Online tools for remote working

Over the past 12 months, one of the side effects of the pandemic is that many of us have had to adapt to working from home. This change brought with it personal benefits to some; no commute, fewer distractions, and some flexibility in your daily routine, however it has its challenges.

As an agency we work collaboratively across all of our projects and being in the office would allow quick catch ups or impromptu discussions about ongoing work. Working remotely however has required us to find new ways to collaborate and keep in contact with each other.

Below is a list of tools and systems that we used pre-pandemic that became vitally important day-to-day while working from home.

Day to day communication

To help make internal communication with colleagues and team members quick and simple and to avoid the dreaded 100 long email chain, we use Slack.
Like the commonly used Microsoft Teams, Slack is a team communication tool that allows you to instant message colleagues both directly and via channels. Channels can be created for different purposes, however we use them to keep communication about each project in one place. It also keeps everyone in the team up to date on the latest developments.

Slack also has a feature that allows you to call team members directly with just the click of a button. Slack, unlike Teams, also allows you to create and personalise your own GIFs and Emojis.

Project management

In order to help make it clear the tasks need to be completed, and what the priorities are on a day-to-day basis, we use a tool called Active Collab.
Active Collab makes it easy to assign tasks, brief team members and attach any supporting files. Any updates can be added directly to the task so any developments or feedback on the specific task are kept in one place making it easier to manage.

Meetings

For us the majority of our communication is via email or Slack but often a face to face meeting is required and for this, we use Zoom. We use Zoom for both internal and client video calls . Having a conversation without the typing can help save time and resolve issues much more quickly without miscommunication. There’s also something to be said for seeing real human faces to break up the monotony of another day in lockdown and feel less isolated.

Friday drinks

Nothing can really replace heading to the pub after work on a Friday… But we still try to do something fun at the end of the week to wind down. A Friday quiz is often the go-to option, everyone jumps on Zoom and we host quizzes using an online tool called Kahoot. It’s a fun way to get everyone together to relax at the end of the week.

These are just a few of the softwares we use day to day. Whilst some are new and we hope that we won’t need them for much longer, others are now ingrained in the way we work and we will likely continue to use them when we eventually get back to the office.