The world has changed a lot in 2020 and many companies have noticed that not only is it possible for their employees to work from home, but it can also be profitable. 75% of remote workers say they are more productive when they get home from work because of fewer distractions.

For certain businesses, the move of their employees from home to work permanently has not been easy and the learning curve has been high. But knowing what tools to use is a great advantage, and there’s a Tool for almost every aspect of your business.

In this article, we will look at the types of tools that will help your employees work from home permanently in 2020 and beyond.

What do you need remote working tools for your employees?

The remote working tool helps the employees work remotely more effectively and productively. It can also make it possible for them to work from home, from a cafe – or from the beach (if the company allows them to do so).

There is a wide variety of tools you can choose from, such as video chat Software, communication tools, cloud storage, and project management apps.

Remote working software is always more effective when it can be integrated with other tools. This makes it easier for your employees to move from one tool to another without losing track of their work or data and allows seamless teamwork where documents are stored, shared, and updated by the entire team.

Let’s take a look at some of these tools and how they can help the employees who will work permanently from home.

Video Conferencing Apps

Just because your employees are working remotely now, it doesn’t mean you won’t be able to see them face-to-face. Rather than asking them to visit your office, you can use video conferencing software to give your meetings a personal touch that would otherwise be missing.

Video conferencing tools aren’t perfect, but they’re a decent option that helps you feel like you’re in the same environment with your team. They help to create moral, improve communication, and they can go a long way to ensuring that nothing is lost in translation while you’re planning a new project.

By now, there are hundreds of video conferencing tools on the market. Zoom has emerged to be a popular choice in recent months, thanks to its ease of use – all you need to do is share a link with your team members and they will be able to join your call. It offers high-quality video and audio and has undoubtedly been designed for team collaboration.

However, there are a lot of alternatives. For example, Google Hangouts is free video-conferencing software that’s easy to set up, comes with chat, and has a clean interface. 

Communication Tools

It’s a lot harder for the employees to keep in touch when they don’t share the same office space. But communication tools are a major help to remote workers. They make life easier for everyone, ensuring your team stays on the same page and stays up-to-date. 

A strong communication tool should be one that your team can access from any device anywhere. It can also centralize messages and tasks, and it is also better if it comes with text and voice capabilities.

If you’re a bit of a tech expert, or if you have someone on your team who’s tech-savvy, you could even turn the pre-built API into your own custom tool. APIs make it easy for developers to create their own communication software that remote employees can access.

Cloud Storage

Cloud storage apps are the key to remote teamwork. The team will be able to access them from all devices, and the best thing about them is that they don’t even need to be overly complicated. All they need is WiFi and a shared folder that the whole team has access to. Then, if someone saves a file to a shared folder, the next person will come along and work on it. Cloud storage also updates instantly and automatically. Each time an employee makes a change, it is saved and tracked.

The best cloud storage apps include iDrive, which comes complete with an extra security physical hard drive, and Mega, a cloud storage tool with a 50 GB free plan.

Presentations

Presentations still have to go ahead, given the fact that the team operates remotely. And while PowerPoint has been a go-to presentation software for many companies over the years, there are many good alternatives available.

Many employees have tried to use Zoom to present their projects to team members, but its interface is not the most user-friendly, which may make it challenging to use as a presentation tool. Alternatively, the options include Prezi, cloud-based presentation software that brings presentations to life through a canvas that lets the employees rotate, frame, and zoom in on their presentations. 

SlideShare is another common presentation app that’s seen as a “social sharing” alternative to conventional slideshow tools like PowerPoint. Using SlideShare, the team can embed their presentation to blogs so that anyone unable to attend a live presentation can watch it later.

Project Management Software

When you have projects that require remote control of your team’s tasks and coordination of responsibilities, you will need to use project management tools.

Top-notch project management software, such as Restyaboard, helps your team streamline and organize workflows, share documents, work within budgets, stay on top of deadlines, and manage important details. In the process, they help remote employees keep track of tasks, eliminate back-and-forth emails, and move forward together as a team. When a team member has completed a particular task on a project, they will check it off so that the next person can come along and start their task.

Another advantage of project management software is that it can also help you change deadlines and schedules if one of the remote employees falls behind due to unexpected circumstances. Also, with the additional report bonus, you as an employer can monitor the work done by your team. This ensures that even if you don’t work side by side with your team in the office, you can still keep up with their progress.

Conclusion

The world has changed considerably in 2020 and if your employees are going to work from home permanently from now on, it’s very important that you choose the right tools. And when it comes to ensuring that the remote team functions well, tools are the greatest weapon.