3.3 Tools of the trade

In the remote workplace, there are a number of tools you should be familiar with (from your studies, or perhaps you already use them at home), many of which have become a necessity in recent years. Figure 3 provides an overview of some of the tools available for organisations.

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Figure 3: Remote work tools (Yang, 2020)

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The figure depicts examples of remote working tools in use in 2020. It categorises them according to three questions: 1) How can teams communicate with each other?; 2) How can teams manage projects and share knowledge?; 3) How can teams develop employees and build culture? The first category includes: ‘messaging and email’ (featuring logos of tools such as Slack, Teams, Gmail, and Outlook); ‘video and voice’ (featuring logos of tools such as Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and Facebook); and ‘calendars and meetings’ (featuring logos of tools such as calendly, Google Calendar and Microsoft Exchange). The second category includes: ‘project management’ (example logos are Jira, asana and Monday.com); ‘knowledge’ (example logos are Office and Dropbox); and ‘design’ (example logos of tools are Figma, Sketch, and Canva). The third category covers ‘employee development & coaching’, with examples such as BetterUp, strive and Culture Amp.

Figure 3: Remote work tools (Yang, 2020)

Don’t be overwhelmed by the various programs and systems that help drive hybrid work, as you may be familiar with some of them already, and you are unlikely to need to use all of those shown in Figure 3. Many are fairly easy to get to grips with, so if you want to get a head start, many of the companies that developed them offer free access, user guides or tutorials on their websites; alternatively, you could search online for how-to videos.

However, it is important for you to understand the basic tools your new company uses. Do they have a workflow management system? How do they communicate? It could be useful to ask these questions before you start, as getting to grips with some of these programs could help you feel more comfortable in your new role.