As per the report, 46% of Gen X, 50% of Gen Y, and 57% of Gen Z have worked at home at least once. This means that either they have chosen work from home settings or taken work from home while being a part of the company.

Considering the number of employees that work from home or remotely, it is imperative to have collaboration tools that can aid and improve remote working settings. These tools can help you streamline communication, improve file sharing, and enhance project management. Let’s see how.

Remote Tools You Need

While we are on the topic of remote working tools, it is not uncommon to ask why. You may be wondering why it is necessary to utilize these tools and why can’t you work with the basic tools.

Of course, you can work with the basic tools like an mail account. However, the ease of working comes with advanced technology. For example, Slack is much more powerful, user-friendly, and efficient than your email. 

Read more to know how.

1.    Slack

Slack is now being utilized everywhere. It is one of the best communication tools that you will find in the market. Using Slack, you can communicate with your team by using audio, text, or video.

Here’s what users can do:

•    Create channels to bifurcate teams, projects, or other factors. Team members have the ability to join or leave the network or channel according to their convenience. 
•    Keep track of past conversations to create a trail of conversations that you have had with team members and clients.
•    Share documents in the video, image, or PDF formats for easy, secure sharing over the internet anytime.
•    Utilize mobile to access the tool anytime from any corner of the world. You just need an internet connection to access Slack from mobile. 

2.    Microsoft Teams

Another amazing communication tool is Microsoft Teams. It is an alternative to Slack. Similar to Slack, you can share documents, chats, and remotely work through Microsoft Teams as well. 

You can host video or audio meetings through the Microsoft Teams. This includes hosting an event containing 10,000 or fewer people and conducting web conferences. 

It is great how Office 365 users can observe the best of Microsoft Teams because you can seamlessly integrate the Office 365 workflows with Microsoft Teams.

3.    Trello

Trello is another great application but it is not used for collaboration and communication directly. It is a tool beneficial for project management. 

This tool uses the Kanban method to help you visualize your work according to your priority. Hence, similar to the Kanban method, you can create boards on your Trello containing lists and cards. While lists are stages, cards are specific activities or tasks of the project. You can attach documents to these cards, add due dates, and open chat boxes on the same. 

For example, here’s how you can create and manage a project on Trello:

•    Create a board of company project, which is related to company articles. 
•    Then, add lists that contain writing, ideas, review, editing, published, etc. All these lists have a specific purpose.
•    After this, cards are made to represent specific content ideas along with the person working on it and the due date. 

This means that the user can pick a card with their assignment, move from list-to-list to verify details, and finally complete the task. 

Trello makes working easier and hassle-free. It, in fact, clarifies the requirements of a task, which eliminates glitches from the remote working to a great extent. 

4.    G Suite

G Suite is the best tool that you can utilize for sharing and securing documents on the cloud. From the ability to use spreadsheets to making presentations, you can achieve every task with the G Suite applications. This tool is not only great for remote employees but also beneficial for in-house employees. 

Consider this example for the same: 

You need to create a sheet which contains sales data that you want to share with multiple colleagues. How can you do it?
One way is to create a sheet and send it over mail to every employee. Then, every employee reviews it and makes changes before sending it back to you. 

Another simpler method is that you use spreadsheets and share this spreadsheet with all the members. Then, every member can review and make changes on the sheet.

Tools you have in G Suite:

•    Google Docs
•    Google Sheets
•    Google Slides

Conclusion 

Remote work has multiple bottlenecks and the biggest ones are communication and collaboration. You can mitigate both with the help of the above tools. Read the above data to implement the right tool for your organization.