5 must-have tools for businesses working remotely

Trello: Project management tool

Trello is an amazing collaborative workspace, allowing you to work virtually in real-time. It offers the opportunity to organize different departments of your company, create workflow/approval systems and set task lists with assigned team member duties. Excellent maneuverability of assignments and color coding is always a plus.

Humaxa: Culture pulse check tool

Keeping track of how your team members feel is not only key to thriving as a company but also critical when working remotely. They need a place to provide feedback, be heard and trust their ideas and concerns are genuinely welcomed and valued. Humaxa offers exactly that with a fun, useful bot named Max, who lives in Slack. There, Max asks for feedback, initiates discussions, provides mentoring and delivers recognition.

Slack: Communication tool

All this talk about Slack may have you curious about what it is exactly. As a team messaging service, it gives you a solid reason to stop using group texts to communicate throughout the day. Slack is best for quick, daily correspondence and file sharing for reviews. At Instant Teams, with over 100 remote team members, we like to imagine Slack as our virtual office space. Just as we would walk by each other and say good morning or pop in and out of department meetings in a traditional office setting, we can do it virtually thanks to Slack.

Google Suite: File and remote office management tool

If you haven’t already, open up a Google Business account. The suite of tools available for remote teams is comprehensive. Think company email addresses, customizable phone numbers (if you have team members all across the nation but want everyone to have a Texas phone number — that’s possible), file sharing, real-time collaboration on document and slide deck creation, and so much more.

Canva: Creative/design tool

Canva, a graphic​ design platform, allows you to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, and plenty of other visually-appealing content. It’s available on web and mobile, and it includes millions of images, fonts, templates and illustrations. ​You may be thinking: ​graphic design? Not in my wheelhouse. ​But this tool makes it easy with simple drag-and-drop functionalities. So, if you can’t hire that dream design team just yet, Canva will be your best friend in the meantime.

All that to say, just because you’ve moved away from a corporate office or coworking space and are working from a home office as an entrepreneur doesn’t mean workplace systems go out the window. If anything, working remotely requires extra planning and accountability. And that starts with setting up systems, providing tools, and empowering your company to continue to work at its most productive level.

Written by Army Spouses and Instant Teams’ founders Liza Rodewald (CEO) and Erica McMannes (COO). Instant Teams proudly serves mid-market and enterprise-level customers with functional remote team solutions through its remote team software (Arti), fueled by a remote workforce of 10,000+ military spouses geolocated around the world, enabling 24/7 support. The multi-million-dollar company employs more than 120 remote team members worldwide, offering the perks of in-house teams with the benefits of outsourcing plus a built-in social impact and diversity fulfillment solution.