Five Tech Tools to Make it Easier for your Staff to Work from Home

As small business owners everywhere are scrambling to organize their businesses in the new reality of Covid-19, many are trying to figure out how to organize an environment where their employees can work from home.  

I learned the value of creating a virtual workspace when I founded a tech company and carried many of those tools into my current work as a digital strategist. Our core team of four (plus several contractors) have an office space but because of these tools, we have always had the opportunity to work from anywhere. Now that we are working from home in the time of social distancing, this tech has allowed the transition process to be relatively seamless. 

The following tools are valuable for working from home but they can also transfer to an efficient “Face-to-Face” workplace when (hopefully) everything gets back to normal. 

Slack for Ongoing Communication: If your team is spread out, it can be hard to keep everyone in the loop. Slack allows your team to communicate on each project and others can view the conversations to stay up to date. You can share files and there is also a video conferencing option for staff to talk “face-to-face”. 

ClickUp for Project Management: Although I have used many project management tools (Asana, Basecamp, Trello) with many different teams, my latest favourite project management technology is ClickUp. I can assign my staff tasks (and they can assign tasks to me), create a due date, and add any relevant files. The thing that makes ClickUp stand out is that they have great time-tracking tools and the price is very reasonable for a small team. 

Zoom for Virtual Meetings: There are quite a few ways to set up virtual meetings these days (Skype, Facetime, Duo, Google Hangouts) but my favourite is Zoom. Zoom is free for video calls up to 40 minutes and you can have many people on the call at once. The best part is that you can send a link to your guests and they don’t have to download extra software. They can just click on the link and join the call. Great for germ-free group meetings and sales pitches. 

Google for File Organization: There are many ways to store your files online so that everyone on your team can access them. We run everything through Google Drive as it gives us emails, shared files, documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Others enjoy Dropbox (I use this as well) but finding a system to share your files online will be the key to staying productive even when your staff are working from home. 

Hootsuite for Social Media Posting: While everything is being figured out with Covid-19, it is important to think carefully about what you are posting on social media. As things cool down and people are “killing time” at home, there will be a lot of people turning to social media on a more regular basis - how will your company keep them interested, educated, entertained (and hopefully interested in buying your wares)? As you think about your strategy, remember that you don’t need to post every single day. You can schedule a week or two of posts at a time and make sure that you are using your “social media time” to have actual conversations with potential clients online. I have used many different social media posting tools (MeetEdgar, Buffer, Later) but we are currently using Hootsuite to schedule our own posts and those of our clients. 

These are difficult times for small businesses. I’m hopeful that you can use some of these tools to make the new work-from-home reality work for your team. Good luck.

Katrina German is a digital strategist who has reached millions of people through online media. Her book Action Tracking: Master Your Digital Strategy in Under 30 Days can be purchased online or on Amazon. If you need a hand with digital strategy for sales, feel free to book your free half-hour consultation.