Home 10 Absolute Best Collaboration Tools to Manage Remote Workers

10 Absolute Best Collaboration Tools to Manage Remote Workers

Years back, the idea of “remote employee” and “work from home” seemed so hare-brained. But not anymore. Today, you can be sitting at home, enjoy having a cup of freshly brewed coffee and work as a full-time employee for a company 7,814 miles away. And it’s not just about you or your team—this is happening all over the world right now.

A decade ago, most employers would have disregarded the idea of remote culture. But with today’s emerging tech, more and more businesses are hiring full-time remote employees and incorporating flexible work from home policies.

Remote Work Trends & Stats (2019) 

  • 55% of hiring managers agree that remote work among full-time employees is more common and expects up to 38% of their full-time employees to be working remotely in the next decade. 
  • Two-third of managers who offer telecommunicating flexibility report that those who work from home are overall more productive. 
  • More than 60% of job seekers who are millennials said an option to work remotely would greatly increase their interest in specific employers.
  • 70% of employees work remotely at least one day a week, while 53% work remotely for at least half of the week.
  • 39% of people who often work from home prefer to work additional hours to complete their tasks, compared with 24% of those in fixed workplaces.

With all these statistics and trends in mind, we evaluated an important question – What are some examples of collaboration tools? Here’s the answer:

The 10 Best Online Collaboration Tools For Remote Workers

1. ProofHub

ProofHub

User review

“ProofHub has solved our problem of supporting projects remotely”

What makes it stand out?

ProofHub is basically a comprehensive management solution that offers a powerful suite of project management and collaboration functions. To operate successfully, remote teams must be able to monitor the overall projects in real-time, have a seamless discussion on the work-related matter, share and collaborate on files instantly, access project-critical time data anywhere, anytime. ProofHub allows remote teams to do all that (and more) at high speed and low cost.

2. Hubstaff Tasks

User review

“Being able to use it as a commutation/portal with my clients in a creative agency type capacity is fantastic. It replaces the need for many tools at one time.”

What makes it stand out?

Hubstaff Tasks was built with Agile principles in mind. Its Sprints feature is designed to help teams optimize their workflow, and keep track of tasks and projects with ease. Hubstaff Tasks has a Kanban-style interface that lets you create task labels and checklists, notify team members via comment mentions, and move tasks from one stage to another with just a click.

 

3. Slack

Slack

 User review

“Hundreds of people are contributing across the world with many stakeholders who need to stay informed. The ease of communication that Slack provides helps support the teams that are delivering value at this pace and scale.”

What makes it stand out?

Effective communication is the key to successful work output when managing remote teams. Slack is a popular web-based messaging tool that remote teams can use for brainstorming, sharing of files, comparing notes and staying up-to-date on matters that are important. Slack allows remote teams to talk to each other via private/group messaging.

4. Skype

Skype

 User review

“We use Skype to handle communication with our virtual team. It’s been a fantastic tool to screen share, pop on a call or get some quick feedback on a question.”

What makes it stand out?

You probably already know a lot about Skype. It’s a communication tool (audio, video, and text) that we all have used in our professional as well as personal life. It’s also a powerful, easily accessible collaboration tool for remote employees. Whenever they need to call someone up or send a message or attend an urgent project/client meeting mile away, they can do it directly via skype.

5. Google Hangouts

Hangouts

User review

“Google Hangouts allowed me to stay in touch and collaborate on projects with coworkers while working remotely for a company from home. Being able to video chat and participate in meetings with others allowed me the freedom to work full time and 100% from a home office.”

What makes it stand out?

If you’re managing a remote team or planning to be a part of one soon, Google Hangout is a great tool for information sharing and communication. The collaborative nature and easy-to-navigate interface make Google Hangout a powerful tool for teams distributed across the world.

6. GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting

User review

“GoToMeeting is critical to our business. whenever we don’t have the option to meet in person because our clients or team members are not in the same area, an online meeting is a great alternative and saves a lot of time and costs.”

What makes it stand out? 

GoToMeeting has a unique feature—it lets you record meetings and saves them on your desktop for later review. A major advantage of this feature is that you won’t be distracted by writing or taking notes while attending a meeting. You can simply record it and go through the recording as many times as you may need.

7. Adobe Connect

Adobe web conferencing software Adobe Connect

User review

“We definitely recommend you to try Adobe Connect for your business. With the help of this service, you can easily share files, presentations and organize meetings. In addition, it helps to stay in touch with your team despite a location.”

What makes it stand out?

Adobe Connect is a great platform for digital training, webinar, and collaboration experiences. It’s a web conferencing platform that allows teams to indulge in video, audio, screen-sharing, polls, chat, Q&A, document sharing and other collaborative activities, irrespective of their actual geographical location.

8. UberConference

uberconference 

User review

“We’re excited to work with innovative companies like UberConference to drive businesses’ productivity and make the conference calling experience more collaborative.”

What makes it stand out?

UberConference is a helpful tool for distributed and remote teams to communicate through conference calls. It is an audio/video conferencing tool that makes it quick and easy for remote teams to hold meetings to discuss projects, challenges, and up-to-the-minute plans. Remote teams can use UberConference on both desktop browser and mobile devices. They can share documents, record calls, share screens and do a lot more without being concerned about their geographical location.

9. Chanty

Chanty Simple AI powered Team Chat

User review

“We certainly love the simple interface and the chats, tasks, files, and links are put together in an easy way to use.”

What makes it stand out?

It’s an AI-powered team chat application. It includes features like instant messaging, unlimited scalable history, handy file sharing, quick notifications, and much more in one simple, easy-to-use application.

10. Jing

Jing

User review

“What is really special about Jing is that it allows you to share your recently created snapshot or video instantly through Screencast.com, without requiring to save the file first and upload it manually.”

What makes it stand out?

Jing is a screen capture and screencasting tool. Remote teams can use this tool to capture video clips of their computer screen and share it online with each other. They can use those clips to brainstorm ideas, create training videos or share problems.

Conclusion 

If you are a remote team manager, the best way to avoid encountering any kind of miscommunication is to invest in good collaboration software. The above list of 10 collaboration tools for remote team management, can surely help you find a tool to collaborate within a virtual team effectively and productively – no matter what type of company you might be managing.

About ReadWrite’s Editorial Process

The ReadWrite Editorial policy involves closely monitoring the tech industry for major developments, new product launches, AI breakthroughs, video game releases and other newsworthy events. Editors assign relevant stories to staff writers or freelance contributors with expertise in each particular topic area. Before publication, articles go through a rigorous round of editing for accuracy, clarity, and to ensure adherence to ReadWrite's style guidelines.

Brad Anderson
Former editor

Brad is the former editor who oversaw contributed content at ReadWrite.com. He previously worked as an editor at PayPal and Crunchbase.

Get the biggest tech headlines of the day delivered to your inbox

    By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. Unsubscribe anytime.

    Tech News

    Explore the latest in tech with our Tech News. We cut through the noise for concise, relevant updates, keeping you informed about the rapidly evolving tech landscape with curated content that separates signal from noise.

    In-Depth Tech Stories

    Explore tech impact in In-Depth Stories. Narrative data journalism offers comprehensive analyses, revealing stories behind data. Understand industry trends for a deeper perspective on tech's intricate relationships with society.

    Expert Reviews

    Empower decisions with Expert Reviews, merging industry expertise and insightful analysis. Delve into tech intricacies, get the best deals, and stay ahead with our trustworthy guide to navigating the ever-changing tech market.