Tech You Need to Work Remotely with Your Team

Studies show a positive effect of remote work on employee retention, happiness, productivity, and engagement. Still, team leaders aren’t overjoyed by having to manage a remote team. Overseeing employees and their work in different time zones, work schedules, and locations is a huge challenge. On top of all that, you have to keep them in the loop, organize remote meetings, and ensure their online safety.

Communication is often difficult even in an office team. There are many challenges regarding communication that managers need to overcome. And it is a tad more difficult in an online setting to do that. It’s not impossible, but it requires some good managerial skills as well as knowledge and skill when it comes to using tech for communication. We’re not talking about efficient communication that brings results. The team needs to be coordinated in order to bring good results and revenue to a company.

A decade ago, you definitely couldn’t run such a team. Today, you can rely on online tools to make your job easier and relieve some of the stress you’re feeling.  Here is your guide on all the tech you need to communicate with your remote team.

Social Media Management

Whether you’re working in the marketing industry or building your brand, you’re using social media networks every day. Creating content and sharing it across various platforms takes a lot of time, hard work, and dedication. If you have a social media manager or content creators in your team, then you’re only in charge of campaigns, strategies, and resources.

To make things a little bit easier on your marketing team, you can use automation. It allows you to schedule posts on different social media platforms at a specific time and day. Also, you can schedule emails and stay in touch with customers even though you’re not behind the laptop at the moment.

Automation saves time, so you and your team have one less task to worry about during the workday. You’re only job is to create valuable content, schedule posts, and focus on other more important tasks. It’s essential for driving radical growth in your business.

Project Management

Managers running in-house teams have great insight into their project progress. If they have some doubts, they can always walk over to their desk and ask them directly. When it comes to remote teams, that’s not an option. You still have to keep track of your employees’ progress on work assignments.

This is where project management tools come into play. Tools such as Trello, Asana, and Teamwork help you keep tabs on multiple projects or sprints in an agile work environment. Also, you can clearly see which employees are involved in particular projects, what their progress is, and what problems they’re currently facing.

The information primarily allows you to monitor the performance of your employees. If an employee has run into a problem, you can step in and help resolve it. Also, you can use the insight you get to assign tasks and responsibilities differently next time. This way your team will be more effective in completing assigned projects.

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Instant Messaging

The key to success in running remote teams is communication. Without it, you can’t expect employees to be aware of the latest project changes or updates. In case you’re working remotely temporarily, you have to notify them when the time to return to the office comes. Also, as employees go through their daily tasks, they might have questions or need clarifications. You should consider using various chat tools to enhance team communication.

Instant messaging tools are the best way to stay in touch with the team. Google Hangouts and Slack are the most common ones among remote teams across the world. The tools support employee communication across multiple levels regardless of the location of the people involved. Sending short messages is enough to give your employees feedback or a quick update on corporate matters. Similarly, employees can search through the messages and use them as a reference at any time. Therefore, communication within your remote team becomes simpler and more efficient.

Lastly, you don’t have to use instant messaging tools for work-related operations. They can also help you to lift your team’s spirits. The team members can share memes, GIFs, inside jokes, or celebrate birthdays and important milestones in their careers.

Team Work

Despite working from different locations, your team can still collaborate on projects. However, to make it possible, you have to provide them with access to the same files or documents. Teams often send the same document back and forth with changes until it’s completed. In the end, employees have multiple versions of the same document all over their desktops.

Instead of sending the same file all the time, you can take advantage of collaboration tools. DropBox and Google Suite don’t only serve for saving large amounts of files. They also allow users to create, share, and work on the same projects or documents together. Anyone with the link to the document or a different kind of authorization can comment, suggest changes, or edit the content. Hence, it’s easy to keep track of group projects and mutual efforts.

Password Manager

You and your remote team probably use a variety of digital platforms for sharing and storing files and sensitive business information. Also, some online collaboration platforms and editing tools are a part of everyday workplace activities. To access all these tools and platforms, employees need login details such as usernames and passwords. That’s plenty of private information floating around.

Since data breaches are a common problem in the business world, you have to make sure employees and the data stay safe online. The best way to minimize the risk is to use a password manager. Their main responsibility is to keep all information shared online as secure as possible.

Apart from the tool, you should also encourage your employees to follow password security policies. As dull as it may seem, strong passwords are essential if you want to use online tools safely. Also, different passwords across accounts mitigate the risk of someone else hacking into your devices or accounts.

Video Calls

Like in-house teams, remote ones require face-to-face interaction to feel engaged, productive, and satisfied in the workplace. Thanks to video conferencing tools, you can give the employees the kind of communication they need to thrive in the virtual work environment.

There are many benefits of using video calls regularly in the workplace. For instance, new employees can get to know each other in person, instead of being familiar with each other’s avatars. Also, it creates a positive atmosphere and fosters team spirit.

Choosing the most suitable tools isn’t as easy as it sounds. There are too many software solutions. Skype, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet are just some of them. Each of them has its unique set of features. Since you’re going to overuse video calls, study them carefully to choose the best one for your needs.

Summary

Remote work has a beneficial effect on employee engagement, performance, satisfaction, and turnover. Although managing a remote team is demanding, with certain tech tools it becomes easier. Pick any from our guide and see it for yourself. You’ll quickly adjust to using them.

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