Top 6 Remote Working Tools When Working From Home

COVID-19 is spreading drastically and the numbers are spiking at an alarming rate with each passing day. This global pandemic has affected not just individuals but all the businesses across the globe. 

We have taken the required measures to ensure the safety of each member of the Classic family during this global pandemic. However, we also understand that ensuring continuity is the need of the hour. We have advised all our employees to work from home for the time being. 

Considering the condition we are faced with, working from home isn’t a luxury anymore for our web development company. It has become a necessity! And during this period, we have incorporated some remote working tools into our everyday working regime. 

Like us, there are multiple organizations that have adopted this routine and would be seeking tools that could help them stay productive and serve their clients while being safe. So, here is a write-up that lists down the five best remote working tools when working from home that we have been using and loving. 

Basecamp

Basecamp works as a lifesaver when you are working from home, and we have realized that now. It makes everything super easy. Whether you want to add some information for your teammates to view, ask them some questions, need them to answer some questions on a regular basis, everything is available on Basecamp. Basically, it is a one stop shop for your remote working needs. 

You can add as many projects as you are working on and it will keep everything in different tabs in clean format. No hassle, no clumsy design. You can find everything at their dedicated spots. 

• The managers can even create notifications in the form of check-ins were the team members can tell what’s on their plate for they day, what all they did the entire day, the tasks completed for the particular project in the week, and much more. 
• You can have a repository where all the important information can go and all the members of the team would have access to it at any point of time. 
• Managers can add to-dos, anything urgent, etc., and the team members can check it off once it is done. 

Don’t worry! It won’t keep pestering you. It even enables members to change who all need to be notified of any comment made. 

Slack

We’ve been using slack regularly and knew it would help during this work from home phase, but didn’t know it would turn out to be such a big help. One of the biggest challenges that we thought we’ll have when working remotely from home was miscommunication. And Slack made sure it did not interfere with our way of working. 

Slack is a tool that eliminates any chance of miscommunication. It is the best communication tool out there and its simple, colorful, and light interface makes it fun to chat with the teammates regarding any work or task. 

• Channels can be created on Slack for each department where the team members can discuss things and find quick solutions. 
• Like other messaging apps, Slack is also very light and rich with features. You can reply to a particular message, mention the people, delete unnecessary messages, and whatnot. 
• Sharing files is easy, and you can even pin the documents or see all the downloaded documents in one place on Slack to keep a close track. 
• You can even integrate other collaboration tools like Basecamp or JIRA with your Slack to get instant notifications. 

A great feature is that you can send messages to yourself to jot something down and it would act as you go-to notepad. 

Zoom

One of the first questions our team, especially the developers, had when they were faced with situations like this is how do we conduct our meetings, daily stand-ups, or meetings to discuss the projects at hand? This is where Zoom comes it. This has proved to be a phenomenal group video calling too. It allows teams to come together via video conferencing. 

It is easy to host a meeting on zoom. You can host meetings in the following manner:

• With your camera on for the view
• With your camera off for just the audio
• With just the screen sharing option
• You can even join a meeting that has been scheduled or is taking place instantly. 

When you need end-to-end conferencing that include content sharing, screen sharing while on a video call, Zoom is the first tool that should come to the mind. 

Toggling the screens during the course of a meeting is also super simple. You are always saved from any awkward moment while you are conducting a meeting with your senior or even your client. 

WebWork Tracker

Keeping a track of what the team members are doing while given work from home came out to be one of the biggest challenges for us. We’ve heard cases where employees took undue advantage of the remote working and not be as productive as they were at office. After some research, we came down to WebWork Tracker. This tracker seemed pretty intuitive and easy to work with. Now that our teams are using this tracker, it seems a good choice. 

• You can easily create your teams on this tracker and get your team started on the tasks by assigning each individual. 
• It takes regular screenshots of the screen and also tells the productivity level, if the person was enough productive or not. 

The online reports generated by the tracker have also come out to be very beneficial. The statistics, timesheets, and all other reports can be easily exported as well. 

G-Suite

While it needs no mention, G-Suite is certainly the best collaboration tool during the remote working or work from home scenario like these. We would’ve been in such a fix had we not been working on Google suite. It was always fun and easy to work on Good Doc, Google Sheets, etc., it proved it more helpful in this situation. 

You can find it really easy to share in real-time what we were working on and if any document needed any changes. Especially the marketing and content team loved how collaborative Google Suite came out to be during this time. 

Everyone could access the file and docs that are present on the cloud. We created shared folders where each of us could keep our work and it minimized the number of to and fro of files and docs. 

Zonka Feedback

Regular Employee Feedback helps engage employees, increases productivity, retention, and teamwork. Feedback is very important and while most of us know it, we sometimes do nothing about it. At Classic Informatics, however, we really think it’s important to regularly hear the voice of employees and get their feedback.

• With Zonka Feedback’s Employee Feedback Software, we can set up different surveys by different departments, for different touchpoints like pre-interview surveys, post-interview surveys, Onboarding surveys, general employee feedback and more. 
• Each department can run their own feedback forms and surveys.
• We can send employee surveys via email and SMS or embed them on our website for employees to share their feedback. Zonka's Survey App helps do this effectively.
• We can also run fun quizzes to keep our workforce engaged and happy - think of this as a Friday Fun session, just remotely.

Real-time reports and insights are very helpful in gauging the pulse of the employees and take important business decisions.

Work From Home To Ensure Safety 

These are some of the collaboration, video conferencing, and productivity tracking tools that you can make use of if you are also in self-quarantine. This is the time when you need to stay at home and work remotely with your tech teams. But you can certainly not let your work, especially your client’s work be affected by this. Make the right use of these tools, know all their features and use them effectively to produce more while at home. 

Stay safe, stay productive!