Working Remotely before 2020 was embraced mostly by freelancers and very flexible Start-ups. However, it was just another option for traditional companies and dare I say, even frowned out by many of these companies across Africa who were quick to stereotype it as a “lazy-man’s thing”.
2020 came with a lot of early shock waves, prominent among them is the COVID-19 Pandemic (Corona Virus) which so far has no vaccine and is spread predominantly by person-to-person contact. What this has done is churn out new emergency policies from Governments that limit and restrict social activity, human contact, and movement. In its wake, a lot of firms, companies, and organizations are coming to the reality of not being ready for this disruption, even more, certain is the fact that the world as we know it has changed and we may never return to business as we know it. The remote work disruption is here to stay and the near-total lockdown of States and Countries within various Continents which might last some time might just be the stimulus required to force us into the future of work.
It might be difficult for some to adapt to this new style of work. Therefore, we put up a list of some effective tools that improve the overall performance of remote teams and arrange them according to functionality in no particular order.
We have tried to favor free tools which are widely embraced and have very good reviews
Team Communication & Collaboration
Slack — is by far a very popular option among remote teams and tech-savvy firms. Slack is a messaging remote work tool that allows you to bring all your team communication and collaboration in one place offering robust functionalities free of charge.
Zoom — Zoom Video Communications offers remote conferencing services, it combines video conferencing, online meetings, chat, and mobile collaboration. They have a free plan that allows you to host 100 participants during a 40 minutes meeting.
Microsoft Teams — This tool, while being relatively new poses as a natural favorite for teams already hinged on Microsoft tools like Office 365 and One Drive as it is a unified communication and collaboration platform deeply integrated with Microsoft Office applications, file storage, video and voice meetings, workplace chat, etc.
Skype — Good old Skype, yes! Many remote teams prefer Skype, their voice calls, text and video chat between computers, tablets, and mobile devices meet the needs of remote communication effectively.
PS: smaller remote teams, prefer simpler apps like WhatsApp for their work as it is enabled to meet small video needs, group voice calls and text chat with file transfer abilities.
Project Management
Trello — allows you to visualize project tasks on a board-like dashboard and makes it easy for assigning, tracking and managing everyday tasks.
Jira — Jira is a proprietary issue tracking product developed by Atlassian that allows bug tracking and agile project management. Definitely worth the try for Agile teams.
Basecamp — thousands of teams prefer basecamp for project management for its User Experience and its social media-like design.
ProofHub — what this tool offers is a replacement for traditional emailing and an integration of this with a bunch of other project management features.
Worth mentioning is Redmine which is an open-source project management tool that surprisingly has a good standing before some remote teams who prefer it to paid solutions.
Cloud Storage
Ah! Yes, this is important.
Google Drive — stands at the top of this list because a lot of teams already use multiple Google Tools and Google Drive is a convenient choice for storage.
Cloudinary — Cloudinary is a SaaS technology that provides a cloud-based image and video management services. It enables users to upload, store, manage, manipulate and deliver images and video for websites and apps.
DropBox — is an already popular option among remote teams, whichever feels tailored and right for your team.
Mega — Mega is a flashy cloud storage with a very attractive free option.
Productivity and Feedback
Todoist — includes core features like tasks, sub-tasks, allows you to add notes, add reminders, upload files, etc. it allows teams to track their progress and productivity.
Toggl — allows coordination through an open calendar to log time and activities for the team.
Evernote — Evernote is a very popular solution great for organized note keeping, syncing and accessing across multiple devices.
Chimp or Champ — Chimp or Champ allows remote team coordinators to improve team performance with features that allow for feedback.
Camscanner — looking very unlikely to be found here but yes, camscanner is a tool that helps you digitize files in the same quality as the average office scanner.
Grammarly — Grammarly checks your writing on the go, especially when the team cannot afford typos and mistakes that generally come with distraction — one potential downside to remote working if not managed well.
As a recommendation for companies who find the whole process of recruiting remote talent cumbersome and want to skip that headache, CodeLn can help you put together a remote team in a breeze, visit our website https://www.codeln.com/ today.
camscanner Grace Trello Zoom Cloudinary Slack Design Grammarly Google Cloud Evernote
