According to a survey conducted by Enterprise Technology Research, the number of people working from home is expected to double in 2021. This global pandemic has changed the way we all used to work and the work from home phenomenon is here to stay. People are more comfortable with working from the confines of their homes and a huge percentage of those working remotely will permanently shift to it.
Organizations have shifted their focus from hours completed to the work done and a rise in employee productivity has been observed. So, in order to adapt to these remote circumstances, a lot of IT and technical support is needed for the employees for living up to the standards and staying competitive.
In this article, we provide you with the necessary toolkit you must be equipped with in order to succeed in your work from home.
For Video Conferencing
Zoom:
For remote and distributed teams, video conferencing is an important communication medium. Regular video chatting proves beneficial in keeping everyone in the team in the loop and keeping them motivated in work. It also removes a feeling of isolation and loneliness among the colleagues used to working side by side in the space of their office. Zoom video conferencing app helps you with all this and much more. You can stay up to date with your team’s performance, explain the subjects that need explanation, schedule meetings, and make invitations. Zoom also allows screen sharing and video conference recording features. It is an easy-to-use platform for teams to create, share and implement ideas and this has made Zoom an essential remote work tool in our list.
For Team Collaboration
Slack:
It is impossible for a remote team to work efficiently without effective collaboration and communication. It is important to keep your team connected and motivated and to make sure everyone is working on maximum productivity for successful task management. Slack is one of the most popular chat rooms used by professionals. This remote work essential allows you to create different channels for different teams and is a Holy grail replacement of dozens of email threads. It can be integrated with other apps and has a reminder you can set for anyone in any channel for anything. Slack provides a free plan which is more than enough for small teams, viewing up to 10,000 messages in history and it can also be updated to a custom paid plan.
For File Sharing
Dropbox:
With fast-changing trends in the information technology domain, keeping your data in your personal systems or sharing it through USBs is no longer feasible or efficient. Moving your data to safe cloud channels is a necessity of distributed teamwork and collaboration. Dropbox is a workspace that allows storing your data on the cloud and sharing huge files with your colleagues for productive collaboration. Dropbox comes up with 5TB of safe cloud storage at a pricing of $12.5 per user on a monthly basis.
For Scheduling Meetings
10to8:
Regular meetings are an important part of the workflow of organizations, especially with agile team management techniques being accepted worldwide for delivering business value in shorter periods of time. Scheduling can be hard in the remote environment with confirming the availability of each team member one by one. This makes 10to8 an important part of our list providing scheduling and management of recurring daily and weekly meetings easier. 10to8 can easily integrate with calendars, zoom, and other apps and can handle teams spread across different time zones and minimizes confusion and mismanagement within teams.
For Remote Access and Control
TeamViewer:
Remote support and access with your distributed team are crucial. TeamViewer is a time-efficient tool allowing teams the freedom to demand and grant remote control of their systems to team members. This is particularly beneficial where screen sharing doesn’t come in handy. It solves many remote access and control problems faced by distant and collaborating teams.
TeamViewer gives reliable access to your computers to someone who logs in with the necessary details provided by you. Not only computers, but this software can also connect smartphones, servers, and IoT devices as well. TeamViewer provides prebuilt integration with several business and IT applications.
