Whether you’re a seasoned work-from-home professional or you’re completely new to the WFH concept, knowing how to effectively communicate with your team is key. If you’re like us and one of the many employees who have recently been asked to work from home to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19, there are many things you can and should do to keep your team connected and productive.
Interested? Good! Grab a pen, a notepad, and get ready to take notes on these must have tools that you need to use while making the shift from office to home.
Trello
Trello is one of our all-time favorite tools for communicating with team members and staying on task, making it one of the many reasons we love it for project management! If you’re a visual person, this is the tool for you. Trello provides the ability to create different boards with task cards. Once you’ve created your tasks, you can assign tasks to each team member and freely move tasks from category to category like “to do,” “working on,” and “completed.” This makes the process of communicating and sharing information with co-workers easy and efficient.
Zoom
If you’re worried about not being able to make it to that client meeting or you just need a face-to-face session with your team, consider Zoom! With Zoom, you can easily schedule and host a video conference call. The best part about Zoom is that you can do all of this through your FREE account, and who doesn’t love free? If you’re looking to upgrade to the paid version, you can receive access to store your recorded calls to the Cloud and use the auto transcribe feature. Either way, you can access Zoom from your laptop, desktop, tablet or mobile device making it easier than ever to connect with the whole team when you aren’t able to meet in person!
Google Drive
Google Drive has it all! With this application, you can share Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, and photos effortlessly all in one convenient location. Google Drive even gives you the ability to make instant edits to these documents that can be shared with team members! Say goodbye to the days of confusion of documents getting lost in the shuffle of emails! With Google Drive, your documents all stay in one place and become updated instantly. Working from home has never been easier!
Grammarly
While working from home, you may not have access to those who can proofread your work for spelling and grammar errors. That’s where Grammarly comes into play! Grammarly is a tool to help you compose clear and mistake-free writing with the help of Grammarly’s writing assistant. If you’re not ready to commit to buying the upgraded version, you can try it out for free too!
FaceTime
FaceTime is available to anyone who has an iPhone or iMac, so if you find yourself without a webcam on your computer, this is a great alternative to still have access to video conference calls! On FaceTime, you can add in more parties to the conversation, allowing up to 32 people! That’s more people than Google Hangouts or Skype offers!
With all the fancy features that are available to us, don’t forget to go back to the basics! Email is a critical form of communication for businesses and probably the most utilized form of communication among team members. Remember to keep your inbox clean, file important emails, and set calendar reminders for any upcoming conference calls or major projects. To be sure you never miss an email, you can also set up notifications to your cell phone or Apple Watch.
Say goodbye to the days of confusion and distraction! Whether you’re a veteran or a newbie to working from home, utilizing the programs that best fit your team’s needs will make working from home a success!