Congratulations! So now you’re ready to take the leap and create an offshore team. Or maybe you’ve already started hiring remote professionals but would like to further boost your team’s performance and productivity.
What tools and apps can best support your organization that now runs in different geolocations and time zones? What tools can we recommend for happy and productive offshore teams?
Thankfully, there are several project management tools a company or business can utilize for their operations across many time zones and vast geolocations.
From communication to tracking software, here are some options used by many forward-thinking organizations; after all, work-from-anywhere is the future.
Project Management Tools
ClickUp
One of the top-rated project management platforms is ClickUp; from companies like Google to Uber, all use ClickUp for their day-to-day workplace productivity.
You will love ClickUp's automation feature that would make routine operations like assigning tasks or changing task status a no-brainer. There is even an option that makes you decide what everyday assignment you want to be done automatically, giving you control and flexibility of the tool.
ClickUp's automation feature also lets you integrate other productivity tools from Calendly to Google Sheets for a single and cohesive workflow. Indeed a practical all-in-one application for your offshore operations.
Like: Asana
Cost: Free accounts available. $5 USD/person monthly for Unlimited,
$12 USD/person for Business
Learn more by watching this tutorial.
Trello
One excellent project management and collaboration tool to use with your offshore team is Trello. With Trello, listing and delegating tasks is easy.
Everyone in the team can see what their coworkers have and have yet to finish, and projected timelines for completing the project are also displayed.
Trello keeps everything organized and everyone updated. Aside from collaboration features, Trello also allows the individual to delegate and manage their tasks to keep up with what needs to be accomplished.
Think of Trello as everyone's bot butler.
Like: Jira
Cost: Free accounts available. $6 USD/person monthly for Standard,
$12.50 USD/person for Premium
Learn more by watching this tutorial.
Communication Tools
Slack
An excellent work chat application is Slack. Communicating is integral to ensuring your offshore team's effectiveness and efficiency, and Slack will make that possible.
Sending direct messaging, making calls, plus dropping essential files or documents has been made easy by its no-nonsense software interface.
Many companies and businesses utilize this messaging application because of its feature that allows for making separate messaging channels. With this, each team working on a particular project can be messaged individually or as a whole.
Like: Chanty
Cost: Free accounts available. $6.67 USD/person monthly for Pro,
$12.50 USD/person for Busines+
Learn more by watching this tutorial.
Zoom
One of the most popular communication tools utilized by everyone, from company meetings to class lectures, is Zoom. Zoom allows for up to 1000 participants in a call, so if you are a bigger company with a vast offshore operation, this is the meeting tool for you.
Aside from that, Zoom allows anyone to share screens for presentations or even training and onboarding. There is also an annotation option and a feature to give you a transcript of the meeting.
Like: Skype and Google Teams
Cost: Free accounts available. $149.90/ for up to 1000 participants
Loom
Sometimes, an email or a quick, direct message is not enough to get your message across, and to remedy that; there is Loom to save the day.
Loom lets you record a video of your screen or your cam to efficiently communicate what ought to be said or what needs editing.
This is an effective tool, especially for hybrid and offshore work operations. One video will be enough to communicate your message instead of individually or group calling 75 different people.
Like: Clip
Cost: Free accounts available. $8/ per creator monthly
Learn more by watching this tutorial.
Payroll Tool
Deel
One of the most complicated parts about hiring offshore is figuring out payroll, and one effective solution is simply acquiring Deel for your company or business. Everything financial from contracts to the benefits and payroll, let Deel deal with it.
Deel also ensures that you comply with local laws and tax rules in each country to avoid any rule being broken. Just pay them in bulk, and they will be the ones to deal with each of your offshore employee's salaries in their country's currency.
Like: Remote
Cost: $49/ monthly per contractor
Tracking Tool
Clockify
To avoid micromanaging your employees, simply clock their tasks and hours using Clockify. This application is a time tracker and a timesheet application all in one. It helps you keep watch of their productivity and how much time it took to finish one task since Clockify utilized a timer.
Clockify will also help the employees utilize their time well, and it will also be feasible data to clients, especially if you bill hourly or by completing each task.
Like: Time Doctor
Cost: Free forever! For extra features, starting from $4.99/user monthly
Calendly
If you are sick and tired of people being late or canceling a meeting at the last minute, it might be time to utilize Calendly to aid your offshore and at-home operations.
Calendly makes virtual scheduling meetings easy peasy with no need for overwhelming back-to-back emails. Its straightforward interface and directions will avoid conflicts in everyone's schedule, so you can finally have that meeting in a week, after weeks of rescheduling or postponement.
Calendly is especially important for your offshore hires with different time zones than you.
Like: Google Calendar
Cost: Free accounts available. $12/ per user monthly for Professional
All Around Working Tools
Google Workspace
Google Workspace offers many productivity-boosting features for companies and businesses. Google Workspace or formerly G-Suite, is a cloud-based service, so any of its features like Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and many more are accessible with the internet and a Chrome browser.
Aside from that, Google Workspace also includes the Editor's Office Suite with a word processor with Docs, spreadsheet with Sheets, presentations with Slides, and Forms for surveys.
Each of these applications can be edited in collaboration with 10 other people, and up to 200 persons can view the work with their computer at one time.
Like: Dropbox
Cost: $4.20/ per user monthly for Business Starter and Standard $9.69/ per user monthly
Canva
Canva is a helpful tool for companies and businesses centered on offshore content creation with a focus on design. It is essentially an online Photoshop for design that you can utilize for brochures, posters, social media content, and even book cover designing.
It allows for collaboration for making new designs, but there are also a number of templates available for pro users. Other than that, it also allows for direct sharing to every media platform if you specialize in social media marketing.
Like: Photoshop
Cost: Free accounts available. $12.99/ per five users monthly
There you have the most helpful apps and tools to set up your offshore team. Get equipped with them and operate seamlessly wherever you and your team are in the world.
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