A Comprehensive Guide to Collaboration Tools for Businesses With Teams Working From Home
These communication tools can help you stay connected, productive, and engaged while your team is working remotely.
A Comprehensive Guide to Collaboration Tools for Businesses With Teams Working From Home
In the midst of an increasingly challenging environment for small businesses, keeping your team connected is the first step to staying productive. While the number of tools out there might seem overwhelming, the good news is, it doesn’t have to be complicated. I’ve put together this guide to help you choose the collaboration, communication, and productivity tools your remote team can use right now.
Here are the top tools you need to know about:
1. Slack
Slack is a team chat tool that has already long been the lifeblood of many remote organizations. The free version gives you access to up to 10,000 messages in your history and allows one-on-one voice and video calls as well. The paid version gives you group voice and video calls, and full message history. It also allows you to share chat channels with outside guests.
Pricing: $6.67 per month, per user.
2. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is similar to Slack, except its free version allows unlimited message history and more integrations (250) with third-party apps. The paid version, which is included in Office 365 Business subscriptions, allows up to 1TB of storage for attachments, and voice and video meetings for up to 250 people. The Premium ($12.50) plan includes the desktop versions of Office software.
Pricing: $5.00 or $12.50 per month, per user.
3. Google Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet
Like Slack and Microsoft Teams, Google has its own team collaboration tool. Despite the somewhat clunky name, if you’re a G Suite user, you already have access to both Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. That means there’s no free version, but paid plans allow up to 8,000 people per chat channel, and meetings with up to 150 participants. Higher priced plans include more meeting participants and larger Google Drive storage.
Pricing: $6 per month, per user.
