As the world continues to face the coronavirus pandemic, many workers have been forced to work from home to slow down the spread of the virus. This has resulted in a sharp drop in productivity levels in most businesses, particularly those that have never had to work remotely before. However, this doesn’t have to be the case for your business. We are living in the digital age where there are countless tools that you can use to streamline your business operations, remove excess downtime among remote workers, and improve overall productivity.
Project management tools
Managing a work project that involves multiple employees can be challenging for any business owner when they are working remotely. But, thanks to project management tools like Asana and Slack, you can improve project handling and ensure that every person that is working on the project is always on the same page. A project management tool allows you to create and track projects, assign roles, set deadlines, and share notes all in one convenient place where every employee involved can see. It also makes it easier to manage project budgets more efficiently by providing accurate budget forecasts, tracking all project costs, and allocating resources where they’re needed most.
Time tracking tools
One of the main reasons why many business owners are reluctant to try remote working programs is their inability to supervise employees directly to ensure that they’re not slacking off. When working at home, some employees may waste valuable hours on distractions like TV, games, and social media while some may even choose not to work at all. This is why you need a time tracking tool like Everyhour or Toggl. With a time tracker, you can keep a closer eye on how your remote employees are spending every hour of their workday.
Employees can input various details into the time tracking tool, including the projects they’re handling, the time they start working on them, and how long it takes them to finish such projects. This allows you to track time on client projects with a lot more precision — which ultimately means less missed billables and consequently more revenue. You can also use this data to make various adjustments aimed at improving efficiency and reducing the time it takes employees to do various tasks.
Cloud-based storage
Storing your business data in cloud-based storage is the way to go if you want to make it easier for your remote team to access it whenever they need to. Cloud-based storage allows you to keep your data in a central location, which every employee can access from any part of the world as long as they have internet access, a computer or smartphone, and the login credentials. It also allows employees to save work projects, expense reports, and other sensitive data in a place where they know it’s safely stored and can be easily retrieved. However, using cloud-based storage can expose your business to various cyberthreats, which is why you must take various measures to safeguard your sensitive data including data encryption, intrusion detection systems, and strong anti-malware systems.
With remote working quickly becoming the norm, every business owner must focus on establishing the right processes and deploying the right tools to ensure a smooth transition. With such tools, business owners can ensure that they maintain normal productivity levels or even exceed them.
