With the peak of technology and high speed Internet, work teams no longer need to be physically rooted in the same location in order to work. In fact, there is a growing trend of organisations all around the world collaborating successfully without needing to be in the same physical location.
As of 2016, Forbes listed 125 companies that managed to successfully adopt the culture of telecommuting. Another article from Forbes also listed the benefits of telecommuting employees include improving productivity, reducing pollution caused by commutes, and decreasing organisation overheads, among others.
The secret to starting a culture of remote working with your team depends mostly on creating and maintaining a set of operational systems. If you are considering setting up a team that can work remotely, here are the top 5 collaboration tools that can get you started.
Slack
At the very core of a successful remote team is communication, because lacking this element all teams will falter. Slack was the most successful app built specially for remote teams, which sparked a new wave of similar chat apps being developed by other companies. The core feature of this app that sets it apart from other normal chat applications like WhatsApp is the ability to organise chat rooms into Workspaces and Channels.The Channel layer is created in the image of old-style mIRC chat format, where each chatroom is labeled with a hashtag. Channels can be created for individual projects, departments, accounts, or even one for water cooler random chat. This allows for better organization of conversations, and sharing of documents and links.
Slack integrates with a wide variety of other collaboration tools like Google Drive, Jira, Salesforce, Trello, Zoom, Dropbox, and more. This is an important feature because the same remote team that use Slack will also be using other collaboration tools that works better if they work together.
The downside of this app is in the little bugs and unintuitive functions tucked everywhere. The app load time gets a little inefficient occasionally, and integrated attachments don’t work all the time. Commenting on teammates’ conversations is more complicated than it should be. Worst off notifications do not get pushed to mobile devices always, which causes communication breakdowns.
Slack starts out free to use, but the limited space will end up hiding past conversations and shared files from visibility until you unlock the paid version. The free period is unlimited, so a small team that only chats and manages their uploads well can avoid paying forever.
If you decide to move into the paid realm, good on you for supporting this awesome tool. Pricing starts from US$ 8 per user per month, which can be reduced to US$ 6.67 per month if paid annually. This feature unlocks External Access, allowing non Slack users like suppliers and vendors access to a Channel. It also unlocks video call with up to 15 participants that includes screen sharing, but frankly this feature is available free with other tools out there if you are a penny-pinching startup.
Paid pricing comes with 10GB file storage per user on the standard tier, and 20GB on their highest tier of US$12.50 per month. The highest tier also comes with additional IT solutions like User Provisioning/Deprovisioning, Uptime Guarantee, and 24/7 customer support.
Slack is available on iOS, Android, MacOS and Windows apps, and also on browser.
Discord
If you tried Slack and found it clunky, slow and filled with bugs, you are not alone. Other similar chat platform like Microsoft Teams provides a free tier but with limitations similar to Slack. And while Facebook’s Workplace offers a very attractive forever free tier, we think it best stay away from Facebook lest you want them snooping into your company’s chats.
Thankfully we have been testing Discord as an alternative, and are happy with it thus far. Discord is a multi-channel and multi-server chat platform built for gamers. Like Slack, you can create a Server, Slack’s equivalent of Workspaces, which will then also have as many Channels as you desire.
While Slack allows us to create private Channels and add specific people, Discord’s Private Channels can only be accessed by users listed as Admins. And while Slack has a messy commenting functionality, Discord lacks this function altogether.
But where Discord lacks features on one side, it more than makes up on another. You are able to create Voice Channels where everyone who enters the the channel will be able to speak freely with one another. This feature is built as a backend voice conversation layer during games, but it also makes an incredibly convenient meeting room. Unfortunately in order to minimise the server storage, Discord does not store any voice conversations.
In order to further simplify the platform, throwing links into a Channel will not try to enable special one-click features. Instead, the links work like any other hyperlinked code that opens up a new browser upon double-clicking. We think this is better compared to Slack which tries to integrate with everything but ends up slowing itself down.
But possibly the most interesting feature about Discord is one that gamers really appreciate. Easter Eggs in the form of taglines and quotes appear everywhere. Although it isn’t an actual feature, we like how it always tries to brighten our days.
Discord is Free Forever without any pricing plan or advertisement support (true at the time this article was written). Instead, users are able to upgrade to their Nitro pack which comes with higher quality screen share, sticker packs, and other addons. It is available for iOS, Android, Mac OS, Windows and on browser.
Trello
Trello is a project management tool that strips away the customer relationship management complexity of Salesforce while adopting the efficiency of a Scrum Board.
Build a Board for each organization or project, and fill them with Lists which contain multiple Cards. A Card is where all the reportings are done, and can be assigned to as many participating members as possible. There are sections where we can input descriptions, comments, updates, create checklists, and set deadlines. Members can also attach files, images and Google Drive links.
One simple way of using Trello is creating multiple Lists called To Do, Doing and Done, and each List containing all the card tasks in their respective statuses. Then the tasks can be moved from To Do all the way to Done, and updates be posted into the cards.
Trello is an incredible way for team leaders to monitor and manage remote teams, as long as everyone do proper and consistent reporting. Its colorful layout provides easy viewing and mobile-friendly nature makes it one of the easiest project management tools to use.
This platform starts out with a Forever Free plan, that allows for unlimited Boards, Lists, Cards and attachments. We can also link files from Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Box. Paid Plans start at US$ 9.99 per user per month, and includes integrations with major tools like Jira, Slack, Evernote, MailChimp, and more. Trello is available in browser, and on all mobile and desktop operating systems.
Google Drive
Google Drive is the first of its kind, with the aim to bring all document creation and storage to the cloud. With a simple Gmail account, we are able to create and edit all Microsoft format documents like Document, Excel and Powerpoint. We can also organise them by color-coded folders and have multiple layers of sharing controls with anyone.
At no price at all, Google Drive provides 15 GB of storage, ability to create and edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations. It also allows us to work offline despite it being an online tool. Comparatively, close competitors offer meager 2 GB storage on their free plans, and barely any document creation capabilities.
Google’s closest rival, Microsoft, offers the Office 365 with online collaboration ability, 1 TB of storage, and a powerful set of work applications. But this comes at a hefty price of RM 359 per year for 5 users or a one-off RM 529 per person. And in order for Microsoft Office to work with everyone, all collaborating members require paid versions of the same tools.
Zoom
Working remotely, your team needs a video conferencing tool. It has to be good, fast, reliable, and simple enough to get the job done without being bogged down with unnecessary functions. If you’re thinking Skype, that ship has sailed a long time ago. Ever since it was bought over by Microsoft, Skype has been on a steep decline into oblivion.
What we look for when selecting a good video conferencing tool are the simplicity of use, speed of connection, number of participants that can connect, screen share, collaboration, annotation and whiteboarding, and ability to record video and sound. Thankfully, Zoom can do everything so well for absolutely no cost at all.
On top of all the functions listed above, Zoom’s free plan allows for up to 100 participants in one single meeting. This is achievable with the simple click of a link, and participants don’t even need to be Zoom members. Other platforms like Skype and Google Hangouts require all participants to be members and friends of each other. While each meeting can only run up to 40 minutes (which is a lot by our accounts), you can hold unlimited meetings to make up for this limit.
Paid plans start at US$ 14.99 per host per month, which allow meetings to fun forever, enables cloud storage of recordings, and more functions. It’s available on iOS, Android, MasOS, Windows, browser, and by phone call.
Although telecommuting is gaining traction in many organizations as a preferred method of working, many teams still find it difficult to implement due to the lack of communication and reporting. A lot of adaptation and change in the way we work, communicate, and reporting needs to be done in order to perform well as a remote team. When done properly, it can really relieve costs for companies while making employees happier.
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