By EU
One of the biggest reasons why remote work is so popular today is because technology has advanced enough to make the concept feasible. In the past, it would have been nothing short of a nightmare to try to manage a distributed team only with rudimentary tools. Today though, remote managers and employees alike all have access to fast, reliable internet, as well as a number of software and hardware tools that make it easy to be productive and efficient at work. These tools allow them to perform their daily tasks with ease, collaborate with colleagues and work together on the same projects, stay connected to the organisation, and maintain a healthy balance between life and work.
In this article, we’ll discuss some of the best productivity tools that every remote manager should have at his or her disposal. Some of them you might already have, but we’ve included a few surprises and some lesser known but handy gems.
Microsoft Outlook
Most people know Outlook as Microsoft’s premier email client, but it’s really much more than that. The software is packed with a number of useful features that make it closer to a digital personal organiser. Microsoft Outlook integrates functions such as calendaring, contact management, note-taking, task management and web browsing into a single program, allowing remote managers to get a lot of work done out of a single window. It also seamlessly integrates into the rest of the Microsoft Office suite. You can send documents saved on Word or spreadsheets from Excel directly to Outlook and email them to your team.
HCL Domino
Formerly known as IBM Notes before HCL Technologies acquired the product in 2019, HCL Domino is a very popular email client in the business and computer software industries. It has been around for over 30 years. It was primarily developed as a collaboration tool, with features such as calendaring, instant messaging, blogs, and discussion forums, as well as a personnel/user directory.While use of it has declined over the years, many Australian organisations still employ a version of the program in their day-to-day workflow. For example, the state of Victoria’s Office of Public Prosecutions was still using an earlier form of Domino, Lotus Notes, until as recently as 2018.
Gmail for Business (G Suite)
Developed as part of Google Cloud’s ‘cloud’ computing, collaboration, and productivity suite G Suite, Gmail for business differs from the consumer-grade, free version in a number of ways. Instead of your email addresses ending in @gmail.com, the enterprise version of the product allows businesses to create custom business email addresses @yourcompany and guarantees 99.9% uptime. Gmail for business also has twice the storage space of the free version and integrates seamlessly with other G Suite products such as Google Chat, Meet, Drive, and more.
Project Management
Microsoft Project
Developed specifically for project managers, Microsoft Project is currently the most widely used project management software among PC users. It is part of the Microsoft Office family and is available in Standard and Professional editions. Project’s primary strengths are in task resource allocation and management, schedule development, budget management, and workload analysis. Those who know how to use the program effectively will be able to manage and execute multiple projects with ease.
Mastery of Microsoft Project is easy through a 1-day instructor-led virtual or in-house course offered by many registered training organisations in Australia. Completion of such a course with an accredited RTO such as Priority Management grants credits for nationally recognised training qualifications such as 10552NAT CERT III, BSB41515 CERT IV, and the BSB51415 DIPLOMA.
Monday
Monday is a visual management platform for project planning and tracking. It is highly customisable and can be used in a wide variety of business applications, from research and development to marketing and sales, media production, and much more. The software allows members of a distributed team working on the same project to see the day’s tasks and keep track of each other’s progress on a single screen. This helps minimise superfluous communications and streamlines the workflow for the team, all while simplifying supervision for the remote manager or project lead.
Meetings & Presentations
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a communication and collaboration platform that packs instant messaging, Voice over IP calls, video conferencing and file storage in one convenient app. Users of Microsoft’s subscription-based Office 365 will surely appreciate how smoothly Teams integrates with the other products in the suite. With Microsoft Teams, workers can chat with their colleagues, conduct one-to-one or group meetings, and access, share, and edit files saved in Excel, PowerPoint, and Word in real-time.
With these productivity tools, remote managers and the teams under their supervision can all work together smarter, not harder! Check them out yourself and see how they can improve your workday!