The recent pandemic triggered a monumental shift to working from home. A Gallup survey found over 60% of US workers have a gig that‘s compatible with remote work while over 15% have switched permanently to full-time telecommuting.
As teams become more distributed, relying on the right apps is key to working effectively from anywhere. Whether you ended up working from home or willingly chose the remote work life like myself, these apps help overcome common pain points:
Communication Breakdown – Remote teams have a higher need to communicate frequently through modern digital channels rather than old email threads.
Poor Collaboration – File sharing/editing in real-time ensures tasks don‘t fall through the cracks when not sitting next to colleagues.
Project Management Woes – From loose responsibilities to lack of alignment, projects demand structured coordination without in-person interactions.
Security Nightmares – Remote workers tend to use more public networks where hacking risks lurk, demanding use of tools like VPNs.
Distraction Overload – No office environment and ambient noise means you must create focus-enhancing spaces using special apps.
I‘ve consulted various companies on ideal telecommuting policies for security and productivity based on apps their remote teams use daily. Here are my top recommendations:
Enabling Seamless Communication
Constant team chatter matters more when working distributed. You need to replace in-person discussions with a stream of group messages.
Slack shines best for informal banter in fun customizable channels alongside file sharing and 1:1 calls/video chats. Usage exploded with over 169,000 paid teams now relying on it.
Microsoft Teams goes beyond messaging to host webinar-style meetings and video conferences for up to 1,000 attendees along with tight integration with Office 365 apps.
Google Chat combined with Google Meet bridges gap between direct messages and group video calls while integrating closely with Gmail and Google Drive.
Streamlining Project Collaboration
Juggling multiple complex projects with distributed teams demands keeping tasks organized.
Asana makes managing workflows delightful through customizable Kanban boards, calendars, charts and task tables to keep everyone aligned. Trusted by 100,000+ paying teams globally.
Alternatively, Trello’s intuitive drag-and-drop boards visualize progress elegantly making it hugely popular with over 2.5M daily active users currently.
Basecamp takes a one-stop shop approach bringing chats, docs, tasks, schedules and more together for teams working across multiple projects.
Tracking Time Closely
You can‘t manage what you can‘t measure. Precise time tracking is non-negotiable for remote teams.
TimeDoctor provides powerful tracking with detailed time audits, work screenshots and productivity ratings. Enterprise-grade features for monitoring distributed teams.
Harvest makes tracking billable hours delightful alongside intuitive invoicing and expenses logging. Seamless reports give insight into utilization and profitability.
For starters, Toggl offers a free tier for basic manual time tracking paired with powerful reporting suitable for freelancers and pro solos.
Enabling Secure File Sharing
With remote colleagues situated globally, you‘ll need robust tools to access shared files 24/7.
Dropbox Business caters specially to dispersed teams with much-needed visibility controls, remote data wipe and priority email support apart from generous 30-day file version history and recovery.
OneDrive for Business integrates tightly across Microsoft 365 apps with powerful search, data loss prevention and encryption capabilities for securing precious work files.
Google Drive delivers robust access management controls alongside AI search across scanned images and edits history with unlimited revision tracking for paranoid collaborators.
Bolstering Security & Privacy
Public WiFis used by remote workers pose huge security threats demanding special tools for defense.
LastPass eliminates the nightmare of remembering complex passwords. With top-grade AES-256 encryption securing all your logins inside an encrypted vault guarded by one master password.
NordVPN creates an encrypted tunnel protecting internet traffic from snoopers on public networks. It also provides access to geo-restricted content critical for remote teams.
Minimizing Distractions
No ambient office noise means you must recreate focus-enhancing spaces using apps at home.
Freedom works as a simple nuclear option – completely blocking sites and apps for set periods to avoid wasting hours browsing social media or watching cute dog videos!
Forest gamifies avoiding phone distractions by growing cute virtual trees representing time spent staying focused. It discourages aimless scrolling by showing how forests were destroyed whenever you switch apps!
Juggling work from home demands having the right toolkit tailored to your needs. As teams get more dispersed globally, adopting a robust app stack across communication, coordination and security is truly essential.
Stay tuned for more app recommendations in Part 2 of this blog!
