Nowadays many teams are often split up - with some members working on-site, while others work remotely. As you can imagine that can make collaboration more challenging, but fortunately a variety of different types of apps have stepped up to provide solutions.
Want to know exactly what types of apps you need to ensure seamless collaboration between your on-site and remote teams? Here they are:
1. Communication Apps
Good communication is essential for collaboration, especially when your team is split. Nowadays there are many communication apps that can help keep everyone connected no matter where theyβre working from.
The two types of communication apps that are most popular are instant messaging apps such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, and video conferencing apps such as Zoom or Google Meet.
2. Project Management Apps
Making sure that hybrid teams are aligned and each member knows what tasks to perform can be difficult. Project management apps are irreplaceable on that front, and will let you organize projects and breakdown tasks using boards, lists, or timelines - then distribute them to your team members.
Generally the most popular project management apps are Trello, Asana, and Monday.com. Each will help centralize workflows, distribute tasks, and ensure that all team members are on the same page and know what to do.
3. Employee Monitoring Apps
Employee monitoring softwareΒ such as Controlio play an important role in facilitating remote work by tracking when employees clock-in and their work hours - regardless of whether theyβre working on-site or remotely. However, all its data can also be useful to make collaboration easier by allowing managers to coordinate across different time zones and synchronize the schedules of their team members.
Aside from that, tools like Controlio also provide helpful insights regarding employee behavior and work patterns. This can be used to identify workflow bottlenecks and other issues to ensure that teams are able to collaborate more smoothly. Its data can also be used to distribute tasks more effectively so some team members arenβt swamped with work while others are relatively free.
4. Sharing and Collaboration Apps
Sharing and collaboration apps come in many shapes and sizes. Some, such as Dropbox or Google Drive will let you store and access files in a centralized location. Others such as Google Docs can allow multiple team members to collaborate on documents simultaneously, while tools such as Figma or Canvas do the same just for design prototypes.
5. Brainstorming and Virtual Whiteboard Apps
Brainstorming sessions may lack some punch when many team members are working remotely. A good way to solve that is with the various whiteboard tools and idea management apps that allow on-site and remote team members to collaborate, add notes, or even vote on ideas in real-time.
If you want you can try Miro and Mural to create digital canvases, mindmaps, or workflows. Similarly tools like FigJam (in Figma) will let teams collaborate to create flowcharts, while apps such as Slido or Mentimeter can be used to quickly let teams vote on ideas.
Conclusion
See how many apps there are that can help remote and on-site team members collaborate more easily? According toΒ Future Market InsightsΒ this is probably just the tip of the iceberg and the global collaboration tools market is expected to grow threefold in the next ten years.
For now, you should focus on the types of apps that are available and figure out the best way to leverage them to benefit your teams. With the help of these apps you could turn the challenge of collaborating with remote workers into an opportunity instead.