It has become impossible for many organizations to stay afloat in the pandemic without shifting to the remote work culture. With time the number of organizations contemplating to permanently switch to remote work has increased significantly, and rightly so. Working from home gives employees the freedom to work at their convenience whilst maintaining a good work-life balance.
But for team managers remote work management comes with a lot of challenges. Since team members are distant, they need to provide relevant tools and technology for effective coordination with everyone and to get work done in time. We have listed below the top 5 business tools that are essential to manage a remote workforce:
Project Management Tools
For every project manager to be able to drive results from a remote team, they need to first plan every aspect of work that will be assigned to the team members. Project management tools help managers organize tasks and keep their teams up to date about the project status.
Project management tools allow managers to keep an eye on everything that a team member does and monitor how they are performing. This gives managers the necessary data to plan the next steps and who would be the best person to choose for it.
Payroll Management Tools
Payroll management is one of the most essential processes for an organization. Manual payroll process is tedious and error-prone. Cloud-based payroll management tools automate the payroll process and make it easy to pay your team on time for all their hard work.
Especially for large enterprises managing huge numbers of remotely scattered employees, an enterprise payroll software makes it highly convenient to pay employees accurate salaries. It keeps employees informed about their salary information by providing all the necessary details in the payroll portals.
Communication Tools
One of the most indispensable things contributing to the success of remote team performance is effective communication. Managers need to constantly allocate work and make decisions which makes it essential to have open channels of communication.
Communication tools allow team members to discuss work and share valuable information. They are also necessary to communicate work progress with the manager. Apart from emails, discussion forums, instant messaging chat platforms and video conferencing tools are necessary so as to facilitate team management.
File Sharing Tools
For a remote team, file sharing tools are crucial for ensuring effective collaboration. These tools are extremely important so remote teams can share confidential work data securely. File sharing tools allow remote team members to share files instantly so work doesn’t get delayed. Being able to access information easily facilitates work related discussions.
With modern file sharing tools, team members can collaborate in real time from any part of the world. This makes the workflow smooth and makes management easier for team managers.
Time Management Tools
When team members spend time working on unimportant tasks unknowingly, the entire team’s efficiency gets affected. Effective time management tools allow team members to manage their time better and focus on high-priority tasks first. Failing to manage time can lead to inefficient workflow and decreased team productivity.
It is crucial for remote team managers to track the progress of every remote team member since working from home has a lot of distractions attached to it. Using time management tools like a time tracking software helps managers understand how their employees are spending their time by providing details of productive hours.
Conclusion
Managing the work and performance of a remotely situated team member is no easy task and requires some very specific tools. For any remote team manager to successfully get productive results from a remote team, the above mentioned business tools are vita
