When employees were asked what work environment they prefer for the future, under normal circumstances, only 11% of employees reported wanting to work on-site full time. It’s safe to say that the future of work is remote—or at least hybrid.
This means organizations need a long-term strategy for engaging their remote employees and enabling them to do their best work—no matter where they are.
Because the truth is, despite the many benefits of remote work for both employees and their companies, building and maintaining a positive, high-performing remote work culture takes...well, work.
That’s why we’ve compiled a list of some of the best culture-boosting remote working tools. Use the following tools to streamline communication, enable collaboration, reduce friction, celebrate employees, and help your team revel in work from anywhere.
Streamline communication.
- Slack has rapidly become a mainstay for office communication. And it works especially well to streamline communication and connect remotely too. In Slack, employees communicate through “channels” to organize conversations and work.
Use dedicated channels for each project to organize all status updates, files, meeting notes, and feedback in one place. You can also create channels for each team, like #team-sales to hold daily meetings and easily check in with your coworkers.
- Microsoft Teams enables teams to chat, meet, call, and collaborate all in one easy-to-use platform, without having to switch tools with every task. Use video conferencing for face-to-face team meetings and one-on-ones for more personal, organic interactions. Features like screen sharing, custom backgrounds, and file sharing make it easy to present, chat, and organize work.
- Zoom has become many people’s go-to video conferencing tool for good reason. Zoom makes it easy to connect with your team face-to-face from anywhere. Features like breakout rooms and discussion threads are especially useful for sparking conversation, collaboration, and innovation as employees work together in real-time. The interface is highly intuitive (and most people are now familiar with the tool), resulting in a low barrier to adoption among teams.
- Employee survey tools are crucial to understanding your employees’ experience. Survey tools are a simple but effective way to check in and see how things are going. Surveys go straight to the source to allow employees to communicate and provide feedback on their experience. The right questions can help you uncover early signs of burnout, potential roadblocks to performance, and opportunities for growth and improvement.
Enable collaboration.
- Asana is a project management tool that helps teams stay in sync, hit deadlines, and collaborate all from one source of truth.
Using their intuitive task manager, teams can organize work on a shared calendar, assign tasks and responsibilities so nothing falls through the cracks, and communicate in real-time with @mentions on comment threads tied to each project or task. Asana also integrates with a variety of popular apps and tools for seamless workflows.
- Lucidspark is a virtual whiteboard designed to help teams collaborate from anywhere. The canvas is your team’s playground to brainstorm, collaborate on new ideas, and organize a plan of action all in one place. Use features like sticky notes to quickly jot down ideas, the shapes library to map out workflows, a timer to drive focus, and ensure all voices are heard through virtual voting. You can start with a blank board or jumpstart work with a pre-made template from their library.
- MURAL is another digital workspace tool for visual collaboration. MURAL helps teams collaborate in a shared space to brainstorm, plan, and solve problems faster. Transform your meetings into collaborative sessions that engage and facilitate better discussion with interactive tools.
- Goal-setting software is essential for keeping your remote teams on track and aligning their work with the organization. Goals help focus employees’ work and provide needed direction, purpose, and motivation—while also helping managers identify opportunities to coach and mentor employee development. Look for goal-setting software that is flexible, customizable, and integrates with your performance and recognition software for a seamless employee experience.
Reduce friction.
- Blink is an open-source employee collaboration tool built to help frontline (desk-less) workers in the construction, retail, and hospitality industries stay connected. Blink includes comprehensive group chat features, a personalized news feed to keep employees updated and engaged with what’s going on among staff, as well as a people directory to make it easy to find and connect with anyone in the organization at the click of a button.
- One-on-one meeting software should be part of every remote leader’s tool belt. When teams are remote, it can be harder to build ties and stay connected. One-on-one meeting software helps managers maintain strong relationships with their team from afar, so employees feel valued and empowered to do their best work.
- Feedback software helps organizations and teams build a culture of feedback and incorporate feedback into their regular workflows. Feedback is important for promoting growth and continual improvement. But giving and receiving feedback isn’t always easy—especially when the team is distributed. Feedback software helps facilitate regular feedback conversations, track progress, and hold employees, teams, and leaders accountable.
Celebrate and connect with your employees.
- Recognition software helps remote teams get the appreciation they deserve. Recognition is a key driver of employee engagement but many organizations fail to recognize their people as often or in the ways employees would like. The right software can take the guesswork out of employee appreciation and help integrate employee recognition into your team processes and culture so you never miss an opportunity to celebrate wins and recognize progress.
- WaterCooler Trivia brings teams together for weekly fun and bonding—which isn’t always easy when you’re remote. Break up the monotony and decrease feelings of isolation with a weekly team trivia ritual. You can customize the games based on the categories you’re interested in and the app does the rest.
- Online Escape Rooms are another great way to bring some fun into your remote office and promote team bonding. Like an in-person escape room, your team must work together to solve a series of puzzles to “escape the room” before time runs out. Each “room” has a different theme and narrative so you can get creative in choosing escape rooms that cater to the interests and intrigues of your remote team.
No matter where your team works, these tools can help you build a collective culture that drives engagement and performance all year long. Discover the tools you need to manage remote teams with confidence with Quantum Workplace.
