Top 5 tools for working remotely
Today, teleworking is a common practice. The 2022 Telework and Hybrid Organizations barometer conducted by Malakoff Humanis reveals that 38% of employees in the private sector were working from home at the end of 2021. Now, more and more employees are working from home several times a week or a month.
To allow your employees to be just as productive and efficient at home as in the office, but also to promote collaboration and communication between members of a remote team, it is essential to provide them with tools adapted to remote work.
Here is a list of the 5 essential tools for working effectively while teleworking.
1. Project management software
For your employees to be productive when they are working from home, it is essential that they know their goals and the tasks they need to do every day. Project management software like Wimi is the ideal tool because it brings together in one space all the functionalities your team needs to effectively manage its projects remotely
So, you have:
- Of a task manager to clearly visualize all the tasks in your project, their deadline, their status and who is responsible for them;
- shared calendars to know the key events of the project and the availability of your team members;
- an online co-editing tool to work with several people on the same file;
- Of a online storage to centralize and easily share your documents;
- a reporting tool to monitor the progress and performance of your team;
- an integrated chat and video conferencing solution to easily communicate with members of your team.
With project management software, you have a better vision of the progress of the project, you are better organized and you work more easily as a team despite the distance.
2. An instant messenger
As we have seen, when working remotely, it is important to communicate regularly with team members so as not to feel isolated, to maintain team cohesion and to promote collaboration.
To stay in touch throughout the day, the instant messaging (or chat) is much more effective than email, but also more secure and without spam. Tools like Slack, Typetalk or Google Chat make it possible to promote internal communication between employees of a company and/or members of the same team, and to increase the responsiveness of teams. You can also easily sharing documents and files multimedia, and even exchange with your customers and suppliers. Finally, it is possible to create discussion channels in order to centralize all exchanges, people and files concerning a project for greater ease.
The aim of instant messaging is to erase the distance between employees and to facilitate the sharing of information as if they were working side by side. This tool can also be used to strengthen team cohesion, for example by creating more personal discussions, organizing photo challenges or quizzes, etc.
3. A video conferencing system
Sometimes there's nothing like a face-to-face discussion. When working remotely, you appreciate being able to chat while seeing your interlocutor (s). While the telephone remains practical, a videoconferencing tool is essential for organizing meetings with remote employees.
Today, there are many solutions for organizing, animating and analyzing all types of virtual events such as webinars, online training, brainstorming, interviews, etc. zoom, Livestorm or Klaxoon are some of the video communication platforms available.
A video conferencing system allows you to host several participants and to design interactive meetings where you can exchange notes, collaborate simultaneously on a whiteboard or even share your work screens. You can even personalize your invitations, record your meetings, and send surveys to gather feedback from your collaborators.
4. A storage space
To be efficient when working from home, your employees need to have easy and fast access to all their files and work documents. To do this, you must provide them with a secure online storage platform. In this way, all documents will be centralized in a single space that they can access at any time and from any connected device. Dropbox, pCloud or Google Drive are among the best tools for storing your files online.
This type of tool also makes it easy to send and receive large files. In addition, storage spaces are generally equipped with “search” and “filter” functions that allow you to quickly find your files, and thus save time. Finally, you can control access to documents and invite external people (customers, suppliers, service providers, etc.) to read or modify a particular file.
By combining storage space with a collaborative office suite, you can collaborate with several people at the same time on the same document (co-editing), you will always have access to the latest version of a file, and the history of changes will be archived.
5. A corporate social network
In business, the internal communication is very important for strengthening employee engagement, sense of belonging and motivation. The corporate social network (CSR) is an essential tool to ensure that your remote employees are well connected to each other and with the company. Thanks to a CSR like Whaller, Talkspirit or Jamespot, your employees who work remotely stay informed daily of company news (recruitment, projects, events, etc.).
This tool works like traditional social networks, except that it is private and only accessible to company employees (and possibly to its external partners). It is very useful for uniting employees, developing your corporate culture and maintaining team cohesion. Your collaborators can publish content, comment, share, share, follow employees, and create professional or personal discussion groups.
Thanks to the news feed, members of your remote team follow the information that interests them and are aware of everything that is happening within the team and the organization. CSR also helps to reduce hierarchical barriers and allows employees to easily communicate with any member of the company. It is an indispensable tool for dispersed and/or hybrid teams.
So are you already using some or all of these tools?
