Our Ultimate Guide To Working From Home

As the entire United States prepares to self-quarantine, businesses have been having to react quickly to having their workforce work remotely. If you’re in a business that is lucky enough to not be stopped by having a remote workforce here is our guide to programs or websites we recommend. These should help you get the most out of your team and lessen the stress of change. There are many alternatives to each of these programs which haven’t been mentioned, use whichever is to your companies preference.

Zoom

All of our current meetings with staff and clients are happening over Zoom. The program released in 2012 has slowly but surely taken over as the business meeting platform of choice. With email notification links and an online chat feature it’s easy to communicate to one, or every member of the team in an instant. The meetings can be conducted via video call or just a voice call with the option to share screens.

Zoom is best used in big or small companies that have multiple members of staff and need to be readily available for contact.

There are many alternatives to Zoom, some don’t have video or have paid plans so it’s up to you to decide which program best meets your business needs. Examples of alternatives are: Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting, Slack, Zoho Meetings, Discord and Skype.

Airtable

Keeping track of projects from the conception to completion has never been easier. The cloud collaboration service was started in 2012 and works like a spreadsheet, but with the power of a database. With Airtable you can track a project and assign tasks to each member of the team. It allows everyone to know what their tasks are for that day and they can tick them when completed.

Airtable can be implemented in small to large companies that actively work on projects together. If your team requires collaboration to get a job to the finish line then Airtable is for you.

The alternatives to Airtable are Trello, ProofHub, Smartsheet and Fusioo.

Toggl

It’s important that you can see how many hours your team are spending on each project when you aren’t there to physically guide them. Created in 2006 Toggl is a productivity tool which allows each staff member to download the app or use an online timer to keep track of time. They can then assign the time to each individual project after you allocate them a job number.

Toggl works well specifically for companies that need to keep track of minutes and hours such as lawyers, researchers or agencies.

Alternatives to Toggl are Hubstaff, Paymo, RescueTime and DeskTime.

Hootsuite

Your social media doesn’t have to take a hit when your staff are putting out fires elsewhere. Scheduling social media has became a regular occurrence with the use of websites like Hootsuite. Founded in 2008 the scheduling software allows you to post one time to every platform, saving the hassle of various tabs and numerous hours spent making sure your content is everywhere it should be. Not having to worry about when your next content will go out while working remotely is beneficial for everybody within the company.

Hootsuite works great for companies that are content driven such as restaurants, e-commerce websites and photography studios.

Some alternatives don’t allow certain platforms so do you research on which is the best for the platforms your company uses. Alternatives to Hootsuite are Sendible, SocialPilot, SproutSocial and Latergram.

Mailchimp

Regardless of the business you run you should have a collection of emails, be this from customers, clients or people you work with. Mailchimp which was founded in 2001 allows you to create a campaign to email your list as frequent as you need. You can even set up templates that cover what your company will be doing if it has to close for a week or any other unexpected events.

If you’re struggling to adjust to the changes and need help supporting your business in any way, use our contact us page, we are always happy to help!

Mailchimp can be implemented best in businesses that require regular contact with the public or clients. This is especially true if they attend events or have large inventories such as jewelry companies, realty companies and specialist supply stores.

Alternatives to Mailchimp include: Constant Contact, Moosend, Sendinblue and Mailerlite.

Image sources: Header image via freevector.com

By Jonathan George