These days, businesses don’t work like they used to. Instead of finding every employee working nine to five in an office setting, many people are choosing to work from home or from other locations, and work at various hours throughout the day. This can actually be a much more productive way to run a business, as long as your remote team members are actually being productive. And, of course, tools help a remote team stay productive. Here are eight productivity tools you can use to keep your remote team working well.

Here is a messaging app that your entire team can use, so you can always be collaborating and working together. Organize team conversations in open channels, and make channels for specific projects, topics, teams, and just about anything else you can think of. There are private channels for sensitive information, and you can also send direct messages to colleagues.

This app will help you to learn exactly how time is spent within your business, and learn more about improving your own personal productivity. Learn about how much time everyone is spending on email, and how to get things back on track so everyone, including yourself, is as productive as possible. Time Doctor has a free 30-day trial available.

Enjoy using the easiest visual collaboration platform for UX/UI designers, project leaders, marketers, product teams, and more. The infinite online whiteboard provides you with a “thinking toolkit”, as well as real-time collaboration that has been created for teams. You can choose from many templates, and get started on brainstorming, user story maps, agile boards, etc.

This is a world clock, a time zone converter, and an online meeting scheduler that you can use to increase productivity within your team. It’s one of the best tools you can have for productivity, especially for colleagues who are traveling. It is ideal for online meetings for a distributed team, or simply for calling your loved ones all over the world.

The boards, lists, and cards let you get better organized and prioritize all of your projects easily. You can add comments, attachments, and more to Trello cards, and collaborate on projects from start to finish. Work with anyone, from anywhere, and integrate the apps that you and your team are already using right into the workflow. You can get insight into every project right in Trello.

When you need safe storage for all of your files, this is the app to use. You will have 15 GB of free storage for photos, documents, and any other digital file you need to store for later use. Files are safe, but easily accessible by you and your team, and you can access them from any device. Organize items quickly and easily, and then share them and collaborate with your team.

Want to talk and collaborate with your team no matter where they’re located? Or maybe you’d like to host an online event and invite hundreds of attendees to listen to your presentation and take part in a Q&A session? GetResponse Webinars lets you host and run webinars that happen live or can be access on-demand. It also lets you monetize your meetings by organizing paid webinars. The best thing is that it comes with all the other tools available in GetResponse, so you can run a full webinar promotional campaign using Facebook ads, landing pages, and email marketing.

Your customers will love this easy to use help desk, which gives them amazing personal support. It’s the best ticketing system for teams, allowing you to collaborate on all customer calls, social media posts, live chats, and calls. It works with all email software, and it is completely customizable for your business. Productivity is increased when customers are able to help themselves and not make as many support requests directly to you.

Over to You

Do you have a remote team for your business? What tools do you use to stay productive? Tell us about it in the comments!