Nowadays, most companies have had to transition to remote working, either in a hybrid or 100% off-site. The time this unique situation has been in place shows that adapting to such a performance mode is almost inevitable. A new way of functioning means a new organization or reorganizing existing processes. Working remotely also forces us, in a positive aspect, to be creative and find solutions that we might not have known about before. The following summary proves that remote employment organization during the team extension type of contract is much more comfortable using appropriate management tools.

The importance of communication in remote management

Communication is an absolute priority when your team is spread across multiple locations. After all, you can’t walk up to a colleague’s desk or call a quick 5-minute meeting if something critical is happening. Your team will also be able to discover and learn new technical characteristics using communication technology. 

Slack

Part of the Applover team works entirely remotely. The pandemic made direct contact much more complex, so we appreciated Slack even more – it is our daily communication tool. It’s often used as a tool for internal communication between employees or members of a community. Using it, users can have discussions, send private messages to each other, and share links and files. Slack stands out for its integration with many external services such as Dropbox, Twitter, Google Drive, and Hangouts. It also has an advanced notification system that allows monitoring channels and groups or specifying words to notify you when they occur in a message. Slack is available as an app for web and mobile devices and a browser-based interface.  

Facebook Workplace

Facebook is dedicated to businesses and workers. Instead of a group of friends in the messenger dock, we have coworkers. Instead of a standard board, we have one accessible only to team members. Facebook Workplace leverages the entire back-end of the company’s services to augment the simple messenger tool – teams can take advantage of charts, Facebook analytics, live video, and a system for integrating with other services that are sure to start overgrowing – Facebook has made Workplace available to all users.

Google Chats

From one-on-one chats to group chats, Google Chat features make collaboration easy and productive anywhere. You can securely connect with all your colleagues and streamline group work with shared conversations and file and task sharing. You can use Google Chat as a standalone app or directly in Gmail. The system is designed so that the integrated tools seamlessly track communication related to your current activity and suggest the right channel for each type of conversation.

Google Meet

As a part of Google Workspace, Google Hangouts is messaging and video conferencing software. Google Meet is an app for high-quality video conferencing. The undoubted advantage of Meet is eliminating problems associated with people from outside the organization joining the video call. As a video conference organizer, you don’t have to wonder whether your team members, clients, or contractors have the correct accounts or plug-ins. Chatting with multiple people with a fast, uncluttered interface and intelligent participant management is elementary. While the basic version is available to everyone, a complete set of features is only accessible when linked with a GSuite account.

Pronto for Business

Pronto is a platform that supports individuals through chat and video to function from anywhere effectively. It offers features such as automatic translation of languages (which can work correctly in a multilingual team), community messaging, and files sharing. Experience the strength of putting the whole company on one forum for communication. From the executive suite to the frontline worker, Pronto protects the entire company from top to bottom and enables you to submit and receive important organization-wide announcements that keep everyone on the same page.

Remote project management tools

While managing an outsourcing team seems to be a challenge. That is why betting on tools that have proven themselves in many organizations or your industry is worth betting on. Even if you currently manage a smaller company, it is worth looking around for tools that will make work organization easier when your company grows and the number of employees, including those outsourced, increases. 

Jira

Jira is the most popular choice for IT project management. It is a platform for organizing work, running, and monitoring organizational processes. This tool is handy and even necessary in fast-changing business reality and instant access to information, forcing quick decisions. Jira software is one of the best solutions for managing teams and processes in any industry. Also, it is a great motivational tool that teaches discipline and is our go-to tool at Applover.

  • Jira Core – the core platform. A simple, intuitive system for managing the teamwork of any department.
  • Jira Software – SCRUM and Kanban boards, Agile reporting, work schedule (thanks to additional Portfolio plugin). Jira also allows you to use combined methods for both panels, i.e., work within Kaplan’s mixed methodology. Like Scrumban, this methodology combines features of both scrum and kanban. Kaplan is ideal for teams that want backlog capabilities but don’t want to work in sprints.
  • Jira Service Desk – dedicated to teams that handle internal or external customer requests daily with the ability to measure and report SLA.

Trello

Trello is a simple way to organize to-do items into lists visually. But the streamlined application is so much more than that for remote teams. Based on the project you’re working on now, it is whatever you need it to be. Trello has various work and personal uses, including real estate management, software project management, accounting, web layout, and law office case management. Compatibility with enterprise systems or with cloud-based integration services is possible with a rich API and email-in functionality. 

ProofHub

ProofHub is work management software used across the world by remote teams. ProofHub lets managers control their distant groups effectively, assign tasks with deadlines easily, communicate with them, and maximize their effectiveness with different built-in features. Particularly for outsourcing teams, the interactive display and intuitive design make it easy to use and leave little space for confusion. Besides, ProofHub has characteristics that give it an advantage over other tools of its type, such as personalized workflows and kanban boards, private and group chat, to-do lists, and custom tasks. ProofHub is a system for teams looking to schedule, cooperate successfully, and finish projects for their teams.

Find the best employees while outsourcing software development

Finding new employees and the right people for specific projects is undoubtedly challenging when working remotely. Despite the availability of many online interviewing programs in more technical industries, it is worth checking technical and soft skills. To do this, it is undoubtedly a requirement to work with the right professionals or choose programs that will be best suited to your industry. 

Bench by Applover

Bench by Applover is an IT framework that enables potential outsourced developers to evaluate multi-faceted abilities, expertise, personality characteristics, and soft skills. It aggregates data on applicants’ profiles, complements a given applicant’s original psychological research, and provides an accurate evaluation of technical skills. This balance is necessary to avoid potential misunderstandings and personal disputes between the client, the developer, the developer, and the rest of the team. Once the Machine Learning algorithm matches your project with developers, a percentage recommendation is given. If you agree to work with developers, Bench suggests for your project; a meeting is arranged to see if your partnership will succeed. Your cooperation starts with a 7-day free trial. Choosing Bench means you do not have to worry about employee documentation and paperwork. Bench by Applover is also responsible for equipment and workplace support, and you decide whether your team will work remotely, at your workspace, or onsite at our office.

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We have outsourcing IT experience, and we decided to turn it into the best possible option for our clients. With more than 5 years of work experience in the IT field, we believe we can deliver the best possible solutions and match you with the perfect team using what we love the most – technology.

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Radosław Bułat

CIO

HackerRank

HackerRank focuses on competitive programming issues for customers as well as companies. This testing platform for applicants works in two ways. Firstly, to help them evaluate potential developers, it helps to build coding and specialized tests for recruiters. It allows candidates, on the other hand, to train and prepare for training and interviews. It also offers a tool for conducting technical interviews live or remotely. 

Adaface 

2020 is a year of dramatic change, especially in recruiting. Whether you are hiring new talent or experienced candidates, Adaface can help you hire remotely for all positions. With this skill assessment platform, you can verify technical and coding skills and conduct psychological tests. If you are looking for qualified developers, you may want to consider automating your recruitment process by automatically assessing code written by applicants via a built-in code editor.

UX/UI design collaboration tools for the remote workers

A growing number of businesses delegate the entire development process to professional outsourcing teams. It is possible to outsource UI/UX design as well. Moreover, the UI/UX team needs to work closely with developers to have the perfect design.

Mural

Mural is an easy-to-understand tool for visual cooperation. It would work regardless of whether we wish to host a storming event, workshops, scrum events, or have multiple boards at their discretion for the squad. The Mural helps you create a different space for each of them if you operate in numerous groups, making it easier to manage entry and coordinate murals. We often use it with our clients while conducting workshops remotely.

Figma 

Figma is a more modern and popular tool for designing and prototyping websites and mobile applications. It allows you to create interactive views instead of static mockups designed in Adobe Photoshop just a few years ago. It has a very simplified interface, and at the same time, it is very functional. It contains only the necessary packages and tools most commonly used in Web Designer’s work, translating into a relatively small weight of the entire program. Its main advantage is the speed of operation despite several open views at the same time. Additionally, it enables easy editing of any vector files, including SVG, which significantly speeds up work on the project. Figma is different because it is browser-based – it is always online. Thanks to this solution, the program allows many team members to work simultaneously in real-time.

Remote work tools that are always useful

Some programs or apps will make an everyday organization more effortless, and they can’t permanently be assigned to a specific category. Sticking important information on sticky notes is suitable, as long as the whole space around us is not filled with them. Therefore, it is worth thinking about using the right tool to help your work and secure the data more effectively. 

Passbolt

Passbolt is an open-source password manager for teams we use daily at Applover. It enables the entire team to share and store credentials safely. For example, your office’s wifi code, the router’s admin password, or your social networking account password for your company. The password manager for Passbolt is undoubtedly for those with machine and device expertise. While it does not advertise itself as one, it is not a platform for beginners. However, it’s open-source, so anyone can create and use plug-ins that add extra things to do.

Password Boss

This program is a safe vault for passwords. When we use it, we can stop worrying about forgetting access data to essential services. We will have to remember only one password – to Password Boss. Password Boss has advanced features such as safe sharing and inheritance of passwords. 

1Password

1Password is a useful and robust password manager. It securely stores virtual passwords, logins, and confidential information in a secure vault. It is compatible with Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. 1Password has withdrawn a 30-day trial period as company support during the COVID-19 outbreak. Companies can use 1Password Business for free as a 6-monthly alternative.

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Tailor the platform to your remote workforce needs

The choice of tools for remote team management during outsourcing remote workers is enormous. However, considering the company’s needs at the selection stage and adjusting the systems to its preferences is worth considering. Many companies also decide to create their in-house team collaboration tools. If you are also looking forward to making remote team management easier or developing custom software, please get in touch with us.