Working from home? Here are top tech tools to help you succeed
Being productive and successful in the remote environment requires the right set of technology.
In a recent survey, 54% of workers said their productivity had improved since working from home full-time and 64% said their work quality has improved. And last month, Zillow Group told employees that they can work from home until at least the end of 2020. Germany is even mulling giving employees the right to work from home post-COVID-19. Luckily, the average company sees a 10% to 43% increase in productivity after allowing employees to work from home.
Related: Work-from-home apps are on the rise; can you guess which is on top?
But great results require great tech. For employees and companies not set up to work remotely, everyday tasks can be dragged out by a slow connection and cause frustration. To avoid this situation, here’s what you need to succeed working from home.
Blazing fast Wi-Fi
The first thing you’ll want to do is figure out how fast your internet connection at home is. Most people aren’t going to have the same speeds they’re used to at work. Services like fast.com or Speedtest will show you how fast your Wi-Fi is.
The Verge recommends making sure your computer is connected to the right network instead of, for instance, your ISP’s lower-speed wireless hotspot. If your speeds aren’t what you’d like, or you’re running out of data before you run out of month, check for COVID-19 deals from ISPs.
Pandemic pro-tip: This is a great time to invest in a mesh network or wifi extender.
Project management software
The move to remote work is a great opportunity to create one source of truth for your teams. With teams going remote and distributed, it might be worthwhile to invest in project management software that shows team members’ schedules, tasks and workloads. That way you can spend less time Slacking people about who’s doing what and more time making progress. Ideally you’ll want everyone in the company to use the same project management software to make cross-department collaboration easier.
Project management software should let you create, assign, comment on, and upload files to projects, tasks, and subtasks. It should let you set up notifications for stakeholders to alert them when statuses, assignees, due dates, and files change. And it should remind relevant people when tasks are due. Examples include Asana, Notion, Trello, Monday, and Basecamp.
It’s helpful to think about the way you work when choosing project management software. For example, Trello is structured as a kanban board, and Asana can be used that way. Engineering teams might want Gantt chart functionality. Make sure your plan includes enough seats and file storage for your company. You also want to see what their reports look like out of the box and find out how customizable they are.
Pandemic pro-tip: Corporate Recruiter Lauren Munroe has been using SharePoint and Microsoft Teams to collaborate on projects simultaneously since moving to WFH. “We found that it’s not so much about needing new tools but instead, leveraging existing tools to foster greater collaboration during quarantine,” Munroe said.
Task management software
Now is the perfect time to upgrade to a task manager. Task management software is basically an online to-do list that can do things your paper planner can only dream of, like remind you about due dates at set intervals.
Task management apps allow you to create, set due dates for, and then check off tasks. Keyboard shortcuts and browser extensions save you time adding and checking off tasks. Most will allow you to set up reminders and notifications and will keep track of when tasks are added, checked off, and modified. Examples include Tick Tick, Todoist, Remember the Milk, and Microsoft ToDo. Plus, unlike paper, most task managers can be used collaboratively, making them perfect for newly remote workers.
Now is a good time to prioritize task managers that allow you to assign tasks and subtasks to other users and comment on other users’ tasks and subtasks. And it’s always nice to be able to add subtasks and upload files to tasks and subtasks. Recurring tasks are great. So is the ability for the task manager to use natural language processing to parse due dates and other commands.
Pandemic pro-tip: Check out 5 free Wunderlist alternatives to help you compare task management software.
Online group chat
If your team doesn’t already have a chat app, what are you waiting for? Chat apps should be able to send and thread instant messages to individuals and groups. It’s also nice to be able to search chats and snooze notifications. Using a smattering of apps when you’re co-located is fine. But the need to get everyone on the same page is greater when you’re all working from home. Examples include Slack, Hangouts, Glip by RingCentral, and Twist.
Since everyone is remote, you may want a chat app where you can start a video call from inside the app, rather than having to spin up your video conferencing app. Timezone awareness is great if your team is distributed. Some apps allow you to set your status so colleagues know when you’re busy or free, in a meeting, or it’s outside your work hours. The ability to share files inside the chat app is nice.
Pandemic pro-tips:
Chief People Officer Meighan Newhouse created new chat channels for quarantine. In “water cooler” workers check in and share updates and in “lock-down” they share relatable tales from quarantine. VP of People Carrie Pinkham added a “CEO,” “wellness,” and “family Fridays” channel. The last is “where employees post old and new pictures of loved ones, which seemed fitting during this time. We added new tools like Donut to pair employees for get-to-know-you chats,” Newhouse said.
One more way to get the most out of Slack is to sync your Slack status with your Google Calendar.
Video conferencing
While chats and phone calls are great, there’s nothing like seeing someone’s face in real-time. Video conferencing software facilitates on-demand or pre-scheduled video conferencing among two or more people simultaneously. This becomes even more important when everyone is working from home. Video conferencing software makes the conversation a little bit more like you’re in the same room. Generally this software integrates with your calendar system and provides built-in screen sharing and chat functionality. Examples include Skype, Zoom, WebEx, and GoToMeeting. Facebook Messenger also recently got into the game with their Rooms product.
As mentioned earlier, not everyone’s home internet is as fast as it was at the office. So now is a good time to choose video conferencing software that allows workers to call into the meeting toll-free from their phones. It’s also nice to be able to record your conversations and perhaps store the recordings in the cloud. If you need to host webinars then you should prioritize features like recording, screen sharing, polling, and the ability to dial in.
Pandemic pro-tip: “The biggest success has been our daily, optional, coffee chats held over Zoom that our team uses to connect in a casual way,” Newhouse said.
Going forward
With the right tech in place, work from home could be a productivity boon. Hopefully this list gives you an idea of what you need and how to start comparing your options.
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