Communication Apps for Working Remotely

As companies grow and technology makes video communication from anywhere a simple feat, there is an increasing trend of more employees working remotely. Recent studies show that 3.7 million employees now work from home at least half of the week, that’s 2.8% of the U.S.’s workforce and a 103% increase from the number of employees working from home in 2005. Easy to say that this trend will keep on growing as many workers find working remotely to be more convenient, comfortable, and more productive because there’s no distractions from others. While people are enjoying working from home, communicating with coworkers remotely is a necessity. Check out these 5 apps that make interacting between team members while working from separate locations a simple and effective task.

1. Slack

Slack is a simple messaging app for teams. Use this tool to instantly private message individual teammates even when you are not in the office. You can also create different channels for different teams or projects to keep your conversations organized. Slack is available in a desktop app or a mobile app to always be connected to your team.

2. Skype

A well-known service for video chatting. You probably use Skype in your personal life, but it can be an effect tool to have meetings with coworkers when you are both out of the office. Video chatting is the closest thing to meeting in person. Use Skype when you have important projects to talk about so things don’t get lost in translation when communicating over email.

3. Trello

An easy to use project and task manager your whole team can use. Trello offers an app as well as an online account you can easily sign into and bounce between projects and tasks. The best part about Trello is you can simply click and drag tasks or ‘cards’ to different projects to stay organized and on top of your to-do’s. Need the whole team on one project? Share a project on Trello so your whole team has access to see what needs to get done and who’s in charge of the task.

4. Dropbox

Save important files in the cloud so your whole team can access them anytime, anywhere. Save yourself and your team the trouble of updating a file and having to email your team the doc. Updated files can easily get lost in an email overload nightmare. Instead update shared files through Dropbox so everyone has the latest document instantly. Then message your teammate through Slack to have them take a look at your edits to the file. The most efficient way to share files.

5. YouMail

Forward important voicemails with the YouMail app. Sometimes you receive important messages from clients or a coworker. If you need a teammate to have a copy of the message or respond to the message it’s easiest to forward the voicemail to your team instead of having to write down the contents in an email. Save time and simply forward the important message directly through the YouMail app by clicking on ‘Forward’ in the details menu when viewing a specific message and the voicemail will be sent to your teammate’s email address.