Asana is a powerful task and project management tool that improves team collaboration. It helps teams organize their work, track progress, and manage projects, and it does it all with a user-friendly interface. Teams of all sizes can customize Asana to fit their workflows, whether they need simple project management features or complex automated workflows. Fortunately, remote collaboration tools help bridge the physical distances between your teams and keep everyone working together. In addition to group messaging, you can create private messages between two or more users.
With built-in app provisioning, identity management, and integrations with tools like Slack, Google Workspace, and Zoom, Rippling supports collaboration from the ground up. Project management tools provide a centralized view of progress across teams, deadlines, and deliverables. They typically combine communication, task tracking, resource allocation, and reporting in one platform, making it easier to manage complex workflows.
Create a culture of open communication and feedback
- The best choice depends heavily on your team’s specific needs, size, budget, and existing technology stack.
- With the shift to remote working, it is more urgent than ever for companies to adapt to collaboration tools to keep their teams on the same page at all times.
- Lead by example, with leadership and management setting the tone for the company culture.
- One of the biggest factors for a successful workplace is whether or not employees can perform well as a team.
- Unlike services such as pCloud, you don’t need to pay extra for this feature.
- It also helps to look for software that makes it easy to track accountability and adapt as your team’s needs change.
Its cloud-based nature lets multiple team members work on the same design simultaneously. Figma’s powerful features and real-time collaboration capabilities streamline the design process from ideation to execution. Perhaps you need cloud storage as well as productivity tools — Sync.com or Egnyte will give you that. It’s a little pricey, and there’s no zero-knowledge encryption like with Sync.com, but otherwise it’s up there with every one of the best online collaboration tools. You can also access a free trial of the paid plans to see if they work for you.
But with great flexibility comes the challenge of keeping teams connected and productive. Leave the hassle of running a website to the experts, and get back to doing what you do best. Sign up for a DigitalOcean account to start spending more time on your projects and less time managing your infrastructure.
In a remote team, members may come from various parts of the world, each with their own cultural norms, working styles, and communication preferences. As a leader, it’s important to be aware of these differences and create an environment where diversity is not just acknowledged but celebrated. Collaboration tools like Slack for communication, Google Drive or Dropbox for file sharing, and Trello or Asana for project management are vital. These tools enable team members to share ideas, provide feedback, and stay updated on each other’s progress. In a remote work environment, the lines between personal and work time can be easily blurred. That’s why it’s important for managers to lead by example and create a culture of work-life balance.
Whether your team is spread across cities or continents, the right remote collaboration tools can reduce friction, streamline workflows, and foster real-time (and async) communication. In this guide, we break down the top collaboration tools for remote teams in 2025, their key features, and how to choose the right ones for your needs. Using the right tools can make remote team management more accessible and efficient.
Communication tools are designed to facilitate conversations in real time or asynchronously. These include messaging platforms, video conferencing software, and voice calling apps that help teams stay connected across time zones. Tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom ensure fast information exchange, enable quick decision-making, and replicate in-office interactions virtually. These platforms aren’t just convenient, they’re essential for helping remote and hybrid teams work more efficiently, stay aligned, and overcome the challenges of physical distance.
What is Team Collaboration? 10 Effective Strategies for Your Team
Traditionally, most teams take an assembly line approach, with each worker contributing to their assigned tasks in the production line. Any project misalignment is handled quickly, and you deal with fewer misunderstandings that slow down results. When people work together, they share ideas and come up with solutions faster. It gives way for teams to solve problems creatively and produce higher-quality work. A Queens University survey found 75% of employees think collaboration is essential in the workplace.
You can record your screen and webcam to convey crucial information and provide greater context. Interact with your team on the Loom video page after publication, too, driving productivity and engagement in one remote team collaboration place. Start by identifying your team’s needs (chat, file sharing, task tracking, video, etc.). Then test a few tools with free trials to see which fits your workflow best. And if you are looking to add a powerful design tool to your remote collaboration toolkit, Visme is the ultimate solution.
Best collaboration tools for remote teams in 2025
We’re here to help you master the art and become a top-notch virtual manager. The best business document sharing services are safe, secure, and compatible with your team’s favorite tools. It’s easy to create, edit and share workflows in Slack, and, in a Salesforce survey, users report a 28% increase in time saved due to Workflow Builder’s automation features. Remote teams use Wrike to create, track, manage and collaborate on tasks. Wrike’s Slack app lets you create a Wrike task directly in Slack with a popup, where you input the task’s title, assignee, due date and description.
Unlocking Business Potential with Outsourced Talent and AI Tools
- Your team can chat, give everyone access to files, and meet up virtually with this platform.
- Is there anything you can do as a manager to improve their work-life quality?
- Boost productivity with the best AI tools for small businesses like Rippling, Hubspot, and Otter.ai.
- Provides a centralized platform for managing tasks, bugs, and other issues.
- As expected, we put each provider’s collaboration tools to the test to see how they can make work life easier for those developing a particular piece of work or project.
Video conferencing tools enable face-to-face meetings, and AI assistants can transcribe and summarize discussions. Remote collaboration tools are software applications that facilitate teamwork and communication between geographically dispersed individuals. These remote work tools provide a virtual workspace where team members can share files, conduct meetings, manage projects, and brainstorm ideas in real-time or asynchronously. DeskTime is a must-have addition to any manager’s pack of remote team collaboration tools. It’s a comprehensive and precise time tracking and productivity tool that allows managers to monitor how their remote teams are utilizing their work hours. The platform automatically tracks time spent on various tasks, provides detailed reports that highlight worker productivity patterns, and points out potential areas for improvement.
Monday – Customizable Project Management
When you’re in the office, you have to work around very strict time limits. There’s no way to guarantee your team members will read your messages right away. If you have an international team with members in different countries and time zones, they almost certainly won’t be able to get back to you at the same time.
A key aspect of this is utilizing the right project management tools and methodologies. Tools like Asana, Trello, or Jira offer visual and interactive ways to organize tasks, set priorities, and monitor progress. They allow remote teams to stay aligned on project goals, regardless of their physical locations. Equally important is ensuring that all team members are comfortable using these tools, which might require some initial training or regular refreshers. The first step in achieving this is to identify the right tools and platforms that cater to the needs of your team.
Tools like Jira and Monday.com are popular among product, tech, and marketing teams. They offer to-do lists, due dates, notifications, and user-specific dashboards so everyone knows what’s expected and when. These tools are critical for managing day-to-day operations and keeping projects on track.
However, when leaders implement well-defined communication protocols, it helps create psychological safety and enables teams to collaborate effectively despite physical distance. Even with saving time from no commute, it is important that remote workers do not have constant back-to-back meetings. Encourage employees to utilize the “Do Not Disturb” status when doing focus work or needing a break. Leaders and colleagues must collectively respect employees being unavailable. Whether emailing, Zooming, Skyping, or Slacking, 45% of workers feel more connected to their team as a result of using digital communication.
Rippling is more than a workforce management platform; it’s a foundational tool for enabling secure, global collaboration. Designed to unify HR, IT, and finance operations, Rippling helps distributed teams work together more efficiently by centralizing everything from employee onboarding to app provisioning. Look for pricing plans that match your current team size but offer room to grow. Many team collaboration tools offer tiered features, so choose one that can scale as your operations expand. Rippling’s workforce management platform is more than a communication tool; it’s a unified platform that helps businesses manage employees and operations across departments. Rippling is built on an employee graph that ties your workforce data to everything you do—whether that’s automating spend approvals for a manager or security permissions for a new hire.
The rise of remote work is redefining how teams operate and collaborate. Successful remote organizations arm their distributed workforce with the right digital tools. Remote collaboration tools help employees to ideate, keep initiatives on track, and share important documents — all from integrated workspaces accessible anywhere. Fireflies is an AI-powered meeting assistant that transcribes, records and organizes your meeting notes, helping you make sure that no important detail is missed.
