At Filestage, we’ve been working remotely since 2015. For us, it’s the perfect way of working and collaborating. Since working remotely creates different challenges for teams, we would like to share our team’s favorite resources to master working remotely.
We’ve also compiled a quick 10-step checklist to help you make the switch from in-office to remote work. You can download it for free here.
Moreover, we’ve hosted a webinar on working from home best practices that you can find here:
At Filestage, we see three main success factors for building a WFH team:
- Healthy company culture
- Workflows & processes
- Great tools
Helpful Resources You Can Share With Your Team Today
We’ve collected some of the resources from around the web that have helped us to build our success as a remote team, to help you switch to working from home as smoothly as possible.
Healthy Company Culture For A Remote Team
Having a healthy culture is vital for a remote team. Here are the topics you should consider.
Provide Helpful Feedback
- How to Ask for Feedback: The Ultimate Guide to Relevant Feedback by Filestage
- How to Give Feedback to Remote Workers by Rudolphe Dutel
- 6 ways HR can help build a feedback culture with remote teams by Impraise
- Feedback in remote teams: The gift that keeps on giving by Hanno
- 5 Tips for Providing Feedback to Remote Workers by Remote.co
Provide Context for All of Your Actions
- Five principles for collaborating in a remote team by Karbon
- How To Lead a Remote Team Effectively by Adam Bouse
Let Employees Take Ownership and Improve Commitment
- Best Practices to Keep Your Remote Employees Engaged by Time Doctor
- When Work from Home Stops Being Optional | How to Effectively Manage Remote Teams during COVID-19 by Linkage
- Everything You Need to Know About Managing a Remote Team by Kisi
- How to Organize Your Remote Team for Better Collaboration and Increased Results by CoSchedule
Optimize Your Onboarding for New Employees
- 3 Tips for Onboarding Remote Employees by BambooHR
- All You Need To Know About Onboarding Remote Workers by Krisp
- 7 Remote Employee Onboarding Tips and Checklist for Your Next New Hire by Owl Labs
- How Buffer managed to keep its onboarding human while staying remote by Freshteam
Stay In Touch
- 15 Virtual Team Building Activities To Level-Up Your Remote Team by Time Doctor
- Remote team building activities: the ultimate guide by Miro
- The best team building activities for remote teams by Timely
- 18 Easy Virtual Team Building Activities for Remote Teams by CityHUNT
“We use the Slack app Donut that is pairing team members on a weekly basis to have virtual watercooler conversations via video chat.” – Douglas McKerson, Filestage
Stay Productive
- Time Management Tips by Bid4papers
How to Stay Motivated as a Remote Team
- Top Tips on How To Motivate Employees In The Workplace by Hubstaff
- Eight Ideas for Staying Motivated While Working Remotely by Influencive
- Four Ways To Keep Your Remote Team Happy And Motivated by Forbes
- 7 Motivational Techniques to Inspire Your Creative Employees by Filestage
Over the years, our remote team has tested many different ways to improve personal and team motivation, and built processes to keep social contact with each other. In the following video, we discuss the most impactful things you and your team can do to stay motivated and connected while working remotely.
Workflows & Processes For Remote Teams
Transparency is crucial when working from home. Here are areas you need to think about when working remotely.
Document All of Your Processes and Make Them Available for Your Team
- Remote Projects 101: The Remote Guide to Project Management By Twist
- Leading a Distributed Remote Team Pt. 3: Internal Tools and Processes by Daniel Yubi
- No Excuses: The Definitive Guide to Managing a Remote Team by Hubstaff
- This Is How We Manage Projects on a Fully Remote Team by Doist
- The Only Project Plan Template You’ll Ever Need (incl. 6 Examples)
- Effective Buyer Persona Template
Master Goal Planning
Goal Setting in Remote Teams
- How to Manage Your Remote Team: Setting Goals by Remote Year
- The Ultimate SMART Goals Template For Achieving Your Objectives 2020 by Filestage
- How to Set Business Goals by Weekdone
Objectives and Key Results (OKR)
- Guide: Set goals with OKRs by Google
- OKR – The Ultimate Guide to Objectives and Key Results by Perdoo
- OKR Guide & Template | Learn How to Set Team Goals by Atlassian
Company Rocks
Quarterly Rocks: The Difference Between KPIs and Quarterly Rocks by Rhythm Systems
How to Build Your Quarterly Marketing Rocks by Marketing Heroes
Revisit and/or Replace Your Existing Meetings
Remote Meeting Hierarchy
- Remote Meetings 101: Everything You Need to Know by Owl Labs
- The ultimate guide to remote team meetings by Miro
- Council Post: Five Essential Meetings For Remote Teams by Forbes
- 5 Types of Meetings Remote Teams Need to Hold by CareerMetis
- How We Structure All Hands As A Fully Remote Team by Buffer
Optimize Your Remote Meetings
- The Guide To Holding Remote Team Meetings That Aren’t A Total Waste Of Time by 15Five
- 16 secrets to keep your remote team engaged on meetings by Miro
- The ultimate guide to remote meetings in 2020 by Slack
- 6 Killing Tips to Create an Agenda For a Virtual Team Meeting by Standuply
- How to Run a Great Virtual Meeting by Harvard Business Review
- Making the Most of the Remote Meeting by LucidChart
“Each of our teams uses video conferencing software to run daily stand-ups, weekly planning meetings, and monthly/quarterly strategy workshops.” – Joe Jarvie, Filestage
During our 5-year remote journey, we’ve worked a lot on our meeting culture and structure. Here’s everything we’ve learned and know about running effective meetings:
If you want to dig deeper, you can find the slides of the presentation above here:
Make Internal Knowledge Available
- Your Remote Team Needs A Knowledge Sharing Strategy by Bloomfire
- How A Distributed Team Can Share Knowledge And Stay Smart by Anders Pink
- Knowledge Management in a remote work era by LAC Group
- Knowledge processes in virtual teams: consolidating the evidence by Y. Fang
Great Tools
Valuable tools are important to automate and digitize your projects. Keep in mind that you need to build the process first before even thinking about what tool to use.
Communication Tools
Overview of Tools:
- The 37 Best Communication Tools for Marketing Teams by Filestage
What are we using at Filestage?
Internal communication:
External communication:
Further examples:
Internal communication:
External communication:
Project Management Tools
Overview of Tools:
- Top 75+ Project Management Tools for Your Projects by Filestage
What are we using at Filestage?
Further examples:
Review and Approval Tools
Overview of Tools:
- The 20+ Best Review and Approval Tools Compared by Filestage
- The 19 Most Popular Design Feedback Tools for Creative Projects by Filestage
What are we using at Filestage?
Further examples:
Collaboration Tools
Overview of Tools:
What are we using at Filestage?
Further examples:
Video Conferencing Tools
Overview of Tools:
- The Best Free Video Conferencing Tools by Owl Labs
- The 12 Best Video Conferencing Apps for Teams by Zapier
What are we using at Filestage?
Further examples:
CRM Tools
Overview of Tools:
- Best Customer Relationship Management Software by Capterra
- 20+ Best CRM Software & Tools. Reviewed. by Scoro
What are we using at Filestage?
Further examples:
Customer Support and Success Tools
Overview of Tools:
- The 12 Best Customer Service Tools [2020 Ready] by CrazyCall
- Customer Support: Which Service Is Best For Your Small Business by Digital.com
- Top 20 Customer Success Software: An Overview by Mopinion
What are we using at Filestage?
Further examples:
Digital Asset Management Tools
Overview of Tools:
What are we using at Filestage?
Further examples:
File-Sharing Tools
Overview of Tools:
- How to Send Large Files Via Email (Without Filling Your Inbox) by Filestage
- 20 Online File Sharing Tools You Should be Using by Lifehack
What are we using at Filestage?
Further examples:
Workflow Management Tools
Overview of Tools:
What are we using at Filestage?
Further examples:
Further Checklists You Can Use
Working from Home Checklists by iAuditor
Conclusion
As you can see, there are already a lot of resources out there. Now, it’s up to you to make the best use of them. Also, if we have missed any important topics, please let us know about them in the comments. We’ll continue to extend this list of resources.
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