Remote work can be a double-edged sword. Research by PwC found that the majority of organizations (57%) are more productive and perform better when working remotely. However, only 30% felt that they were building sufficient levels of trust between employees and supervisors/managers. For this reason, 72% of managers in the US would rather have their workers in the office instead of managing them remotely. Meanwhile, flexibility continues to be a top priority among employees, with several professionals open to changing jobs if the option for remote work wasn’t available.
How can organizations strike the right balance? It is possible to maintain visibility and control while providing employees with the flexibility they need in a modern workplace? These 11 remote employee management tools make the job easier.
- ClickUp
ClickUp is an all-in-one remote work management platform that should suffice for most use cases. It has a documents management module for collaborative editing and co-authoring. It has task lists so that you can assign action items to a remote employee. It also has a performance, goals, and target management feature so you can monitor productivity trends. ClickUp helps to not only manage a remote employee but also to keep them consistently engaged in tasks. Pricing starts at $5 per employee per month.
- Hypercontext
Hypercontext is an app designed for managers to help fuel more productive meetings. It lets you streamline the meeting agenda, online sessions, goal-setting, minutes, and follow-up milestones, into one workflow. It makes it easier to manage remote employees as you can obtain insights on every session and ask the team for their post-meeting feedback in real-time. Pricing starts at $5.6 per employee per month.
- Microsoft To Do
To Do is the popular task manager and daily planner app from Microsoft. It has a collaborative checklist feature where you can assign a task to a team member and follow up with them via the app. To Do lets you add files and attachments to a task as well, and it integrates with Outlook email to simplify task creation. All overdue task assignments will be carried over automatically to the next day’s plan. Microsoft To Do is free for use.
- Miro
Miro is a visual collaboration platform (i.e., a sophisticated whiteboard) that simplifies asynchronous collaboration. It is particularly useful when trying to manage a remote employee seated in a different time zone. The team gets an infinite canvas where they can collaborate, share their ideas, upload files, add comments, and even jump into a video call. The whiteboard is continually updated as and when team members log in, without requiring them to be present in real-time. Pricing starts at $8 per employee per month.
- Monday.com
Monday.com is an online project management tool. It lets you create and assign tasks, monitor their progress, design multi-level approval workflows, and stay connected with the team, through a simple, color-coded visual system. When managing remote employees, users can assign a separate Monady.com board to each employee so that there is a single pane of visibility and control. Pricing starts at $8 per employee per month.
- I Done This
I Done This is an easy-to-use daily check-in app that helps you generate automated daily progress reports. It integrates with your email inbox and task list apps, and at the end of the day, generates a work update. Employees can send this auto-generated update to team members, including their manager or supervisor. You can also view productivity reports for each team, along with a breakdown of team activity. Pricing starts at $12.50 per employee per month.
- Wooboard
Employee recognition is a must-have when you manage a remote employee. The Wooboard app makes it easier to recognize workplace achievements, send rewards, and monitor employee mental wellbeing, elevating the remote work experience. When an employee shows an outstanding achievement or quality, you can send them a recognition via Teams, Slack, or any other chat app. You could also send branded gift cards and conduct mindfulness activities. Wooboard is custom priced.
- World Time Buddy
World Time Buddy is a nifty little online tool that lets you synchronize with different time zones and set up meetings while factoring in the local time for a team member. It is particularly useful for managing a remote worker on a freelance or gig basis, where they may be situated in a different part of the globe. It is free to use.
