Best tools to organize your remote team

We have recently published an article on how communication with remote teams in the Digital Age reached a whole new level. Today, managers need a lot more tools not only to keep track of tasks, but also to keep the team engaged, as team engagement is a crucial factor in overall business success. In other words, managers become somewhat HRs for their teams.

However, you can’t really bond with anyone or emotionally connect and engage if your work process is not all set up, right? ‘Do you hear me?', ‘Can you share access?', ‘Can I see a reference?', ‘You sent in the wrong Excel'… These comments trigger the team of EasyStaff!

EasyStaff’s Marketing Lead Julia started out as an HR, and her 10+ years of experience let her see how disorganized remote teams struggled and fell apart. Now that she is EasyStaff’s Marketing Lead, she invests heavily in the right tools and best solutions for all of her remote team. She talked to all of our team to compile a list of her favorite tools that we use daily to keep our team work effective and as teach-easy as possible.

Visual Aid:

• Miro. This one is Julia’s favorite. The interface is absolutely intuitive, and tools in the platform are super helpful. The thing we all love about MIro as a creative team is how endless it is. You just zoom in or zoom out, and there is tons of space that you will never run out of. Thanks to this feature, you don’t need to create a separate board for every step. A single Miro board can accommodate anything! Pricing: Free — 3 editable boards; Starter — $ 8 — $ 10; Business — $ 16 — $ 20; Enterprise — Custom.
• Figma. This tool is a more complex option than Miro, and we rely on it heavily when it comes to landing design. Its functionality is impressive, and despite an wide array of widgets, it’s pretty lightweight. It loads fast even with slow or low connection. Pricing: Free — 2 editors & 3 projects; Professional — $ 12 — $ 15; Organization — $ 45.
• FigJam. FigJam is a simpler version of Figma. It doesn’t have all of Figma’s abilities, but it remains rather helpful nonetheless. We feel FigJam is an alternative to Miro. If you like the feel of Figma but find its tool array a bit extra, then FigJam is for you. Pricing: Free — 3 FigJam files and 3 Figma projects; Professional — $ 3-$ 5; Organization — $ 5; Enterprise — $ 5.

Task Trackers:

• Bubbles absolutely rocks it. As a team with lots of updates every minute coming from all directions, we find it particularly cool. Bubbles gets everyone aware of an update — you don’t just text in the void though, instead you set kind of a small task for everyone. And the team gets a notification that a certain info is shared. Interestingly, Bubbles is so much more than a pinned text in a chat. It allows you to send voice messages, screen recordings, videos and pictures. Lots of content — and with a convenient tool to get everyone’s attention in a nonviolent and fun way. But to be brutally honest, for some of us who have a Notion page open and a Telegram chat running, having yet another app open is not quite an option. But, overall, Bubbles works just fine! Pricing: Teams — Free; TeamsPro — $ 8; Enterprise — Custom.
• Trello. Oh yes, Julia wants to confess her infinite love to Trello. The tool married convenience and ease. It may seem that the interface and functionality are not in any way innovative — after all, if you compare Trello to Bubbles or Miro, that’s a whole different level of tech. BUT (!) on the one hand, that is the beauty of Trello, you know? To keep yourself organized in a nice little space that is always accessible and easily re-organized, there is nothing better than Trello. Despite its seemingly simple design, you will find out that Trello can synchronize calendars, visualize processes and a lots of other things, particularly useful for big teams. Pricing: Standard — $ 5−6; Premium — $ 10−12.5; Enterprise — $ 17.5 — Custom.
• ProofHub. Seeing how diverse we are, with the team scattered all across Europe, we are particularly fond of the tool. As the website describes it, ProofHub is a centralized workspace for big teams where all necessary tools are available to every team member. It is a secure cloud-based solution, so no installs are required. Thankfully, it integrates with invoicing tools and file storages. There is also a chat tool right inside ProofHub! Last but not least, our personal favorite is the time statistics the tool provides, like total estimated time, actual time, and overdue tasks. etc. Pricing: Essential — $ 45−50; Ultimate Control — $ 89−99.
• Notion has become an irreplaceable tool for our team, as tons and tons of information is stored there. The beauty of Notion is that it lets you connect so many databases into one trackable sheet where the whole team is in the know. One major necessity with Notion though is that you really need to learn it. Notion has so many features that it may seem ‘too much' to uneducated users. To make the most out of it, you may want to spend some time on how-to videos and blogs. Pricing: Free — $ 0; Plus — $ 8−10; Business — $ 15−18; Enterprise — Custom.

Screenshot tools:

• Lightshot. You never know how important a good screenshot tool is till you find one. Lightshot is a plug-in and it appears in the top right corner of your screen. Click on it, and a new tab with a page to screenshot will appear. You can select an area and add arrows, lines, and highlights to it. You can copy-paste or even download the screenshot. Pricing: Free.
• The Snipping Tool by Microsoft may not be new to all of us, but it has a very important advantage — it is not a plug in, and you can screenshot anything with it. not only browser windows. While it really fits in with a MIcrosoft computer, its functionality is a bit limited. Pricing: Free.
• Screenpresso is on a more professional side of screen capturing. Our design team uses it a lot, and they are quite demanding when it comes to image processing. The tool runs in the background of Windows, so, as with the Snipping tool, you can take screenshots of anything that is on your screen. Including videos! Video capture is also a capacity of Screenpresso. Pricing: Free — $ 0; Pro — $ 34; Enterprise — $ 2 422 (one-time purchase).

Webinars/Screen Recording:

• Loom has long been a friend of ours. It works amazingly well for when you need to record a short instructional video. Your face will be in a small circle somewhere along the brim of the video, and you can provide comments as you record. In the end, after you finish screen capture, a browser window opens that brings you straight to a video editor on Loom where your video is ready to be downloaded, shared or further edited. Pricing: Starter — $ 0; Business — $ 12.50; Enterprise — Custom.
• Movavi is a super-functional screen capturing tool. You can actually choose a certain part of the screen by setting up a frame. While recording, you can even draw in the selected area to bring viewers' attention where it is needed. Pricing: Video Editor — $ 23 — $ 53 (there are many products, and an option called Movavi Unlimited that encompasses every Movavi tool).
• ClickMeeting is a tool for webinars itself, although it has to do with video, as the rest of tools in this section. ClickMeeting is browser-based, and it facilitates the whole process of webinar creation: creating guest lists, decorating waiting rooms, running conferences, and following up with participants. We enjoyed using it a couple of times, and it really helped make our meeting more branded than other popular online meeting tools. Pricing: Free — $ 0 for 30 days; Live — $ 26/month; Automated — $ 42/month; Custom plan.

Money payments:
Behind every meeting, screenshot and project, there are real people that invested themselves in work. And to really make your team go above and beyond, you need to establish a reliable and safe payment process.

EasyStaff is a freelance management platform where you can pay globally to your remote team. After you sign a B2B contract with EasyStaff, you pay the contractor. EasyStaff then pays your remote team as their Employer of Record. This way your company is 100% legally free of payroll tax.

Getting started with EasyStaff is simple and fast. Our managers are excited to walk you through the capabilities of the platform. Send a request here, and we will reach out to you very soon.

We’re EasyStaff, a global freelance management platform. Our core features are task management for remote teams, tax invoicing and cross-border payments. If you want to grow your business internationally, stay compliant and save on tax, join EasyStaff now and book your free demo today.

https://medium.com/@easystaff/best-tools-to-organize-your-remote-team-f4222e3e2417