Tools That Will Help You Manage a Remote Team

You’ve gathered your team from all corners of your country, or the world. What’s next? Once you’ve chosen your ideal candidates, you’ll need to ensure you’re managing their projects and schedules properly so that everything runs smoothly, and to encourage cooperation across all platforms between your employees. Here are five tools to help you manage a remote team.

1. Conference Calling and Screen Sharing

Conference calls can be used for just about anything from project updates to discussing future goals and accomplishments to employee relationships and motivation. To have the most effective communication, you need an excellent conference calling service; one that will ensure connectivity, quality, and global reach.

Conferencecalling.com provides conference calls worldwide, along with other services such as screen sharing. With a dedicated staff and operator assisted calls, they’re one of the best in the business.

There are many reasons to use screen sharing software. Sometimes a phone call just doesn’t convey the information you’d like in the way you want it to, so you’ll need to show your team what you’re talking about. That’s where screen sharing comes in. Your computer screen is shared remotely with your team, giving you the ability to share web pages, graphs and charts, or show a team member how to complete a task.

2. Basecamp

Basecamp is an online resource that allows your team to virtually meet at a central hub. Each user has a profile, and from there you can assign tasks, set meeting and expectations, and chat with the entire team (or the entire company).

Additionally, you can set specific tasks to your team members, which the whole team can see, making them more accountable for their own part of the project. No more confusion about who was supposed to do what; basecamp allows for easy management and communication.

There is also a centralized page for the comings and goings of the company at large. Here you can post news, host chats and ask questions, and get status updates on what’s going on within the company.

While Basecamp does have free alternatives, the site has been listed as one of the best remote management sites to use, offering security and quality and excellent customer service, all within an extremely user friendly interface. Remember that you get what you pay for, and although free may sound better, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is.

3. When I Work

Tracking employee hours is essential for proper payment and taxation purposes. Doing this remotely can be exhausting and somewhat complicated; relying on the team to let you know when they worked and for how long can sometimes be a shot in the dark.

When I work is an online platform that allows you to generate schedules and effectively track employee hours. The platform provides an online time clock. Employees can punch in from the app or via their computer. This allows you to spend less time tracking hours and creating schedules, and more time on what really matters: growing your business.

Best of all, When I Work is free for up to seventy five users, so it doesn’t cost anything either as long as you don’t have over seventy five employees. For over seventy five employees, the site offers reasonably priced options and an excellent customer service reputation to assist you with any questions or concerns.

4. I Done This

No, that’s not a typo; idonethis.com is an employee progress tracking platform that allows you to manage your employee’s projects and ensure they’re doing their part.

If basecamp isn’t your thing, and you’re looking for something more simplistic and concise, I Done This is a great option for your business. It provides each team member with a daily checklist that you can create. Upon completing a task, your team will check it off on the list, and at you will be notified that the task is completed. These checklists can be created on individual or team levels.

I Done This also provides detailed analytics of your team’s progress, letting you see who is completing their work on time and who is not. It makes managing a remote team not only easier, but holds everyone accountable for their own work.

I Done This takes the basic concept of task management and makes each team member personally responsible for their own progress, and for reporting it to management, instead of you having to track everyone down and make progress calls. It’s a great basecamp alternative for those that don’t need the bells and whistles of an entire management hub.

5. LastPass

Login credentials can be confusing and hard to keep track off. Often businesses will keep passwords grouped together in encrypted files or other physical avenues such as flash drives. This is all eliminated with Lastpass.

Lastpass is a password storage service that allows an individual or business to store all of their passwords, credentials, and website URLs in one place. There is a “master password” which will unlock the “vault” containing all of the information on an encrypted webpage. Lastpass has excellent reviews as far as security goes (which is understandable why this would be a concern).

Having passwords centralized can make logging in much easier for new users and for a team as a whole, taking away the need to send sensitive information over email or other less secure avenues.

The best part about Last Pass is that it’s free to try for businesses, and only costs $4/month for teams (50 users or less)  and $6/month for enterprise (over 50 users).