The office tools should allow remote teams to collaborate more successfully and support managers to feel confident supporting worker autonomy in the new hybrid workplace.
So many employers don’t yet notice that modern employee experiences demand autonomy and flexibility more than they need presence.
Since the pandemic hit, technologists have been actively attempting to create collaborative tools to sustain the distributed hybrid future of jobs.
Peek at some of the Virtual Collaboration Tools available to companies.
Every survey indicates workers are more willing to discover a new job than return to the poor old days of presence-based micro-management. Arguments yielding to the workplace augmentation collaboration may have some weight. Still, much of this relies on old-fashioned email and virtual meetings held from the office rather than the home.
About 76% of employees aren’t satisfied at being frog-marched back to work, even at Apple. Employee experience scores have dropped as workers are driven to go back. As Apple CEO Steve Jobs once stated, “It doesn’t make sense to hire intelligent people and then inform them what to do. We hire smart people so they can inform us what to do.”
What makes the return more challenging to swallow is that so many managers haven’t started using readily available project or task management instruments to help them optimize team management in this remote-working era. For example, almost 60% of project management pros rely on meetings as a primary collaboration.
But do those meetings require to be real, or virtual? And to what extent can arise families of remote collaboration and productivity keys help create managers feel better about their hard-working distant employees?
We don’t know the solution yet, but some of the following tools may help us encounter.
Teamflow
This opportunity virtualizes presence and is best comprehended as a virtual office space that endeavors to work similarly to the actual area. That means you can notice who is “in” the office and hear anyone performing near you in that virtual space. Want to articulate with someone? Just drag your avatar over to where they are and start a conversation. Teamflow is an app and is presently available for Windows and Mac. Renditions for iOS and Android are currently in beta.
- What it’s fit for: A good tool for businesses working remotely that don’t necessarily rely too much on distributed teams operating in asynchronous time. It’s very much a virtual office room.
- Unique points: You will like the clever use of video and sound. To be heard (or heard), you must move your avatar close to the other. Asset for document sharing and collaboration, meeting rooms, and whiteboards makes this an excellent collaborative environment.
- Additional features: It supports spatial audio, scheduling, and chat tools and integration with crucial collaboration apps. It includes Slack, Office, Trello, Google Docs, and more. You can also personalize your virtual office environment.
- Cost: Free for five users, $15 per user per month for larger groups.
Walkabout Workplace
It is a browser-based virtual office environment that incorporates secure chat, videoconferencing, screen-sharing, and file/document exchange with reality indication, so you always understand who is available in real-time.
- What it’s appropriate for: Workgroups that want to retain some sense of presence while working remotely but also require the flexibility to support asynchronous work routines and a flexible approach to duration and goals.
- Unique points: You will like the virtual receptionist and guest room features. These seem to deliver a sense of occurrence and space, even for remote conferences.
- Additional features: Private, group messaging, and open channels support corporate branding and conference rooms. In addition, it can “lock” yourself into a room when you require to focus or encounter a personal virtual meeting.
- Cost: $13 per client per month for the first 50 users (the price falls narrowly after that). A free trial is open.
WorkPatterns
This solution seems a little more enterprising than some. The company creates tools for feedback, goal management, meetings, and more as it aims to fill the gap in people management of distributed asynchronous crews. You’ll discover support for one-to-one meetings, successive feedback, and project administration in one place. WorkPatterns doesn’t desire to be an office but to be an interactive and shared environment where goals can be agreed on, and advancement monitored.
- What it’s suitable for: This seems great for managers seeking to gain oversight over their teams; it also looks like a handy adjunct for team members who can gain insight into how they contribute to the overall goals. That appears particularly necessary for remote and hybrid workflow.
- Unique points: The reporting tools appear particularly strong, while the collaboration and document sharing tools are profitable.
- Additional features: This incorporates the great and the good of productivity: Office, Salesforce, Google, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Slack, Skype, and more.
- Cost: Free for five users, $8 per user per month for 25 users.
Moxo
Moxo is built as a client interaction solution that integrates a few remote teams collaboration features. What’s impressive is that the service is made to help deliver white-glove treatment across the client engagement strategy — document collection, meeting rooms, form filling, and task management.
- What it’s suitable for: With a slick user interface, Moxo delivers a professional-grade user experience to reinforce the brand.
- Unique points: Open online and as an app, Moxo sustains your client-facing activity with documentation, to-do lists, and tools to streamline business processes. You also gain access to SDKs to build this experience into your client-facing apps, which lets businesses provide an impressive client support experience.
- Additional features: It has content sharing, digital signatures, document collaboration, and valuable team management. In addition, it has oversight features inside the solution.
- Cost: $120 a month for ten users.
Miro
Already reasonably well used, Miro is less about building a virtual space. Instead, it is focused on optimizing and supporting collaboration with whiteboards, video conferencing, shared workspaces, and support for asynchronous teams. It’s not about creating a virtual office but delivering tools to kick-start the collaborative movement.
- What it’s good for: A smooth environment that surrounds an attractive digital mantle of your existing apps and workflow patterns. It allows the creation of a collaborative space that doesn’t interfere with your personal space. It should fit very well with any institution that has come to phrase with goal-based rather than presence-based administration.
- Unique points: Miro appears to have put a lot of thought into its software, including developing training materials to support managers and staff in optimizing collaboration in the hybrid workspace.
- Additional features: Unified constant workspaces and integration with critical tools. In most brands of interactive displays, mobile devices, and videoconferencing apps. All are presented within a clean user interface.
- Cost: Free for an unlimited number of users, but with limited features, rising to $16 per member per month for the business package, including SSO, Okta support, and intelligent meetings tools. Only enterprise accounts offer some of the most exciting features.
Asana
A powerful solution, Asana skips the virtual environment in favor of providing tools to help teams stay focused, understand the significance of their work, and help get things done. Part project management, part process management, part reporting, and workflow management, Asana integrates with critical collaborative apps.
- What it’s suitable for: This is a slick suite that puts everything in one place. However, I’ve included it in this roundup primarily to illustrate how integrated collaborative project management environments can augment remote working practices.
- Unique points: While Asana is far more a project management tool than a people and collaboration aid, it does help illustrate how digital technologies are filling the gaps between presence-based and remote collaboration and team management.
- Additional features: There is so much here. Built-in Gantt chart creation, helpful process automation, workflow/workload management tools, and goal creation. It’s weak in video support, but it provides a slew of in-app messaging and commenting tools.
- Cost: You can use it free to get used to it, but expect to pay around $15/user/month.