Here’s the Ideal Toolkit for Your Remote Employees

Creating cohesion among new and existing employees, as well as setting up new hires for success, is a challenge even when everyone’s in the same office. But those challenges grow exponentially when you’re bringing remote employees on board.

Managing remote employees is often difficult for many reasons. When they’re in different time zones, it can be difficult to connect in real-time. Because they’re not in the office, remote workers may feel a lack of connection to the rest of their team. All of these can create lags in meeting deadlines and can end up costing your company time and money.

Fortunately, there are categories of tools that can streamline managing remote teams.

Tool #1: Internal Communication Platform

Email is sometimes too slow for internal teams…and the phone is sometimes too invasive. When it comes to how to manage a remote team, it’s all about finding a good in-between internal communication tool that helps in engaging remote employees and in getting work done.

Slack

A go-to for many startups, Slack lets your teams create organized spaces to keep communications streamlined, and you can share files, videos, and images with coworkers.

Rocket.Chat

Rocket.Chat lets you customize your communication platform with open APIs, integrations, and plugins.

Microsoft Teams

A standard for larger companies, Microsoft Teams offers chat as well as video call features.

Tool #2: Project Management Software

When managing a remote team, it’s essential to be on top of where each team member is on a given project, and there’s software that can make that a whole lot easier.

Asana

Asana lets you assign tasks to a team member, as well as track everyone’s progress on a project. The platform offers over 200 integrations to minimize your switching from one tool to another.

Monday

Monday.com is known for its customizability to create maximum productivity for teams. You can incorporate sales CRM, KPI tracking, marketing projects, lead capturing, and project management.

Teamwork

For more complex projects, Teamwork allows you to plan, structure, and manage your projects easily.

Tool #3: Shared Documents

We all know the pain of emailing a Word document to a colleague, only to get confused about which version has the most recent edits. With cloud software, sharing documents for easy collaboration makes remote workforce management a breeze.

Google Drive

If your organization already uses Google products, it’s seamless to add in Google Drive. With it, you can collaborate on documents, make changes simultaneously, and view revisions.

Microsoft 365

Not to be outdone by Google, Microsoft has its own version: Microsoft 365. Shared documents are now housed under a single application (or online), and you can easily track revisions and share documents.

Tool #4: Cloud Storage

Along with those shared documents are countless other files your remote staff needs access to. Today’s cloud storage unites employees, no matter where they are located.

Dropbox

Dropbox lets you store and share files up to 2 TB each, including documents, videos, and photos. You can also collect digital signatures, capture screen recordings and messages, and track document activity.

Box

Another option for cloud sharing with advanced security is Box. You can also automate workflows and use more than 1,500 app integrations.

Tool #5: Team Management Software

When it comes to supervising remote employees, the better armed you are with the right software, the easier the job. Team management software can help you not only track progress on a project, but also communicate with team members and track KPIs.

Range

Range makes it easy to stay in contact with team members without a daily standup meeting. You can also create meeting action items and set and track goals.

ClickUp

ClickUp combines features of a dozen different platforms or functions you use, including whiteboards, goal setting, task tracking, document management, workflows, and more.

Tool #6: Video Calls

And while we’ve all become accustomed to video calls at work, we’d be remiss if we left this tool off the list! Having face-to-face conversations with remote workers can foster a bond and deepen connections.

Zoom

Zoom does a lot more than just video calls. You can create whiteboards, chat with coworkers, connect conference rooms, and host events.

Google Meet

Looking for an affordable, straightforward video conferencing tool? Google Meet is ideal for simple video calls without all the frills.

It’s tools like these that can help you pave the way for new remote employees to feel engaged and connected to the rest of their coworkers.

Don’t know where to start with managing remote employees? Start with allwhere. We provide a suite of services that includes outsourced, centralized procurement; full lifecycle asset management (deployment, replacement, retrieval, storage, disposal, and redeployment); and more to help teams navigate the future of work. To learn more, book a demo with us here.