Manage Your Team Remotely with These Free Options

Working remotely has transformed the way that many businesses operate. Although the daily commute to the office is still a part of the working day for many employees, more and more workers are able to work remotely. In fact, many businesses advertise remote work as a perk to encourage more applicants.

A study published by office service provider IWG found that nearly 70% of full-time employees work remotely at least once a week. Changes in the digital landscape and advances in technology have made it possible for teams to collaborate while working remotely.

Of course, managing remote workers is not without its challenges. Workplace Trends published a study in 2018 showing that remote workers are more likely to quit because they don’t feel engaged with their team. Interestingly, the same study found that nearly 80% of remote employees would feel more connected if their team communicated more often.

What can you do to manage a remote team effectively and make sure that all employees feel engaged?

In this article, you will learn about 5 free tools to manage your team remotely.

Skype to connect remotely with your team

Skype is one of the best-known video-calling solutions to arrange video conferencing for free.

The free version of Skype allows you to connect up to 10 employees in an online meeting. You can also take advantage of screen sharing to present slides and show training videos.

In one of the previously mentioned studies, over 40% of remote workers said that video chatting would help them build deeper relationships with their team.

Trello to organise teams remotely

Another free tool that helps remote workers work together on projects is Trello.

At the heart of Trello is a series of online cards that can help to manage projects, take notes, share files, and organise tasks. With using Trello for your remote team of employees, each member can see the progress of others and prioritise tasks.

Using Trello also eliminates the need for sending emails with long threads.

Slack for remote communication between team members

Slack is another example of free online tools to boost collaborating between remote teams. This online tool is great for small businesses who need to organise a cloud-based office environment. Using Slack allows for teams to brainstorm, send and share files, instant message, and stay informed about industry-related news.

In the free version, you can also install up to 10 apps such as Google Drive, Trello, Dropbox, Google Calendar, and Zapier.

Google Drive

The free version of Google drives allows for easy collaboration to files that your team is working on. Team managers can assign access to individual folders or individual files and restrict editing access if necessary. If a number of team members are working on one file, each person can see in real-time changes that have been made.

This helps to reduce the need to send copies of files for approval and it helps team leaders to see the progress of work.

LastPass to keep online access secure

LastPass is an example of a free online tool that helps keep passwords safe. After all, if you have many employees working remotely, you need to be sure that password security is never compromised.

Although LastPass has a paid version for teamwork, team leaders can share encrypted passwords with their team. This means that you always have control over access to sensitive data. It also means that you easily restrict login access if an employee leaves the company.

In conclusion

The free tools for remote teamwork collaboration are just a few of the many options team leaders have at their fingertips. There are many other online services offering similar possibilities. All of the tools mentioned here also have paid versions with extra services depending on your business needs.

The benefits of online collaboration tools are that they can be accessed from desktops, tablets, and smartphones. This helps make remote team employees more productive and efficient in their work.