Thanks to the global pandemic, millions of folks have found themselves thrust into the wide world of remote work in 2020. While working virtually as an individual contributor has its own set of challenges, successful remote team management can be an entirely different beast.
One that is unpredictable and maybe bites.
So how can we tame this savage beast? Fortunately, there’s no shortage of team management apps and SaaS products available, and more seem to be cropping up every day. Today, however, we’re dialing in on the tried and true all-stars of remote team management tools. The MVP picks of virtual VP’s everywhere.
Just consider this your primer to the essential software stack for the one who holds it all together – the remote team leader.
Bottom Line Upfront:
Here you’ll see all the different communication and project management tools a team manager needs for his/her virtual team for successfully finishing milestones and projects in time.
Tools for Training Virtual Teams
Here you’ll see the most efficient tools that are beneficial when it comes to training new members of your team and successfully explaining their roles and their daily tasks.
Apps to Improve Remote Team Productivity & Accountability
No one likes micromanaging and someone telling you what to do every second of the day, so these tools come in very handy when it comes to tracking your employee’s progress and their opinion on the job they are doing.
Remote Team Collaboration & Communication Tools
Every team needs to meet at some point and evaluate the work they are doing or even brainstorm some new ideas. These tools come really handy as they allow online messaging or live videos that can also be saved and viewed later (because you are not a robot and can skip some meetings at some point).
Tools for Remote Team Building & Engagement
Everyone wants to feel valued by their peers, so these tools are the way to go if you want to know how your team feels by the work they are doing.
Tools for Training Virtual Teams
When getting the answer to that quick question isn’t as simple as a shoutout to the closest desk, you need a convenient way to make sure your team’s knowledge is well-documented and easily accessible.
You need a knowledge base.
Here are a few of the industry’s favorite tools for creating an agile, efficient repository for all your team’s need-to-know info.
ProProfs Knowledge Base
Trusted by some of the world’s largest brands, ProProfs goes beyond the basic knowledge base. In fact, the ProProfs Knowledge Base is just one of many solutions offered by the company.
Perhaps one of the most compelling reasons big names like Nissan and Adobe turn to ProProfs for creating a repository of team knowledge is the collaborative authoring and ease of use that allows teams to ramp up their documentation efforts quickly.
“With ProProfs, we’ve had an explosion in data available to our team” says Trever Ehrlich, Creative Solutions Manager at Kenco Logistics. “In just a few months, our knowledge base has exploded to over 200 useful articles full of relevant data, documentation, images, and video.”
If you need a highly searchable and quick-to-build knowledge base that your team can turn to whenever they need, ProProfs Knowledge Base is one of the most trusted names in the industry.
Obie.ai
Besides having an adorable logo, Obie is unique in the knowledge base space in that it exists as an extension of the platforms your teams are already working on.
With Obie, you can create a single, searchable database by allowing the tool to securely connect to knowledge and documents that already exist within your organization.
Perhaps most commonly used as a Slack integration, Obie can also be used in a variety of other ways including a Chrome Extension or a web widget added via a single line of code to wherever your organization’s documentation lives.
Add to that robust analytics that help you identify gaps in your knowledge base, content verification processes to make sure all information is current, plus a host of other bells and whistles, and you have one high-tech, smart tool in your toolbox.
TalentLMS
As the name suggests, TalentLMS is a learning management system designed to help you quickly create cloud-based training programs for your team. Billed as the most intuitive, affordable cloud LMS, TalentLMS is used by tens of thousands of organizations like Panera Bread, Rosetta Stone, and HarperCollins Publishers to train their people.
While it’s used by many large brands, TalentLMS has a free version that is perfect for smaller companies that may not be ready to scale to a full-featured LMS quite yet.
With plenty of integrations for all of your other tools like Zoom, Salesforce, WordPress, and GoToMeeting plus quick-start, ready-made courses; TalentLMS is one of our favorite tools for both onboarding and training remote teams.
Apps to Improve Remote Team Productivity & Accountability
Did you know that businesses lose about $600 billion a year to workplace distractions? On the flip side, research shows that remote workers are up to 40% more productive than their in-office counterparts.
While working from home often translates to a more productive workforce, remote team managers are still charged with keeping their direct reports on task. As many team leaders have discovered recently, working from home comes with its own set of distractions.
We’re looking at you, Netflix.
Here are some of the top tools of the trade for improving virtual employee productivity.
Basecamp
As research by the National Business Research Institute shows, nothing kills productivity in the eyes of employees like a lack of clear processes.
Fortunately, Basecamp is here to save the day. As one of the top project management tools around, Basecamp utilizes six integrated tools to empower teams to manage every aspect of a project effectively and efficiently.
While Basecamp is intuitive and easy to use from the employee perspective, managers love the lists and reminders that help their direct reports keep track of action items and due dates as well as the automatic check-in feature that will help you effortlessly keep your finger on the pulse of your team.
Originally designed as a project management and communication tool, Basecamp can easily step in as an all-in-one remote team management platform, especially for businesses new to remote work.
TimeDoctor
Love it or hate it, time tracking is a necessary evil in the world of remote work. Enter TimeDoctor. It’s a fully customizable time-tracking solution that allows managers to turn features on and off as needed for their team members.
To put it bluntly, it will allow you as a manager to dial the micromanagement factor up or down as needed.
On the employee side, they’ll be able to gain valuable insight into their own work habits and identify areas that need improvement. It’s a great tool for time-blocking, allowing them to track their time by project and task as granularly as they’d like.
In short, it’s an affordable, easy-to-use tool for helping you keep your remote team on task and as productive as possible. And it’s one your team members won’t entirely hate.
Remote Team Collaboration & Communication Tools
Collaboration and communication are imperative for any organization, whether remote or in-office. Traditional collaboration, however, assumes that all employees are located in the same space.
Think whiteboards, daily stand-ups, and sprint reviews.
So how can remote managers promote clear communication and a highly collaborative environment when workmates aren’t simply a desk or a conference room away?
Fortunately for us, remote communication and collaborative tools are some of the most thoroughly tested, widely developed tools available.
Here are some of the top picks for keeping your remote employees in touch.
Zoom
Perhaps you’ve heard of it.
Zoom is 2020’s very own brand-turned-household-name. Much like proprietary eponyms Google (“Let me Google that”) and Kleenex (“pass me a Kleenex”), Zoom is quickly becoming its own verb.
“I’m on a Zoom!” is the phrase whisper-shouted by frustrated parents to interrupting children across the world these days, regardless of the video conferencing platform they’re actually using.
Zoom may seem like something of an overnight success. While it has been around for many years, they added massive counts of new customers as COVID-19 forced more and more offices to go remote.
But their standing as the leading video conferencing tool in the marketplace goes beyond simply being in the right place at the right time. Zoom is widely recognized as being one of the most reliable, user-friendly, robust video conferencing platforms available.
Slack
This application is the undisputed king of collaborative tools, and much like Zoom, it has become a household name.
Slack is, at its core, an online chatroom fueled by a limitless number of integrations and apps. From file sharing, brainstorming, and private messaging to making calls, video conferencing, scheduling, and everything in between, Slack is the hub that connects every aspect of your team’s day-to-day operations.
Touted as “a better way to communicate” and an alternative to email, Slack prides itself on being “a place where people get work done, together.”
Troop Messenger
Considered by some to be a simpler alternative to Slack, Troop Messenger functions in much the same way. Your team can interact in real-time via instant messaging, video conferencing, audio calls, file sharing, and much more.
In addition, you can add suppliers, vendors, freelancers, and other semi-permanent members of your organization as needed with restricted access. Like other tools, Troop Messenger also features all of the essential app integrations you’d expect like Dropbox and Google Drive.
Tools for Remote Team Building & Engagement
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges faced by managers of remote teams is helping their direct reports feel like part of a cohesive team. After all, it’s easy to start to feel like an island at work when you’re working solo.
Or perhaps your home office is on an actual island, in which case we salute you.
Wherever your team members happen to create their home offices, helping them feel seen, heard, and keeping them engaged is one key ingredient that simply can’t be overlooked in the recipe for a successful virtual work environment.
Here are a few great tools to do just that.
Wooboard
Wooboard is in the business of creating a positive culture of recognition in the workplace. Through an intuitive platform for peer-to-peer recognition, it helps your top talent get the recognition they deserve and provides a fun way to keep your team engaged and feeling valued.
Gamification features like badges and point systems as well as a rewards system that allows your remote team members to turn their points into gift cards makes Wooboard a no-brainer when it comes to leading happy remote teams.
Chimp or Champ
What good is your rewards system if you’re not having a measurable impact on your team’s happiness? That’s where Chimp or Champ comes into the picture.
The magic is in its foolproof, straightforward approach. It allows your team members to voice their concerns, and managers to get actionable feedback.
Each week your employees will receive an email asking them how they feel about work that week, and giving them space to write their feedback. At the end of the week, managers receive a pulse report summarizing how your team is feeling, plus giving you actionable, anonymous insight straight from your team members.
What’s in Your Remote Team Management Stack?
No two remote teams are the same, and what works for one industry or team may not work for another. Fortunately, the list of tools and apps to choose from is practically endless.
We want to know – what’s in your remote team management stack? Which tools are essential for you as a remote team leader? What apps do you rely on day in and day out to get the most from your team?
Tell us in the comments!
