The 5 best communication tools for remote working

Good communication is essential to any business - between those within the company as well as between staff and customers, clients and any other businesses you might work with. Even if you’re able to perform the majority of your role successfully from home, there still tends to be huge benefits in holding meetings, conferring with colleagues, seeking guidance from managers and generally keeping on top of what everyone else is doing. Thankfully, there have never been more ways to stay in touch. Here are our top 5.

Instant messaging: SLACK

If you’re still using email to perform most of your in-team communication, you’re probably wasting more time than you realise, between trawling through old exchanges to find what you’re looking for, and getting distracted by other mail. Not only will this secure instant messenger service make online chat faster and easier, it’s also a great way to organise ongoing conversations. Name your channels by projects, clients or whatever is most relevant for your business and keep all conversations and files relevant to each one in one place.

Video conferences: ZOOM

While online chat is often the most efficient option to communicate, there are some discussions or decisions it inarguably helps to see and hear your team for, and for ease-of-use and reliability, Zoom is a great choice for video and audio conferencing. Features include meeting recording, sametime chat and a virtual waiting room - and you can even touch up your appearance if the lack of sunshine and fresh air is taking its toll.

Project management: TRELLO

One of the biggest challenges of working from home can be keeping on top of your workload and keeping track of where you’re at, especially for staff used to having project managers or team assistants keeping them in check. Trello’s digital card system is updated in real time and lets users add comments, attachments, deadlines and checklists to keep the team organised.

Design feedback: INVISION

If visual design is a big part of how your business runs, then something that used to be as quick as calling someone over to show them your screen could now turn into hours spent tweaking PDFs and pinging them back and forth. InVision lets you quickly and easily create interactive mockups to share with your team or clients and discuss them within the app by leaving comments that are connected to a point on the screen you’re discussing.

Team collaboration: MICROSOFT TEAMS

Free to anyone who has Office 365, this is a good allrounder to facilitate a normal work environment, allowing you to share, work on and store documents - as a whole company and in individual teams. Users can also instant message, conference call and conference video call - plus it syncs to your outlook calendar, making diary management easier.