Telecommuting and working from home have become major trends for online businesses that want big results with minimum overhead. When you think about it – how much time is wasted in cubicles and offices doing busy work, hanging out at the coffee machine and partaking in mindless chit chat? Manage your remote team with ease by implementing these apps for your group to feel in the loop at all times.
Pay your team fast and easy using what may be the most-used payment app on the web. You can have workers invoice you through Paypal’s system or via email, and it keeps track of all of the money that goes out on a daily basis. This is definitely an app everyone needs from the beginning to ensure workers are paid in a timely manner.
It’s free, it’s easy to use and nearly everyone out there has a Google account, so they’re able to view documents, calendars and the like. While Google Apps for Business may not be the most sophisticated option out there, it gets the job done and it works well for allowing a remote team to view projects, ask questions and collaborate.
We’re obsessed with this app because it allows everyone to be online chatting, but also view documents. That’s something we don’t see from some of the free services that are similar to GoToMeeting. With this app, you can even conduct video tutorials and walk employees through how-to’s while everyone watches your skills in amazement.
If you’re an online business where people in the remote team need to meet with clients around the country (or around the world), look at Jing to help you create five minute videos. These videos are shown to clients and the employee can walk him or her through any changes or adjustments happening to the project or website. This is a useful tool because it means giving clients that one-on-one attention without traveling around the globe (which would be fun, but gets expensive).
Countless online businesses with remote employees use Basecamp as their main online home. Instead of emailing projects and assignments to people, it’s all in Basecamp and the employee just logs in, sees what’s on the agenda for that day and gets to work. Basecamp is most useful for online businesses with regular, steady work who work with the same contract employees for a long duration of time.
Remember that no matter what apps you use for managing your remote team, the quality of people you choose is what’s most important. Take your time sorting through resumes and give yourself time to interview the person over the phone or via Skype to get a better judge of character than what’s on a piece of paper.
Reliability is key with a successful remove team, so do your part in the beginning to ensure it’s going to be a working relationship that’s worth the effort on both ends.
