Have you ever wondered about how different remote team management tools are deployed by different businesses? It is because businesses have specific needs, and certain task management tools have expertise in certain areas. While some have impeccable task management automation, others specialise in seamless communication and collaboration between employees.
Do you want to make use of these remote task management tools to manage your business’s daily workflow? If upscaling your business is on the pipeline, it is imperative that you integrate these systems with your operational mechanism.
Having a good knowledge of these tools is necessary for choosing the right ones for all your business requirements. Read on to understand what task management tools are, their different categories, and why they are indispensable for a growing business.
What are Team Management Tools?
Team management tools help you deal with daily workflow without the need to stress over incomplete work. In other words, you can plan better because you know exactly where you stand at the moment. Several functionalities of team management tools include
- Communication: Communication is the key to completing a project that fulfils client requirements on priority. These tools help teams communicate on the go with each other and share files and feedback for smooth collaboration.
- Planning and Scheduling: As a business, you will have projects that are top priority and ones that could be completed with time. Automated planning and scheduling make for immediate action on pending tasks without wasting time on manual delegation of tasks.
- Resource Management: There’s only so much you can accommodate within a fixed budget, and the challenge is to deliver the best possible output. Automated systems of digital marketing promote these task management tools to make sure you are putting the best foot forward at all times.
- Integrated Interface: Certain team management tools make sure that you work without restraint on their platforms. Therefore, they integrate cloud meeting apps into their interface so that you can have a chat with employees or managers on the go. Furthermore, while connecting with customers, relevant employees can collaboratively solve issues with the help of tools like Atidiv’s live chat service, email support or voice support services.
What are the Best Team Management Tools in Each Category?
Team management tools serve a variety of purposes, and some tools are better than others at specific tasks. Let us take a look, category-wise, at the strengths of the most potent tools for managing remote teams.
Project and Task Management
The best task and project management tools are the ones that provide you with a centralised, easy-to-access platform in which you can do everything – from allocating tasks to tracking their progress. According to data, 76% of people face task overload in their offices, and you should use these task management tools to help employees deal with workload in a structured manner.
- Asana: Asana is one of the best productivity tools for remote teams because it lets you organise projects in a streamlined manner. Project managers often struggle to get together the best teams needed for a project, but with Asana, they can set priorities by connecting work to goals. Thus, the employee and the management would be on the same page regarding the expected quality of work. With workflows visually represented before you, it would be a cakewalk to assign work to employees with this task management tool. Ranked 13th out of 20 best software products in 2020, Asana is your go-to team productivity tool.
- Trello: Trello has one of the most structured interfaces led by a Kanban board. It provides an ethical and transparent representation of workload, and employees can make use of the card feature to indicate the extent of progress in a project. Thus, the remote team management software, Trello, fosters clear communication between teams and managers. Furthermore, the cards employees can use are limited, meaning that every employee cannot be assigned work above a specific workload.
- Monday.com: With pre-built AI, Monday.com lets you automate repetitive tasks so that you can focus on the tasks that require urgent human intervention. For instance, hand-picked stocks complete with their associated risks will be before you, and you just need to decide on the financial viability of the move. The software’s AI-powered interface allows you to set realistic goals and engage the right employees for the top-priority tasks.
Communication and Collaboration
Businesses are comfortable with certain task managers also known as productivity tools. For remote teams, it is best to make use of these tools to reduce procrastination, and get the job done by the end of the day.. These are the ones most sought after:
- Microsoft Teams: This software is popular for letting users have access to a host of collaboration features for effective team management. Its functions are especially useful for remote work purposes because new employees need more guidance as they are starting out. In that light, features like remote access to computers helps managers or other superiors to provide hands-on guidance to the newbies.
- Slack: If seamless communication and connectivity are metrics, Slack is one of the best tools. For managing remote teams, Slack is exceedingly relied upon for its smooth file sharing feature, along with its voice calling facility – Slack Huddles. Furthermore, businesses engage employees through different slack channels dedicated to important or fun topics. While managers make use of channels for important announcements, HRs use different channels for fun activities and employee engagement.
- Zoom: This video-conferencing app founded in 2011 became a household name during the Covid-19 pandemic. With 4.5 billion USD in generated revenues in 2024, Zoom demonstrates and underlines the importance remote connectivity has in the modern workspace.
Time Tracking and Employee Performance
The tools that specialise in this category help business founders understand how the day’s time is being utilised. With this insight on employee performance, they can make important decisions regarding scaling. These are the tools that are most popularly used as of now:
- RescueTime: One of the best remote team management tools available in this category, the RescueTime software informs you of the manner the workflow is being managed. At your fingertips, you have the information regarding the turnaround time of each employee. This information serves two purposes: it gives you an idea of what future projects to delegate to the best performers, and it also tells you which employees have been underperforming. To the latter group, you can send across tips and strategies to improve performance.
- Clockify: If a better name could be ascribed to detailed timekeeping, it would surely be Clockify. This software shows you a detailed timesheet, with information ranging from the average time taken by employees to complete a task to the time they spend during lunch. Thus, you have complete control over what is happening in your office and can take adequate measures if something is amiss.
Apart from these remote team management tools, there are others that specialise in tasks like storage of a knowledge base that all relevant teams can refer to from time to time. Thus, task management tools ensure consistency, efficiency and accountability – three things that successful businesses cannot compromise with.
What are the Principal Benefits of a Remote Team Management Tool?
Automation tools for remote teams are a must, even if you think that software cannot make much difference to your output. However, modern team management is a great way to streamline processes and create the perfect framework for employees to work on. Therefore, it enhances accountability on the part of the employee, who has the perfect workload and the resources to deliver quality work. Here are some other reasons why these tools are beneficial for your team:
- Fostering a Positive Environment: Employees can collaborate and communicate with each other on these platforms, thus giving them a sense of community feeling. While these platforms save time with hassle-free communication, they also create a fun environment in which competent employees can learn from each other and come up with the best output.
- Professional Conveying of Communication: With these remote employee monitoring tools, it is possible to do away with hierarchical conveying of instructions. At the same time, the communication is clear and consistent, thus leading to no confusion among employees regarding what needs to be done. Despite working remotely, this is a great way in which you can maintain consistency and quality in work.
- Enhancing Focus: Working remotely means there is less opportunity for time wastage as the employees scarcely know each other outside of work. Therefore, they can focus more on deep work, having a significant positive effect on the quality of output. Furthermore, since every instruction is put forward through the software, accountability can hardly be avoided by any stakeholder.
- Keeping Plan and Vision Clear for Everyone: With a visual workflow, the employees have a fair idea of the company vision, so they can work towards realising the same. Since they can understand how other employees are performing towards fulfilling a common plan, they would be inspired to chip in their bit for the process.
FAQs On Remote Team Management Tools
1. Why do I need a team management tool when my project management team can handle it?
Sure, an able project management team can get things done for you, right from employee management to client communication. However, you need much more than that to succeed as a business. Generating constantly enhanced revenues depend on focusing on more urgent tasks that require attention, rather than the mentioned ones that can very well be automated. Therefore, if you are looking to upscale your business, you are going to need these tools sooner or later.
2. Is it worth spending on a remote team management tool rather than relying on traditional methods of employee appraisal?
Sure, but without a team management tool, you would have to put in hours of hard work to determine the performance level of each employee. Even if you have a small business with 10+ employees, it would take you a lot of time ascertaining performance on the basis of a number of rubrics. With these task management tools doing all this for you in the blink of an eye, you can allocate tasks better and spend time on tasks that need your urgent attention.
3. How do the task management tools ensure consistency and quality in everyday tasks?
Task management tools make way for transparency in communication. Whether it is an instruction that needs to be followed, or a work-in-progress that needs to be tracked – these tools make sure every team member is on the same page. Thus, a continuity in the work process is established, with everyone knowing for themselves if they are living up to the quality of work expected from them.
