How We Are Coping With Work From Home & The Tools We Use
So WFH just became real for most of us. There’s no doubt that has changed our daily lives and all our businesses.
According to the newly released regulations: “Employers MUST allow employees to work from home as far as reasonably practicable. This applies to all workplaces regardless of size and it should be for ALL times, ALL days. If the nature of work can allow for work to be done from home, companies should ensure that all their employees work from home.”
Reference from:
Here at Leads Global, we adhere to and support this regulation fully. We believe this helps to protect ourselves, our families, our clients and also as a social responsibility.
As a digital marketing company, we recognize and appreciate how lucky we are to be able to function as a remote team. Even though we have been working from a physical office for the past few years, we have always been in-tuned with working online.
We have been building, working and improving processes that allow us to be almost 100% digitalized – enabling us to implement the WFH orders almost immediately and seamlessly.
However, our community of friends and customers have also shared with us how this has impacted their businesses and the well being of their employees.
Some were able to adapt quite easily, while others haven’t been as fortunate.
For companies that are still struggling with the WFH arrangements, we would like to share some of the tools we use.
For overall project management:
We use Basecamp – it’s a real-time project management + internal communication tool that helps teams stay on the same page. Almost all our resources and to-dos are managed in here. We have dedicated “projects” for internal teams as well as for each individual client. This allows us to have an easy way to make sure communication are smooth and tasks are up to speed. There’s a Free 30 days trial if you wish to try it out.
For internal communication:
We use Skype & WhatsApp – even though we know most companies are already using WhatsApp for communication, we like to separate our work and chit-chats (no more 20+ WhatsApp groups for work~). We use Skype for our work communications and WhatsApp groups are reserved for fun or leisure chats.
For client presentations & internal meetings:
We use Zoom – one of the most popular online conferencing software right now. This allows us to do screen shares during internal meetings and also does well client calls and presentations. Nothing beats the human touch, but this is probably the next best thing for now.
For cloud storage:
We use Google Drive – even though we store some files under Basecamp, we reserve the bigger files for Google Drive.
To transfer files:
We use WeTransfer – it allows us to share large files up to 2GB for free without registration.
For spreadsheets:
We use Google Sheets – a cloud spreadsheet program included as part of the Google Suite. It is a modern version of MS Excel. The service also includes Google Docs and Google Slides
For automated integrations:
We use Zapier – when we generate leads through Facebook, we automate the integration to send out SMS, emails, update Google Sheets, etc.
There are many other alternatives or similar tools and software in the market and you could already be using some or even all of the above.
But the above list is what we use personally in our team and we hope it helps some of you who are not aware of these yet.