of employees working remotely:
1) Communication Tools
Working 100% virtually means you cannot walk over to someone’s desk anymore for a work discussion. So work relies totally on internet access for all kinds of conversations. This brings the focus on the most important aspect of remote working – seamless communication. It’s the key to a healthy remote working set up.
Emails are a great option for remote communication until it turns into a lengthy discussion which makes finding important points in a thread very time consuming. An excellent alternative for such on-going subjects is having an app which serves as a chat platform for individual or group discussions.
For specific occasions, meetings can be conducted online through video calls for team discussions so as to increase productivity by brainstorming together.
2) Time Tracking Tools
When working away from the traditional office set up, it’s highly essential to track progress since working remotely comes with many distractions from our surroundings. A time tracking software helps in providing details of productive hours and establishes the extent of employee engagement in a given project.
When billing clients, time tracking is very helpful since your employees know they are accountable for the amount of work being delivered every day. This motivates them to produce results within the designated time frames.
3) Data sharing Tools
It goes without saying that file sharing applications are extremely important since remote teams need to share work files as well as confidential data all the time.
When working remotely, a data sharing tool plays a huge part for the exchange of all the spreadsheets, documents and presentations. It should be easy to use, safe and must provide sharing control to ensure that the information is available to the authorized employees but kept secure from all other departments.
4) Management Tools
Project management for remote employees can get complicated, especially if working in different time zones. Allotting and coordinating tasks, tracking progress of designated employees doing those tasks and keeping track of project deadlines can be taken care of by management tools.
This also incorporates design and development tools since they help in effectively managing the workflow. They are required to make things more organized and keep updating the project status in real time. It also helps in keeping track of all the multiple changes being made, mainly when working with apps or web pages.
5) Marketing Tools
Sales and marketing strategies have evolved a lot over the years thanks to social media. Whether it’s a free webinar or paid social media, there are various tools depending upon the chosen marketing strategy.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools have proven to be very beneficial for work coordination within the sales team and with customers, regardless of the location.
Conclusion
To establish a work environment as a remote WFH team that is as productive at home as in an office space, your employees need the right set of tools and the knowledge to identify the appropriate resources. The challenges may vary from person to person and a particular situation may play differently for every organization. But when the collective aim is to be a better organization and boost productivity, try applying one of the above mentioned tools for better results.
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