How to Build Happy and Engaged Remote Teams: A Collection of Tools

Covid-19 has forced companies to embrace the remote work culture and work from anywhere is the new mantra.

But most companies / teams weren’t prepared for such a massive shift, i.e. from a physical location where you can do numerous water cooler conversations to meeting team mates online.

The current scenario creates a burning need for a collection of tools that could allow better management of remote teams, help them to carry out tasks systematically and most importantly, create a happy and engaging remote working culture.

We have curated a list of 10 tools that could not only facilitate in keeping your remote teams happy but also increase efficiency among teams and lead to vastly improved profits for your company.


1.Disco

Disco helps you recognize your remote team’s efforts without having to walk into their office for appreciation. This app allows you to give praise and commend your employees for accomplishments of any size in a separate dashboard within Slack. Such asynchronous reward systems are crucial for remote team morale and help in integrating them in a cohesive whole for better efficiency.

It is the best Slack app for all Remote teams who want to encourage team members to work hard and build a culture based on excellence and accountability.

URL:https://slack.com/apps/A0DV3EEN4-disco

2.Donut

Donut is an app on Slack that helps your team members to get to know each other better. By just creating a Slack channel and getting Donut to invite people, it introduces team members through direct messages and encourages conversation between them hence building team chemistry.
This works for both on-site and remote teams, thus allowing your matched team members to meet either face to face or virtually.

Donut helps teams build trust and friendships, regardless of physical distance hence leading to happier employees who like to work with each other more. It also facilitates cross-department lotteries for activities which could include a special virtual company dinner with the CEO or the Managing Director.

URL:https://slack.com/apps/A11MJ51SR-donut

3.Dashlane

Password managers that are safe, secure, and easily accessible are hard to come by. Enter Dashlane. It is a cross-platform subscription-based password manager cum digital wallet application that is available on a multitude of platforms such as macOS, iOS, Windows, and Android. Moreover, it uses a Freemium pricing model that allows users to have the option of both a free tier and a premium subscription.

Dashlane not only keeps you safe but also makes it easier for team members to log into essential tools leading to increased productivity and increased profits for your company. Dashlane has got some amazing reviews, with 4.7 out of 5 on G2 Crowd, and 8.7 out of 10 on TrustRadius.

URL:https://www.dashlane.com/

4.Scoro

Scoro is a highly reliable work management application that combines various tools that help you to manage projects, keep a tab on billing and sales, and even ensure employee collaboration no matter what the distance. Not only can you manage your remote teams efficiently, but you can also run your company, even in the comfort of your home.

Scoro also has a brilliant feature that combines time tracking with your projects and CRM, enhancing quality collaboration and making managing your business much easier than usual.

URL:https://www.scoro.com/

5.Trivia

Do you enjoy answering questions or talking random trivia with your colleagues during your coffee break? Trivia a suite of four games designed for Slack and Microsoft Teams:

Trivia Quizzes: It offers tons of fun and engaging trivia quizzes for you and your teammates.
Word Puzzle s: Ever wondered who was the word sorcerer among your team? Find out with this anagram puzzle.
Gotcha!: You can now pose multiple-choice questions for your players. They get points for getting it right, and you can earn points by fooling them with the wrong answer.
(Un)Popular Opinions: Along with the fun elements, Trivia allows you to get votes on any subject from your Slack team allowing you to make better decisions on the go.

URL:https://slack.com/apps/A012T9P9VQF-trivia

6.Join. me

Join.me is one of the most popular online meetings apps on the web, carefully and veritably designed for individuals and businesses to conduct meetings with their teams on the go. It can conveniently be used by simply making your free account or inserting a meeting code in a box on the home page. It’s such an amazing tool that it will definitely make you want to continue taking advantage of its wonderful features over and over again. May it be scheduling meetings for later or meetings on the go, Join.me is a great tool for both.

A cornucopia of features such as video conferencing, audio conferencing, whiteboarding, screen sharing makes it a highly attractive tool for all its users.

URL:https://www.join.me/

7.World Time Buddy

It is often seen that geographically disseminated teams often find it troublesome to schedule meetings at times that are convenient for everyone. World Time Buddy solves this problem for you. By adding the locations of your teammates, you can drag and drop the slider to find a good time to meet that is fairly agreeable for all parties involved.

Although the free version only allows you to coordinate between 4 locations, the annual plan is super affordable and allows unlimited locations to be coordinated at a cost of merely $60 per year.

URL:https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/

8.Simple Poll

Simple Poll lets you create your polls right within Slack. You can make it fun by giving your teammates a breather with interesting non-work-related polls. Simple Poll is a widely used tool by plenty of teams on Slack.

On the business side of things, you can even make your own anonymous polls to get your team’s thoughts on pivotal company issues that your teammates may not be willing to answer directly.

URL:https://simplepoll.rocks/

9.HeyTaco!

In our busy lives, you can often get so immersed in work that it gets so strenuous for you and your team members that productivity starts to go down. It’s not rare to get caught up so much in work that you forget to recognize your team members and have a little fun with them. HeyTaco! is here to change things.

It sparks conversations and helps you to build stronger bonds with its fun and unique kindness currency…tacos! Also, celebrating as a team or individual is a healthy and fun activity that we often forget to do however the taco emojis create that vibe of celebration in your chats with your users. Furthermore, employees can redeem these tacos for their remote-friendly custom rewards leading to increased happiness and motivation for your team members.

URL:https://www.heytaco.chat/

10.Lounge Games

Lounge is an enjoyable and lightweight way to help you in bringing your team together. Hundreds of teams worldwide do just their ‘’SUPER FUN GAME COLLECTION’’ for their recreation. These games are made to serve as social activities to cut through the unwanted small talk and give you and your team some necessary break from your intense workdays like Pictionary, Codenames, and many more!

The dazzling game rooms get people to open up and help even the introverts express themselves like the extroverts. The option to host regular happy hours & game nights can do magic to your team’s productivity in regular working hours.

URL:https://getlounge.app/

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