From being an occasional perk, to turning into a norm, the remote work culture has always been there.
FYI, WHO says there are currently 229,858,719 confirmed cases of COVID-19, all around the globe. And, this clearly refers to the fact that remote work is not going anywhere anytime soon.
But how to deal with the economic downturn that comes along?
Well, there’s good news! Several businesses worldwide are coming forward to help each other. And, as a result, SaaS companies have offered a wide array of tools for firms to manage their employees, remotely.
Taking about the numbers, approximately 72 percent employers have experienced a higher employee retention rate! All thanks to these fantastic tools!
How Can Employees Cope Up with It?
For employees, work from home might create some challenges for people who are used to working from office, regularly. However, several companies have designed their solutions in a way that can help both employers and employees more or less, equally.
There are many benefits that working from home can bring to employees, but it is important to have patience enough to get used to the same.
And, this has proven to be quite true as Global Workplace Analytics says that bigger businesses have experienced more productivity from employees working remotely.
This flexible work arrangement makes employees feel more confident and more independent. Also, less papers have been put down due to the lack of workplace discrimination. Undoubtedly, getting to work from your desired location has made a mark on the mindset of both the parties.
Best Project Management Tools of 2021
With the continuous positive encroachment of technology, going out of your house has become quite needless. And, speaking of managing a project, with such effective and efficient tools, you can easily get your project completed ahead of time, effortlessly.
Now, it is up to you to choose which platforms you want to pick to manage your project. And, to help you with that, we have come up with a list of the best 10 Project Management tools that can really change the experience of managing remote teams.
So, buckle up as we are about to get the ball rolling.
1. Zoho Projects
If you have been working remotely or know people who do, then you must have heard about this project management tool at some point in time.
Probably the best project management app that helps team people plan their work and track progress of the same. Here, you can perform more or less anything that is required to manage a project.
With this tool you will be able to create tasks, lists as well as milestones which help managing projects. From managing the work progress to celebrating hard work. Moreover, there are ways through which you can easily handle the subtasks and recurring tasks, assigned to team members.
The prime focus of this tool is to promote collaboration among your employees, vendors, consultants, as well as your clients.
Now if your concern is visibility, then Zoho has a solution for that too. Gantt-charts. Through this feature Zoho leverages a better visibility and in-depth insights to help your team’s efforts.
2. Monday
With a colourful and user-friendly interface, Monday is here to make your work seem less like work. You can perform almost everything you need in order to manage your teams, work and most importantly, your project. Isn’t it a perfect tool for your modern, forward-looking team?
Here you get customisable templates that enable you to plan, oversee as well as deliver your projects with a new avatar each time.
With this highly-efficient ubercool project management tool you get to view all your work-related data in several perspectives such as on a timeline, map, calendar, and whatever else you require to have a crystal-clear idea.
Speaking of the best part, with Monday, you can automate your repetitive administrative tasks, effortlessly. Although, not all automations can be customised from top to bottom.
Also, the lack of bottleneck identification might bother you at times.
3. JIRA
If centralisation is what you are looking for then this is the project management software that you should look forward to.
Yes, JIRA comes with an array of tools which help you streamline all the work done by your team members. With these tools, you can easily plan the work and distribute it to people. Moreover, you can also prioritise the tasks as per requirement, having an overall full-context visibility.
Providing you and your team members with the ease of releasing a completed project, JIRA also leverages a detailed performance report of your entire team and that too in real-time.
Customisation is also an amazing perk that comes along with this software. It allows your team members to sort their workflow according to what they find suitable.
Also, the templates that you get with JIRA are designed according to the occasion they are going to be used for such as marketing campaigns, competitive analyses, and product launches. This eradicates any chances of wasting time in choosing templates so that people can start working ASAP.
4. Trello
When the ease of managing remote workgroups is what you are looking for, Trello happens to be a great option. It is the perfect project management tool visual planning and collaboration.
Its Kanban style of managing tasks, projects and schedules is a something that turns project management into a cakewalk.
Having been developed specifically for online project management, Trello comes with a seamless yet intuitive interface. With this effective tool, the project manager can easily organise tasks, budget as well as deadlines.
And, guess what, this effective project management tool is completely free.
However, there are a few cons too that would bother you. Primarily, the lack of storage. Yes, Trello provides its users with a limited storage option. So, if you are looking forward to managing bigger teams and huge amount of data, then Trello is certainly not for you.
5. Basecamp
No matter if you are a freelancer, a manager, a team worker or an agency, basecamp is something that can help you in any circumstances. Having a clean design, elegant user interface and basecamp has a very simple functionality.
And, because of that basecamp is quite a popular solution in most organisations.
The tools that Basecamp offers are aimed to help you in organising conversations, sharing inputs, and making sure that every team member is on the same page regarding the ongoing project.
Besides all these mind-blowing benefits, this project management tool comes with some drawbacks too. With Basecamp, you cannot track the time involved in a project, neither can you archive any topics. Also, there is no option for adding subtasks or multiple 3rd party integrations.
This is a primary reason why businesses have been losing interest in Basecamp over time. But, as there is no such thing as an ideal tool, you can consider this tool and give it a try.
6. Google Workspace
Remember MS Office? I bet you do, but do you use it? You do not, and the reason is Google Workspace. Google Workspace offers you everything that you need to do to manage your projects.
Similar to MS Word, MS PowerPoint, and MS Excel, Google Workspace offers you with Google Docs, Sheets, etc. which are quite easy to use.
Moreover, the features of Google Workspace allow you to work collaboratively as well. All you need to do is signing in with your Google account.
Google Workspace often gets disregarded but, in reality, it is a hidden treasure. There are numerous features that this tool can provide you with, all you need to do is explore.
And, speaking of the cons, the only problem that one can face with Google Workspace is the limited space. Other than that, there are no such cons that you can find using this amazing tool.
7. Wrike
Wrike is another cloud-based work management platform that you can find on the Internet, just like Google Workspace. It is a robust tool that can help you quite effectively in managing projects with remote workers.
With this tool, you can easily customise your dashboards according to project requirements. And, that is why it is quite popular among business organisations; no matter it is an enterprise level organisation or an SMB.
Coming back to the features, with Wrike, project managers can easily create custom dashboards to manage workflow functionality, implement workflow automation depending on team-specific requirements, and make informed decisions.
When it is about sharing progress reports with clients, team members or senior authorities, you can do that with Wrike quite effortlessly.
Hence, there are no such issues that you would come across while using this tool.
8. Weekdone
This project management tool, Weekdone, is quite efficient when it is about assigning, managing and delivering projects, no matter the team size.
With this tool you can easily manage the weekly review process which plays quite a pivotal role in maintaining a positive work culture when your team members are working from a remote location.
Also, with Weekdone, you can set up meetings with just a few clicks, be it with an entire team or one-on-one.
With a vibrant dashboard, Weekdone is quite efficient when it is about reviewing work progress. This is quite an important feature when it is about reaching key objectives, be it individually or as an entire team.
Integrations with third party tools are also a cakewalk when you are on Weekdone.
9. 10to8
This is probably the best software in our list when it is about organising team meetings. 10to8 is project management software that is designed specifically to manage communications in the best way.
With this tool you will be able to organise team meetings on a daily basis as well as cross department meetings.
Now, teams often face issues when they have members who work from different time zones as it has a time zone management feature to tackle such inconveniences.
In fact, working on 10to8 is so convenient that you can convert time zones using this tool. No need to use a separate app. Also, 10to8 comes with external calendar options that enable you to keep your work diaries organised, bringing down the chances of missing any meetings or important affairs to zero.
And, the best part, you can easily integrate Zoom to your 10to8 set up.
10. Teamwork
When it is about managing large projects for an enterprise level business, there is no better tool than Teamwork.
It comes with all sorts of project management essentials that is required to manage and work with a large collaborative team that works remotely. These features include, creating, assigning and managing tasks, uploading and sharing large sized files, as well as posting comments.
Moreover, features like board views, Gantt charts, portfolio management, workflow management, time tracking, etc. everything is included here making it a very handy tool for managing projects seamlessly.
Besides all these benefits, you might face challenges while integrating with a few CRMs and adjusting milestones, though that can be easily tackled with a bit of effort.
So, Which One Do You Prefer?
Managing teams remotely is quite a deal in this critical pandemic situation.
However, these aforementioned tools are quite effective in helping you out with the same. But it entirely depends on your professional requirements and preferences which will tell you the best about which one you should pick.
So, which are you going to choose?
