Tools for managing remote teams
Working as a team doesn’t demand resources to be present in a single room or even in the same building anymore. Working with remote teams presiding in different cities or even countries is becoming more of a norm these days, which offer employees a higher degree of autonomy allowing them to work better from a place they are more comfortable at.
However, managing remote teams still presents a big challenge for the managers because they have to maintain constant communication with everyone, keeping them engaged and to enhance productivity. The challenges which a manager usually face is real-time tracking of tasks, communication issues, delayed project delivery etc.
So, you can safely say that there are benefits as well as troubles if you are working with virtual teams. But with the rapid development of management tools, you can overcome any of the above-mentioned challenges. There are tools available for every process including communication, team management, project management etc.
Let’s look at some of them by their category to have an insight of how you can manage remote employees with ease.
Tools for Communication :
Google Hangouts :
Hangouts gives you free access to audio / video calling and messaging. You can sync multiple devices and can have a group chat as well. Hangouts also gives you the ability to record calls and save as YouTube videos. You can video chat with upto 25 people simultaneously in free calls right from your browser.
Skype :
Skype is a widely used communication tool across the globe. It specializes in audio / video chat between computers, mobile devices, tablets etc. Skype also provides instant messaging services. It’s completely free for local as well as international use.
Slack :
Slack is one of the best tool available for team communication. With the help of always-on chat feature, team members can interact with each other both privately and publicly using instant messaging. Therefore, you can share files, archive them and can set private and public reminders.
Tools for Project management :
Trello :
Trello is a highly effective project management tool which brings ease in handling your projects. By creating separate boards you can manage your project separately and can have insights in a single glimpse. You can view / assign tasks to different resources and much more.
JIRA :
Jira is a project management tool which helps in effective sprint management and bug tracking. It provides a complete list of recording, reporting, workflow and other efficient features for project management.
Using all of these tools will help you in managing your remote teams in the best way possible. But all of these tools are available separately which makes it a big hassle to swipe through different apps while working. There is a solution to that problem as well, which is
Planears:
It is a fully integrated office management tool which provides you all of the above-mentioned features in a single place.
Planears has a project management module which helps in designing sprints, milestones and keeping a view of day to day task in a single place. Because, it has an attachment section as well where members can upload additional relevant material in the form of documents, files, and media assets.
It has a built-in chat feature which helps team members to communicate with each other without using a third-party app.
Therefore, having these automated tools reduces the dependency to rely on manual methods of handling remote employees. Also, If you don’t want to use separate platforms for every process, I recommend that you go with Planears, it has all the essential tools available in a single place.
