It's the year 2021 and we're still working from home, who would have thought it!
While your teams are working from home it's essential to communicate and keep that workflow effective.
In this article, we will take at some of the top tools to keep your team effective whilst working from home.
Communication Tools
We all know communication is key to a great team, but gone are the days where you could just shout across the office to get that all-important bit of information you needed. In an ever-growing digital world, there are plenty of communication tools for your team.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft teams is not only a great communication tool for your team, but it will also be useful for digital client meetings. Microsoft Teams has chat, calling and video-calling capabilities to keep your team in touch with each other whenever they need it.
Being made by Microsoft, the communication tool works well with your other Microsoft products sync your Outlook calendar and collaborate on projects using Word, PowerPoint and Excel.
Slack
Slack is another effective communication tool for your employees working from home. Slack has multiple capabilities including; chat, video, and user-created "channels" to keep in touch with team members and clients. Slack also has app integration to keep your workflow streamlined. Slack has a more "fun" vibe than other software, which is a nice bonus when you're stuck behind 4 walls.
Tawk.to
Tawk.to is a free tool to easily communicate with your website visitors in the form of a "live chat".
You may want to implement this website tool if you have team members dedicated to customer service.
The tool is easy to set-up, easy to use and your team members can see all chats and help each other out where needs be, no matter where they are located.
Monday
Monday is a project management tool, it helps organise and manage your teams' tasks in a clear and simplistic format. Your team can easily see what needs to be done and when for different projects, it also tracks progress. Monday can also help with your marketing, sales and CRM.
Security Tools
VPN
Although you can trust your employees, you cannot trust outsiders. A VPN is a "Virtual Private Network", which provides a protected network connection when using public and home networks.
Having your team members use a VPN is a secure way to protect shared data from other parties.
There are many VPN's on the market, but one of the most popular is NordVPN.
Password Security
Password sharing is common in the workplace as you can vocally share a password without third parties knowing. This changes when working from home as you do not want to share passwords through emails, texts, os social messaging apps.
Lastpass is a fantastic tool to keep your passwords in check. Not only does it generate extremely strong passwords, but it also allows you to share them securely with your employees.
Each LastPass account will need it's own password to enter as well two-factor authentication such as a Yubikey, so you know your passwords will be safe.