Top Remote Team Management Tools — 2023

For the uninitiated, remote work means employees are working from outside of the office, typically from their homes. This term is almost exclusively applied to white collar knowledge workers who are doing most of their work via computers or communication that can be accomplished across disparate locations.

From an HR perspective, remote work allows for many benefits including  access new talent pools as now you are not limited to your current geography — but it comes with its own set of challenges (more on that below). Simply put, there is something to be said for the collaboration and teamwork among employees that work in the same office, which is difficult to replicate with a remote team. Fortunately, remote team management software helps make it easier to replicate so your employees still feel like they are a valuable part of your organization. 

With that, here are common use-cases for top remote work tools: 

• Video Conferencing: Companies like Zoom help bring remote employees “face to face,” which in turn can improve communication and lead to more effective collaboration. Use video conferencing for one-on-one meetings or large group meetings.
• Team Communication/Messaging: Email isn’t the only way for employees and team members to communicate. Platforms like Slack provide instant messaging services on a one-to-one basis or in group chats.
• Employee Engagement: Get feedback from remote employees using tools like Peakon, which let you plan, track and measure the impact of your initiatives on your people and business as a whole. 
• Company Culture: To bolster a sense of community and company culture, platforms like Slack and Zoom allow teams to interact more socially. For example, teams can create Slack channels dedicated to more personal topics like parenting or specific hobbies. And Zoom can be used for coffee breaks, lunch hours, or happy hours. 
• International Payroll and Benefits: Whether you have distributed teams or an entirely remote workforce, how you offer benefits and perks requires different resources than a company with a single office. Fortunately, platforms like Mistro exist to help you provide benefits packages across 200 countries while solutions like Papaya Global help you automate payroll, reduce global payroll costs and ensure compliance with local laws.
• Time and Attendance Tracking: Don’t worry about remote workers not getting their work done. You can use remote work tools to easily track their time, gauge app and website usage, and more.
• Remote Worker Job Boards: Looking to hire remote workers? Post your openings on job boards specific to that talent-type.
• Screening Remote Workers: Conduct an interview and screening process for remote workers that lets you really get to know them virtually and understand how they work, how they structure their day, etc.
• Productivity & Project Management: Take your to-do lists up a notch with project management tools that track deadlines, collaborators, progress updates, and more. These tools help ensure everyone is on the same page regarding who is doing what, when.‍
• Onboarding and Training: Automate onboarding processes with web-based policies, playbooks, and trainings — and hold them accountable with tests and mini quizzes. Use fun, engaging content, rich media, and more, you’ll get new employees up to speed in no time.

As great as remote work can be, there are some common challenges that can arise if you’re not properly set up to manage it. Here, we outline a few considerations, mistakes, and recommendations so your remote work efforts are a seamless extension of your workforce.

• Miscommunication: When you don’t see or talk to someone face-to-face, things can more easily get lost in translation. To ensure that everyone is on the same page, you’ll want to strike a balance between synchronous communication (i.e. real-time communication through video calls, group chats, etc.) and asynchronous (i.e. recorded video messages, task-tracking software, emails, and collaborative docs). Create a balance/plan that works for your team, and make sure everyone is on board with it.
• Coordination: When work is coordinated, teams are more productive. But when workers are not actually together, it can be difficult to get and stay coordinated. So try to build “tempo” management and predictability into the workday. That way, everyone will know when a certain project begins, when milestones need to be met, etc. Not only that, remote workers can better focus on a given task and NOT get overwhelmed by other distractions, like what’s happening at their home. 
• Time Zone Mis-Management: If your company is global and you have employees working in different time zones, you might experience “work silos” where information and knowledge isn’t properly shared/communicated across offices. To prevent this, create a working “time zone” for your team, where there is some overlap between employees in different geographical areas. That way, an employee ending their work day can properly update another who is just starting theirs. This will help keep communication continuous — and morale high.‍
• Burnout: According to Chanell, “most workers, remote or onsite, experience some form of burnout. However, work exhaustion becomes even more of an issue for remote workers. The workstation is no longer at the office; it is at the coffee table in the living room or the desk in the spare room. It is hard to turn work off when it is so easy to jump back in. Remote managers have to help employees understand why it is vital to pace themselves and set times to recharge.”

There are a lot of benefits to having a remote workforce — and typically, you hear about the benefits from the perspective of a remote worker. To really get a sense of the benefits a company reaps from having a remote workforce, we caught up with Chanell Alexander, editor of  RemoteHabits. Here’s what she had to say about key remote work benefits:

• Having access to a larger talent pool - These individuals want to hire the best, and remote work allows them to find professionals who are the right fit, regardless of where they are. 
• It makes the barrier of entry to business much lower - The traditional components of starting a business that includes renting a building or hiring onsite staff can be costly. Developing a 100 percent remote company bypasses these requirements. 
• Increases flexibility - Entrepreneurs can live in any part of the country they want, while still running their business. This situation allows them to live closer to family, or live in places where the cost of living may be lower. ‍
• Lowers costs - No building, commute, or office supplies means lower expenses. Not to mention, you can hire people who live in less-expensive areas.

Before investing in any remote work management solution, you should schedule a demo with your platform(s) of choice. They’ll give you the opportunity to see how everything works and ask questions to make sure it’s the right fit for your organization. 

Here are some questions we recommend asking: 

• What are the best practices for remote worker adoption on this platform?
• How have you seen remote workers mis-use this product?
• How will this solution fit into the rest of my tech stack and therefore what integrations do I need?
• How will others in the organization use this solution?
• What are the key features I want to ask about?
• What are the things that would make me nervous about buying this sort of solution?

How you implement a remote work strategy is so important for the success of your employees — and your company as a whole. Here are a few ways to make remote work a high-functioning component of your business that keeps employees engaged and happy, fosters company culture, and brings in the most productivity for the business. You can also learn from an interview done with a PeopleOps pro who's run a remote team for years now.

• Mimic your office culture: Whether you’re going fully remote or just hiring remote workers, you want to make sure the online culture matches the in-person/office culture. So think about what your culture is and what makes it work. What makes it fun for your employees? From there, you can think about ways to bring that fun and unique energy to the remote space. Whether it’s through digital coffee breaks, “water cooler” chats, happy hours, etc. And, as budget allows, plan for at least one in-person retreat each year for each team or the whole company so remote employees can interact with their colleagues in person. 
• Create “socializing” channels: Using Slack or another messaging platform, create unique channels specific to different hobbies or life stages. That way, employees can interact on a personal level and get to know each other “outside” of work.‍
• Commit to transparency: To help teams stay on the same page and consistently feel like their work matters, make a commitment to transparency and open communication. The last thing you want to deal with is an employee who feels in the dark on a project or sidelined just because they aren’t in the office every day.‍
• Have regular weekly or daily “stand-ups”: To keep everyone on the same page and help achieve the transparency and communication that is key to remote work success, have each team hold a standing video call once a week or every day where each team member shares what they’re working on, where they might need help, what they’ve learned from the previous week/day that might help their colleagues, etc.‍
• Use a shared language: This is really geared towards global companies with employees who don’t have the same native language. Since remote work is done online and things like shared knowledge-bases should be centralized to maintain consistency and understanding across the entire company, you should opt for everything to be written in one shared language that everyone understands.‍
• Be nimble: Remote work is on the rise, but it has not been the norm in business — i.e. everyone works differently in a remote environment or with remote employees. As such, you should expect some “testing and learning” as you get a remote strategy off the ground and be prepared to make changes as needed.

What is remote work?

Remote work is an arrangement where employees for a company may telecommute and complete their work from anywhere without having to physically be in an office building or on location.

What are remote work management tools?

Remote work management tools are software solutions designed to allow companies to engage employees, collaborate, and grow their business without having a physical office presence.

What are some examples of remote work management tools?

Remote work management tools include employee engagement software, video conferencing software, learning management systems, communication tools, payroll/benefits software, and more.

What are the benefits of remote work?

With remote work, companies have access to larger talent pools, the barrier of entry to business is lower, employees have increased flexibility, and companies can operate at a lower cost.

What are some common mistakes that come up when managing remote employees?

Be wary of common mistakes when managing remote employees, including miscommunication, poor coordination, time zone mis-management, and burnout.