Best Remote Team Management Software for Your Small Business

Managing a remotely distributed team is no small feat. In fact, many business leaders are still disinterested in the idea altogether. A full 44% of companies simply do not allow for work to be done remotely at all.

Thankfully, a growing majority of businesses are coming around to the idea of remote work, and millions of people around the world have begun to recognize its benefits. Taking on the challenge of managing a remote team may seem daunting, but it’s entirely worthwhile for both your organization and your employees. It’s also quite a bit easier to do with help from the right tools.

The importance of remote team management software

Remote team management software has the potential to be much more than a mere convenience. Correct use of tools in this category can simplify the process of managing team members across separate time zones, streamline all of your communication efforts and even optimize your payroll processing too. Remote team management software is essential for managing large, distributed workforces, but it is also equally handy for those with smaller groups of contributors to keep up with. Choosing and using supportive software made with remote work in mind is a great idea, regardless of your organization's size or maturity. Here are our picks for the best remote team management software for various needs. 

Choosing the best team communication software

Communication software is essential for most modern distributed teams, as it bridges the physical gaps between contributors in a simple, practical way. Without purpose-built software, your team has to make do with tools that simply were not designed to accommodate their needs. Plus, when privacy and security are of concern, phone calls, text messages, and emails might not be safe enough for continuous use. There are two communication tool categories to choose from: textual and video/audio-based. Of course, there are also a number of tools available that mix the two categories together for a more full-featured system.

For text-based communication: Slack

Slack simplifies organization-wide communication with a centralized system that’s easy to use and accessible anywhere. You can skip all of the company emails and CC lists by giving Slack a go. Its channel-based design makes it easy to compartmentalize correspondence and separate concerns by topic, etc.

For video/audio-based communication: Zoom

Zoom makes conference calls and video chats much easier to manage while providing the kind of security and privacy features companies depend on to keep unwanted eyes and ears from snooping during discussions. Additional chat functionality rounds out this platform’s robust communication feature set.

Choosing the best scheduling software

Whether you need to set up a task schedule to help systematize progress across all of your currently active projects, or you aim to schedule resources whenever and wherever they’re made available, there are purpose-built tools to help. In the case of resource scheduling, the importance of accuracy is heightened for remote teams as, otherwise, there is little to no recourse for quickly rectifying booking and overtime issues without physical proximity. You can’t expect to meet a coworker at their desk to discuss project details in a remote team, so these details should be accounted for with perfect precision instead. Project management tools provide the kind of task-scheduling functionality remote teams need to align roadmap phases and brief sprints with your company's objectives.

For project management and resource scheduling: Resource Guru

Starting off our list of the best remote team management software for scheduling is Resource Guru. It makes scheduling tasks and allocating resources incredibly simple with an impressive suite of tools built for the task. You can quickly scan for availability, optimize your use of billable hours with flexible booking, and schedule all kinds of resources from one place. Resource Guru also excels in its project management tooling, providing powerful calendar coordination and reporting features to fit the bill.

Choosing the best work reporting and billing software

Keeping in touch with your team—no matter where they are—is super important, as is scheduling tasks in advance and being able to keep track of them. But being able to track what work is being done and when payments need to be made is just as vital to your team's ultimate success. Work reporting and employee monitoring software makes tracking time much more intuitive for managers of remote teams and the contributors they oversee. Billing and payroll software solutions completely simplify payment processing, invoice handling, billing schedule management, and more. Adding these kinds of tools to your team's repertoire can dramatically enhance both productivity as well as transparency.

For time tracking and payroll management: Time Doctor

Time Doctor provides comprehensive time tracking tools to optimize your workforce's productivity without getting in the way of daily operations. Time Doctor handles time tracking, productivity measuring, payroll management, and monitoring in a way that’s compliant with privacy regulations (such as GDPR and HIPAA). Plus, it comes with more than 60 integrations that you can deploy to pair it with your other management tools.

Choosing the best wiki team software

If your team members are expected to collaborate on a multifaceted project while keeping up with special rules and guidelines that may change or develop over time, then you would do best to adopt some form of knowledge base strategy to simplify the process. A knowledge base serves as a single source of truth within your organization, allowing team members and third-party contributors to seek clarity on any number of topics relating to the projects they’re working on and the best practices they should follow. Company wiki software makes it possible to do this in a simple, manageable way.

For setting up your own knowledge base: Kbee

Kbee aims to be the easiest wiki tool on the market, making creating and maintaining a private knowledge base way easier than the alternatives. Getting up and running is as easy as choosing a plan and plugging in the information your team needs most. With Kbee, you can create multiple spaces to host your articles and benefit from unlimited page views by default as you scale your business.

The right tools can make a difference

Whether you need to provide employees with timely information or keep up with payroll responsibilities, using the right software can dramatically simplify things and minimize your management workload. 

To learn more about knowledge base software and what it can do to help your team, give Kbee a try today.