7 tools to engage and manage remote employees

Remote working has brought a revolution to the office. Flexible working is now largely considered the norm and it’s brought a sense of work-life balance for millions of workers. While remote work might sound like a way to get maximum productivity and lower office costs, it poses a unique set of challenges.

Employee engagement is a hurdle every hybrid and remote team is facing. When your employees are outside of a traditional office set-up, there are fewer opportunities for building inter-working relationships and a sense of belonging within a team.

With 43% of people working remotely, both employees and leadership are keen to see employee engagement. A study commissioned by Slack found that 85% of employees want to feel closer to their colleagues when working remotely.

These challenges are unique with employees losing the opportunity for in-person opportunities and building relationships outside the workplace. With the evolution of the virtual and hybrid workplace, remote work software is stepping in to offer new ways to engage and manage remote employees.

We’re sharing 7 tools that can bring your remote team together to empower your team, create a sense of community, and engage every member of your remote team.

1. Loumee

Loumee is designed to create happier remote working teams and boost your productivity through education, games, and tools.

What makes it unique is that Loumee is an interactive platform that encourages employee engagement through a catalogue of games and activities.

It allows the form of virtual team engagement that creates the sense of community that remote employees often lose by missing out on spending lunch breaks together or catching up throughout the day.

With most remote employees interacting strictly through e-mails, messages, and video calls, Loumee provides a fun way for team leaders to engage their teams across the world.  

The platform is a great resource for leaders managing remote or hybrid teams.

2. Catchup

If you’ve ever stepped into an office, you know that most employees engage with each other on their coffee break or by stopping at each other’s desks. It’s moments like this that traditionally create a sense of community, and it’s an experience remote teams often miss out on.

Catchup is an extension that you can add to Slack to schedule regular catch-up meetings with your different team members. If Slack had a virtual coffee shop, it would be Catchup. You can schedule these catchup meetings on a daily, weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis.

While it is designed for 1-to-1 meetings, it can also be used for group meetings, as well as for on-boarding and to create co-working spaces.

3. Friyay

Team meetings look drastically different when you’re a remote team. You can’t call into someone’s office to double check their progress or see their current work in progress. Friyay is a remote work software that allows you to connect with your team within just a few clicks.

It’s an all-in-one system that makes it easy for team leads to manage their remote employees. Friyay allows you to create action plans, take notes, establish timelines, and start video chats. These tools make it easy to keep your remote team engaged and to see their progress in real-time.

4. Notion

If collaboration is a concern for your remote team, Notion has the solution. This tool is ideal for team leaders who want to create an easy workflow and streamline the onboarding process. Notion is primarily an organisation tool and helps with managing remote employees working on shared projects or tight deadlines.

 This tool creates one workspace that you can adapt to meet the needs of your remote team by building it from the ground up. Notion is primarily known as a productivity app, but it’s ideal for managing a hybrid team as it allows you to keep all your documents, notes, and project management in one place.

5. 10to8 Meeting Schedule

Video meetings are the backbone of remote working. Most hybrid teams spend their days jumping from one call to another. If you’re a team leader who has a remote team spread across the world, you want to stay on top of different time zones and sync up your meetings.

10to8 Meeting Schedule comes with a Zoom Video integration to help boost your productivity and ensure your remote meetings go off without a hitch. As one of the leading remote management tools, it automatically accounts for time zone management and ensures that you don’t double book meetings for your employees.

It also helps to sync external calendars and provides automated reminders to give team leaders the piece of mind that their employees are aware of meetings.

6. Hubstaff

One fear that team leaders have with managing remote workers is that it can be difficult to judge productivity. In a traditional office, you can see when an employee is working or when they’re falling behind on deadlines. Hubstaff monitors remote work to allow you to see team engagement and productivity.

This remote work software records the tasks and projects that your employees are working on. It allows you to keep track of employees and see how you can offer them support. Hubstaff also allows you to track the time that employees have been working to ensure they’ve got a good work-life balance when working remotely.

7. Culture Amp

Part of team engagement is about understanding how your remote team is feeling. It can be difficult to take the temperature of your team during virtual meets. Culture Amp is a tool that exists to help managers get useful insights into employee engagement, performance, and overall feeling.

This tool provides you with regular surveys that allow you to see how employee engagement is going and how your remote team is working together. You can deep-dive into the information and analytics from these surveys to create action plans. This information can also help to boost employee retention and set goals for your employees and remote team.

Remote working is a relatively new phenomenon. Team leaders are still trying to find ways to engage and manage their hybrid teams. These 7 tools will help you overcome the challenges of a virtual office, remote teams, and creating a sense of community in the new world of work.