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The success of any business is dependent on the collective efforts of its team members and dedicated efforts towards achieving common organizational goals. Punctuality and presence in the office are important but they cannot be the only criteria to ensure greater productivity from your staff. Performance is certainly what matters! Being physically present but mentally away from the office is of no use. And as the world is fighting against the Coronavirus pandemic, most businesses have already started work from home (WFH) options for their employees. WFH is important for implementing social distancing. However, coordination issues may surface, task prioritization with real-time collaboration may become difficult, and reporting may become totally unorganized when your people work from home. Thanks to the collaboration, task management, and other tools, functioning becomes easier with WFH. Let’s quickly go over the tools businesses can use to ensure greater productivity from their WFH staff.

Project Management and Collaboration Tools 

Google Suite:  You use Google Suite during normal business days. You can use this flock of apps for WFH as well and derive equal productivity. With cloud computing, collaboration, productivity tools you can ensure your staff is as productive while working from home as they are when working in the office. Let your employees work from home without allowing them an opportunity to make work from home fun at home opportunity. Help them stay productive with Google Suite Apps.

JIRA Service Desk: JIRA Service Desk is an excellent tool for tracking and resolving requests & queries from your clients who can send requests through email and JIRA organizes and prioritizes these requests for your team to track and work on. To manage tasks for your staff even if they work from home. With JIRA office is where your employees are!

Zoho: A high-end business management tool, Zoho provides a suite of integrated apps including workplace, CRM, HR and finance platforms and more. These apps are built specifically for remote working. With Zoho, it is, therefore, easier to manage your staff members while they work from home.

Backup and File Sharing Tools

Dropbox: In the office, we have to pass over files to colleagues for various projects and purposes. It is as simple as that! You share it through the server, or probably share the USB drive containing the files. But what when your colleagues aren’t around and when you & they are working from their homes? Easier and quick file sharing may turn out to be a task too difficult to achieve. Thanks to the availability of many apps, you can share larger files through the web, without even hitting the size limits most email services impose.

Dropbox is an excellent file sharing app and the best part is it’s FREE. It works on almost every device and most people know about it and use it.

Google Drive: Another popular and most used file sharing platform, Google Drive is also available for free. With Google Drive, it is easier to share documents in real-time without worrying about the size. What’s more, with Google Drive, all files will remain with you unless you manually remove them. Hence, it works as a great backup tool as well.

Time-tracking tools

When you work in the office, glued to your chair, being constantly monitored by your colleagues, seniors, and bosses watching what you do, it’s easy to figure out how you spent the time. But in the case of WFH, you may be distracted by many things and these distractions may devour your productivity. With a time-tracking tool, however, it is possible to monitor and keep a record of how you spent your time. It’ll help you better understand your work style and daily habits, which in turn will make you more productive and focused. Tools like RescueTime and TimeYourWeb, Toggl and Harvest are quite popular among employees and employers across the globe for time-tracking.

Distraction Blocking Tools

Time-tracker and data sharing tools will fail if you can’t focus and concentrate on your work. Yes, fetching the files from Google Drive and tracking time isn’t all, you have to work on it. But in case you are distracted and not able to focus, don’t worry help is available in the guise of distraction blocking tools. These tools block access to sites that may cause distraction.  Few tools used for distraction blocking include Self Control for Macs, StayFocused (of Chrome extension), and others. But, if you need a distraction blocker that works von all your devices, probably you may opt for Freedom or Focus (Windows, Mac, browser).

Video conferencing tools

Working from home has one huge drawback and it is that you can’t interact with your employees face to face. Thankfully, with high broadband speeds coupled with the latest apps for video-conferencing, you can at least have face-to-face interactions whenever needed.

Google Hangouts: This is the easiest and cheapest (as it’s free) option for scheduling a virtual meeting. If you have issues, you may prefer to go with a more professional, paid tool such as WebEx or Adobe Connect.

Skype: Excellent for making audio-video calls, Skype is a widely used tool for making audio and video calls in offices and for sharing documents as well as sharing screens anytime anywhere. Skype is a Microsoft product and enjoys a great reputation among employees as well as employers across the globe.

Google Hangouts: With the fear of repetition, it is important to communicate that Google Hangouts is an excellent tool for remote businesses seeking to conference. It facilitates group chats of 100+ people as well as video calling with up to 10.

Conclusion: While these tools may help you ensure high productivity from your resources as they work from home, nothing can replace dedication, honesty, and loyalty whether your people work in the office or from home.