For professionals that have been able to work from home through the COVID-19 pandemic, the quality of the apps that they use has been critical to their work. Unable to access the technology resources in the office, and relying entirely on technology to communicate while remote or at home, many professionals have discovered the value of a wide range of apps that they may never have used otherwise. The problem then has been in working out just which of those apps are actually helpful to business.
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Video conferencing: The decider
Video conferencing has become core to the way that people communicate through the pandemic, and there have been three apps that have come to dominate; Microsoft’s Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet. Zoom alone, for example, jumped from 10 million daily active users to over 200 comillion at the start of the pandemic and has remained popular – the latest expectation is that its revenue will increase by over 200 percent.
Zoom benefits from being easy to use, highly accessible, and widely available with no catches. The downside is that it has also become closely associated with security issues, which is never a good thing for a professional setting, and something that IT teams within organizations likes to discourage.
Microsoft Teams is a good enterprise alternative. Not only is it backed by Microsoft’s expertise in video conferencing thanks to Skype, but Teams also comes with a host of collaboration tools beyond video conferencing that makes it possible to keep the communication and teamwork going even after the call’s done. The downside to this tool is that it’s nowhere near as useful if your organization isn’t already leveraging Microsoft 365 and other productivity tools.
Google Meet – previously Hangouts Meet – is much more focused than Microsoft Teams and is a pure video conferencing solution. It does integrate with Google’s calendar tools, making it easy to set up meetings and reminders, but otherwise, you won’t be able to work and communicate to the same degree that you can with Microsoft Teams. On the other hand, it does have a much higher grade of security than Zoom, so for professionals that just need the video chat, this might be the ideal “middle ground” of the big three.
Other productivity tools
Working remotely involves much more than video conferencing, however, and professionals will need to make use of a wide range of different workplace apps to maximize what they’re able to achieve. These range from online storage to CRM and even contract apps. Some of the most essential remote working apps include:
- Adobe Creative Cloud: From photo editing to PDF tools, right through to layouts for websites and printouts, the Creative Cloud is an essential range of tools that can be purchased and accessed via the cloud, which helps to make sharing and collaborating much easier.
- Dropbox or Google Drive: It’s not necessarily a good idea to host sensitive documents on these services, as they are public cloud storage services, and that means there are security risks in using them. However, for sharing regular documents and other files these services are invaluable in preventing work getting lost in email.
- Slack/Asana/Basecamp/Monday/Discord: There is any number of collaboration apps that use the cloud to bring teams within a centralized communication environment. There they can send messages and files within the team, providing the collaborative environment that closely emulates the experience of having a team working in close proximity inside an office.
The key to working remotely effectively is to have a collection of Web-based, cloud tools that facilitate conversation and teamwork without getting in the way. Efficiency is key, and anyone spending too long trying to get an app to work, finding the functionality confusing, or “learning how to use it” is going to get less done in their day.
Ideally, the technology should fade into the background – it’s there when it’s needed but it’s never an imposition. No one right mix of tools is ideal for everyone, but thankfully there are so many options now that everyone can find the right mix that may help you run your business from your iPhone.
