It is not totally strange to hear the words anymore: work from home and remote working sound more and more familiar to us now in the digital technology era. Even more so, for the first time some people are being put in a situation where they are working remotely due to the current health crisis. People with personal and family commitments were working remotely in larger numbers in some years previous to now. The increase in freelance and gig work meant more people turned to their laptop and internet connection and called it a successful commute. The advent of certain technologies meant that people didn’t always have to always go into an office to be successful. Whereas these technologies were only used by a part of the workforce in years previous, the current global health and safety concerns have pushed these technologies totally to the centre of their business continuity plans.

Now, with remote work on the rise in all of corporate culture, one of the biggest challenges for managers and employers is how to engage with co-workers, manage tasks, and increase productivity of their teams during the lack of physical connection. The following tech tools can be used as solutions to help employees stay collaborative, productive, and motivated; and to continue promoting a positive work culture and keeping a strong, forward thinking employer brand.

1. Team Communication

When working remotely, a fluid system of online communication among team members is fundamental to achieve results, as it is not possible to pass by coworkers’ desks to clarify any potential misunderstanding or confirm ideas. Therefore, organizations must set clear communication protocols and channels to facilitate a clear and fluid exchange between their team members when working remotely, right from the start.

To start with the tools free, but so far, excellent, Gmail can be used for formal conversation via email and file sharing. If someone wants to make quick convo or responses within a team, Google Hangout or Slack supports message, phone call, and video call can be a good choice for individual or group chat. Video conferencing technology like Zoom and Meet means we can still have meetings (and even save the recording for later) and share your screen with others to collaborate at a deeper level. As most people in Myanmar are Facebook users, group chat on Messenger can be a solution to get promptly response if team members know each other on Facebook and are comfortable using the platform in a professional manner.

2. Task-management

When we work together physically, it is easy to track a task throughout its life cycle and makes decisions based on the progress. For remote working, managing tasks and tracking the progress are essential for organization to prove that projects are running well and team members are taking on their share of responsibilities and accountabilities.

There are some great free tech tools widely used such as Trello, Asana, Meistertask for building community, cohesion, and cooperation amongst teams. For creating, sharing, and editing documents with multiple users in real time, try  Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides  – a free, cloud-based alternative to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Another great tool offered by Google is an online storage called Google Drive that helps us keep all the documents in one place. The team members have the possibility of commenting or editing the documents, so no information is lost. Dropbox is an alternative when sending large files in any format we want, and has a free plan with 2GB of storage plus offline access, security controls, and multi-device syncing. No matter what task the team is attempting to accomplish, there are tools to get the job done.

3. Productivity without Procrastination

According to an article from Forbes, multiple studies have shown that remote workers are often more productive than those who work in an office. However, not everyone has the natural self-discipline to work well remotely. When a manager or a team leader thinks about the productivity of their team during WFH without wasting time, they need to encourage effective time management for themselves and for their teams.

To reveal the beauty of Google tools for managing time and tasks, Google Calendar, Keep, and Tasks are helpful tech features along with Gmail. A team leader or individuals in the team can set reminders, deadlines, priority tasks and lists to do for each day, week, and month, and meeting slots on them by sharing each other. Other productivity tools such as Evernote or Todoist each are specialty tools that can help a team be more productive as well.

In short, depending on the needs of an organization, someone can choose one or more apps and programs that can help then organize tasks better and communicate more efficiently with remote employees. If someone is specifically looking for a tool which effectively, collaboratively, and reliably helps companies recruit via remote hiring and human resource management, it should not be missed to try Myanmar’s largest candidate database called JobNet.com.mm.

To know more how much this ATS/CRM combination can improve your hiring practice, and what need to be prepared for your talent pipeline, please reach out to us on sales@jobnet.com.mm or 099544591 (77-79).