12 Top Tools to Help You Manage Your Remote Team

Managing teams remotely can be challenging, but with the right tools, you’ll spend less time wondering what went wrong and more time scoring wins across the board. This post rounds up some of our favorite tools for helping teams of all kinds get more productive and engaged.

The benefits of choosing the right tool

Learning curve? Maybe. Powerful long term results? Definitely.

Most managers find it challenging to see the whole picture of what their team is doing on a granular level. Have they been productive today? How are they performing? Do they feel siloed? There are lots of factors in creating a successful remote team and it’s easy to overlook how the choice of tools comes into play when it comes to creating a culture that supports high performers.

But for your talent, investing in tools that help them be more productive is key to providing a sense of achievement and motivation.

With the help of these tools, you’ll be headed in the right direction!

SNEAK PEAK OF THE TOOLS 👀

1. 1Password
2. Trainual
3. Krisp
4. Calendly
5. Dropbox
6. Zapier
7. Notion
8. Trello
9. SwagUp
10. Arcade
11. Fringe
12. Seshie

SwagUp Editor’s Choice: 11 Top Tools for Remote Teams

1. 1Password

the password manager for teams

Go ahead. Forget your passwords. 1Password dares you to — secure by design and rapidly scalable, 1Password is a password manager for teams, businesses, and families. Control who has access to what and keep things safe 24/7. The team at 1Password have also generously extended their trial period for companies to get their first 6 months free.

2. Trainual

the playbook for your business processes

Toss those outdated PDFs and confusing spreadsheets — onboard and train employees the smart way with Trainual. You’ll save time teaching people how to do things and avoid obvious mistakes. Don’t waste another second on documenting how-tos and get started with templates easily shareable in minutes.

3. Krisp

a noise-canceling app that learns

Krisp supports any device (microphone, headset, speaker) and over 800 apps including popular platforms like Zoom, Slack, Discord, Skype, and Google Hangouts. Get rid of background noise and echo with one click and stop muting yourself (or anyone else). No need to spend money on ‘professional’ microphones or sound-isolating equipment when you’ve got Krisp. This AI-powered solution processes sound locally on your device and gets better over time. The app is also available as a chrome extension.

4. Calendly

easy online appointment scheduling

Hate phone and email tag? Then Calendly is for you. With this tool, your days of back-and-forth emails are over. Featuring a beautiful and clean interface, Calendly makes it super simple to find a perfect meeting time for everyone — even across multiple time zones. It’s the automated scheduling software you didn’t know you needed.

5. Dropbox

simple file storage and sharing

A champion in the online and remote workspace, Dropbox knows what it’s doing. With impressive storage and sharing capabilities, you can’t go wrong with Dropbox, but heads up! This company’s also working on some cool additions to help you focus more on the work that matters. From Dropbox Paper to app integrations, DropBox is ready to help you rock.

6. Zapier

the easiest way to automate your work

If you’re a fan of never doing anything you don’t have to do, you’ll like Zapier. Described as “easy automation for busy people,” Zapier helps you move information between your most used web apps, including Google Sheets, Slack, and Gmail. Zapier finishes routine tasks for you automatically and is compatible with more than 2000 apps. Bonus: anyone can do it.

💡 Pro tip: Did you know SwagUp integrates with Zapier?

7. Notion

see the big picture in one place

Experience a totally different way of organizing notes, tasks, wikis and more with Notion, your team’s all-in-one workspace. Its lightweight interface means you can stay focused and distraction-free as you work. With slash commands, you have all of Notion’s features at your fingertips. Collaboration happens in real-time with comments. And if you’re tired of ideas getting lost in the Slack void, Notion is ready to be your team’s central source of truth.

8. Trello

a better way to manage projects

Got a lot of moving parts to track? Try Trello, a way to visually organize tasks on a board. Your entire team can join the board and get information at a glance, with individual members able to join cards (tasks) as needed. This is a super flexible and easy-to-use tool with both mobile and desktop versions. Our favorite way to use Trello? The Kanban method.

9. SwagUp

high-quality swag management platform

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention our own platform! SwagUp is the easiest way to create, automate, and distribute high-quality swag straight from one place. Get expert design and feedback on all your swag. We help you ship swag to teams and customers all over the world with the click of a button. Get started today and build your swag pack, browse our preset packs, or connect with a Swag Expert.

🚀 Create awesome swag to connect with your remote team

10. Arcade

helps keep teams engaged & productive

Are you looking for fun ways to improve culture and make it fun? Arcade is the perfect app to keep teams engaged and working towards their KPI’s in a creative and collaborative way! It helps eliminate friction between teams and has everyone working together with games and friendly competitions!

11. Fringe

give employees gifts they want

Gifting employees when they are remote is hard. While benefits like 401ks and dental are great, will employees actually brag about that? Give employees personalized Fringe benefits that fit their lifestyle, with brands like Headspace, Bark Box and Netflix. Fringe makes it easy to provide employees with perks they will brag about with their easy to use platform.

P.S. Did you figure it out? Zapier and Trello are the tools mentioned in our guide to bootstrapping an idea to 8 figures in under 3 years.

12. Seshi

team building in the modern world

Seshie is a marketplace of fun & virtual team-building activities for companies and organizations to book for their employees. Virtual cooking, meditation, mixology, family feud, jeopardy and more. Build camaraderie and memories with coworkers while working remotely. You can even plan a fun virtual activity for the holidays!

Want more like this? Check out what our friends at Toptal have to say!

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