Working together seemed so easy back at the office.
You could drop off the quarterly report to Jane, swing by Jose to switch that meeting to tomorrow, then be back at your desk in under five minutes with a fresh cup of coffee. Nice.
But now, stuck at home, you’re in pajama bottoms and a dress shirt and don’t know who’s doing what.
You have no idea when you’ll see your co-workers again, and to top it off, you have to make your own damn coffee!
Fortunately, working together in 2021 is very different than it would have been in twenty years ago.
There are now a bunch of tools that facilitate remote work. And it’s worth taking the time investment to roll them out.
The experts say that at least 25-30% of us will work multiple days from home every week by the end of 2021. And 75% of project managers believe the use of team collaboration tools will increase (and the other 25% are wrong, in our humble opinion).
You should look at new methods of working together right now, because remote working is a model we all clearly need to get comfortable with.
This post shares 5 essential platforms you can use to make it appear like your team’s collaborating under one roof, even if they’re oceans apart.
But first, let’s take a look at the importance of working together, even without face-to-face contact.
Why working together is essential in 2021
In 1628 the Swedish warship Vasa sank sailing the first mile of her maiden voyage.
Why?
The shipbuilders constructing the port side used a different type of ruler to the one used by the workers on the starboard side. Team Port used a ruler calibrated to Swedish feet while Team Starboard used one that measured in Dutch feet.
As you might expect, this resulted in a structural imbalance which meant that one side of the ship weighed more than the other. Which, as it turns out, is a no-no in the shipbuilding business.
Four hundred years later it’s still important as ever for different teams and separate departments to communicate and collaborate effectively on common goals.
Pre-pandemic, it was easier to foster teamwork. Open-plan offices and regular face-to-face meetings smoothed collaboration and helped keep teams on track.
But how do you foster working together and reap the benefits of team synergy when most of your employees are working from home?
Fortunately, the technology exists today that helps smooth working together for remote teams.
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Here are five must-have tools your team can use to collaborate better.
#1. staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud
When working remotely, the first thing your team members’ need is a way to keep track of all the tasks that need doing.
Enter staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud.
staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud is your work OS — a platform to help your team manage, track, and deliver on your project goals no matter where they are, what they’re doing, or how they like to work.
There are loads of templates to get you up and running.
What are staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud’s “working together” features?
- Whiteboard collaboration. A group platform to thrash out ideas or explain concepts. It’s a place where all participants can communicate their thoughts visually.
- Document embedding. Save the trouble of emailing documents or remembering file share site logins. You can embed important files needed for a project directly in a task.
- Different Task views. staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud has several ways of presenting your team’s tasks visually. Choose from Kanban, Gantt, timeline, calendar, and more.
Why not start your team organization using the daily team tasks template?
#2. Slack
Slack is the workplace communication tool to replace the chit-chat across the cubicle or a quick catch-up by the watercooler.
Seamless communication is important for working together. The usual tools of email and telephone don’t quite make the cut when working remotely.Email’s delay when sending/receiving messages doesn’t enable a smooth conversation. And telephone conversations require active concentration from both sides, which means neither can multi-task.
Slack is a communication solution that brings back the speedy to-and-fro. Like asking a quick question, pushing a person for a decision, and general group working communication.
You can set up channels for your team logically so people only see the messages that concern them. Plus, you can have a digital ‘water cooler’ for them to have a non-work conversation.
What are Slack’s best features for working together?
Slack has several features that facilitate working together.
- Message Pins. You can pin important messages within your context-specific channels, so you can be sure your team sees important updates. If you’d sent an email instead then you can’t be certain all of your team will read it.
- Shared Channels. If you have teams from different businesses working on the same project, you can share a channel between your team and the client team. Something a bespoke workplace communication tool is unlikely to be able to do.
- Advanced Search. Need to track down a message from last month? Slack has a bunch of advanced search modifiers to narrow your search. You can use people, dates, and even file types if you’re looking for a specific document.
Slack integrates with staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud directly and can…
- Notify a channel as soon as a new task is assigned
- Sync team conversations between staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud and Slack
- Update team timeline changes in staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud with Slack channel notifications
#3. Google Drive
On top of the ubiquitous email and calendar services from Google, the Big G also provides a full suite of applications that stand up against Microsoft office.
Applications include a capable word processor (Docs), an Excel competitor (Sheets), and a Powerpoint alternative called Slides — three applications that cover most employees’ requirements for work.
Any individual with a Gmail account has access to the tools free of charge. For an extra small monthly per-user fee, businesses can share unlimited document cloud storage and use Gmail with a custom domain name. If you don’t have a custom domain, you can pick one here.
Plus, as the service is cloud-based, businesses benefit from centralized administration for easy employee IT services management.
Google Drive and its associate applications are an essential tool for remote teams working together.
What are Google Drive’s best features for working together?
The main benefit of a shared Google Drive is that all your remote staff get access to all the files and folders for your project.
You can work together on documents simultaneously, and don’t have to worry about backups or losing any files.
Google Drive also integrates directly with staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud, so you can attach any relevant documents to tasks. From the staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud workspace, you can also open and annotate documents without leaving the screen.
Bonus integration: using the Gmail integration, you can automatically convert emails into action items in staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud.
#4. Zoom
Zoom: the collaboration tool that’s got everyone hastily re-arranging a shelf of leather-bound books for their home office background.
Video conferencing, in the main, was a tool used by businesses to communicate across distant geographical locations. But, as the virus took hold in 2020, many began using it to speak to family and friends.
Now many of us use it daily in both our personal and professional lives. For remote workers, it’s evolved as an irreplaceable tool when your team needs to get together for a meeting.
What are Zoom’s main features for working together?
Zoom is actually more than just a video conferencing tool. It has several collaboration features that make teamwork more practical.
- Screen sharing. You can share your screen with participants on a call, then allow another to take over your screen with remote control.
- Screen annotation. You can also allow call participants to annotate a screen with arrows, text, and free-draw.
- Mobile screen sharing. Zoom also allows smartphone screen sharing.
You can schedule Zoom meetings directly in your staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud calendar using our integration.
#5. Adobe Creative
Some of the best collaborative work happens in the creative space.
Apple and Hermes produced a desirable smartwatch, and I still think Bryan Adams and JLo’s “How Strong Our Love Is” hasn’t had the credit it deserves.
(Editor’s note: the opinions expressed by this writer do not reflect those of the entire staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud community, who think Bryan Adams and JLo’s song “How Strong our Love Is” got exactly the credit it deserves).
Adobe Creative is the current iteration of perhaps the best creative software available on the market. A single subscription can get each user access to a wide variety of packages, which include…
- Photoshop
- InDesign
- Lightroom
- Illustrator
- Premiere Pro
All wrapped together with a centralized cloud service.
What are Adobe Creative’s main features for working together?
The collaboration features of Adobe Cloud services help businesses to…
- Share central creative assets will the whole team.
- Collaborate in real-time on projects.
- Administer users centrally to smooth the onboarding process.
- Encrypt Cloud storage (standard to protect your branded, creative output).
With our staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud Adobe Creative integration, you can easily update task progress for projects in any staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud board.
Final thoughts
There are plenty of awesome tools available on the market to help team productivity and improve remote team work.
It’s not going anywhere. Your business should be implementing tools like the ones in this guide today to ensure your team can work at their most efficient for years to come.
staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud integrates with dozens of tools. Which ones will you use?
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