Introduction
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McKinsey’s research suggests that 58 percent of employed respondents have the option to work from home for all or part of the week.
This data makes it clear that the world of work is more flexible than ever before. Employees can choose how and where they want to work from. While this flexibility is a big win for workers to decide their environment, it also brings a new set of challenges for teams.
Distributed and remote teams now have to strike a tricky balance for maximizing collaboration between all employees and hitting peak productivity.
That’s where you need the best remote team management software to do the heavy lifting.
We tried tens of remote team management tools to shortlist the 16 best software for navigating remote work with your team and streamlining communication.
Best remote team management tools in 2023
- Scribe
- Trello
- monday.com
- Microsoft Teams
- Skype
- Document360
- Paychex
- Rippling
- PerformYard
- Primalogik
- Google Drive
- Box
- Todoist
- Time Doctor
- Loom
- Miro
What is remote team management software?
Remote team management software includes any tool designed to facilitate collaboration, communication and productivity among remote or distributed teams. This can include software serving different use cases, like project management, time tracking, async messaging, video conferencing, file sharing and others that help remote teams stay connected + organized.
McKinsey’s survey indicates that when employees have the option to work remotely, 87 percent of them choose to take it. So, building a remote team management tech stack is more than a nice-to-have for distributed teams.
You need the right tools to build seamless workflows and maximize accountability among your workers. Take inspiration from Daniel Bustamante’s top no-code tools for working with remote teams.
8 main types of remote team management software
Managing a remote team is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle but with pieces scattered across different locations. In a traditional on-site setting, all pieces of the puzzle are within an arm's reach and you put them together conveniently.
But in a remote setting, you have to painstakingly bring these pieces together and assemble them. It becomes much easier with the right set of team management tools.
In this roundup, we’ll cover the best software for these eight use cases:
- Project management software: Help team members manage projects and daily or weekly responsibilities by tracking tasks, deadlines and progress—leading to better communication and team collaboration.
- Communication software: Provide a central repository to chat in real-time and store information like files, text, audio and video messages. This helps remote teams stay connected around the clock, even from a distance.
- Knowledge-sharing software: Facilitate collaboration between team members by sharing and saving files. You can create a hub for all documentation and make information easily accessible.
- HR software: Help the HR team track employees' data, manage payroll and perform other HR tasks, like leave management, grievance redressal, etc.
- Performance management software: Let managers track + evaluate team members' performance and measure productivity at different stages.
- File sharing and collaboration: Share, access and collaborate on files in multiple formats across multiple devices using file sharing and collaboration software. Create secure ways to collaborate effectively.
- Time management: Ensure that teams are working productively and prioritize their most important tasks. Help workers manage their time and maximize efficiency.
- Async messaging: Communicate with employees and reply to messages based on their availability. Send messages that don’t need a real-time response.
Now that we know everything you need to build your remote team management tech stack, let’s review our top picks.
Top remote team management software of 2023
Here are all the best remote team management tools to manage your employees effortlessly.
Project Management Software
From tracking down deliverables to managing resources and streamlining collaboration with team members, there's a lot to consider when choosing a project management software. You cannot miss out on features like task lists, progress charts, file-sharing, communication channels and reporting features.
1. Scribe
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Capterra Rating: 4.9/5 stars
Scribe Pricing: Available for free
Scribe is a powerful AI-powered knowledge management and process documentation tool. It lets you transfer knowledge effectively without boring your readers. You can turn any process into step-by-step guides, like how-tos, tutorials, product instruction manuals, or training content.
One of the key features of Scribe is its ability to integrate any tool and create a centralized knowledge base. You can share your knowledge with external team members, clients and customers, so they can easily visualize and mimic the process themselves.
Great documentation doesn't have to take hours—Noami West agrees! Create visual, strategic guides in seconds, saving your organization hours and boosting team productivity.
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2. Trello
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Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Trello Pricing: Basic: Free, Standard: $5/user/month, Premium: $10/user/month, Enterprise: $17.50/user/month
Trello is a user-friendly project management software that lets you visualize any type of project, workflow or task tracking. Its interactive Kanban board view lets you create cards for each task and idea, add lists for different stages of tasks and a unique board that keeps similar tasks organized at a place.
Remote teams widely use Trello to improve productivity and streamline project management.
Martins Lasmanis includes Trello in his top productivity tools for remote work.
3. monday.com
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Capterra Rating: 4.6/5 stars
monday.com Pricing: Free, Basic: $8/user/month, Standard: $10/user/month, Pro: $16/user/month, Enterprise: Custom pricing
monday.com is an ideal project management software for all remote teams. It eliminates the need for unnecessary email threads and meetings when planning projects.
The platform offers 120+ project templates that let you execute tasks, projects and processes at scale. You can also expand the capabilities of your dashboard with monday.com's custom views, widgets, automation and integration.
Team communication software
In a remote or hybrid setup, communication is everything. Your team members already have little to no contact and work in different time zones and on varying hours. There's no way you can mess this up.
Remote communication software helps teams collaborate effectively through live chats, video calls and file sharing and collaboration features. According to "The State of Remote Work" report, the most used communication tools are Microsoft Teams and Skype.
4. Microsoft Teams
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Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Microsoft Teams Pricing: Essentials: $4/user/month. Business basic: $6/user/month, Business Standard: $12.50/user/month
Microsoft Teams is the ultimate collaboration tool for remote teams. It is built on Microsoft 365 groups with the same enterprise-level security, compliance and manageability.
Teams have all features you will ever need while communicating with your team, from video meetings and calls to messaging. You can easily find, share and edit files together in real time with your teammates.
5. Skype
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G2 rating: 4.3/5 stars
Capterra Rating: 4.2/5 stars
Skype Pricing: Skype is a free app, but you purchase calling mins as per your location.
If you're looking for a smart video conferencing platform that lets you make HD video and audio calls through a range of devices like tablets, mobile, PC and Alexa, then Skype is what your team needs.
Skype's biggest benefit is that it's completely free, which is excellent for small businesses looking to cut extra costs. On top of it, Skype has all the features you will want in your remote communication tool stack.
Knowledge-sharing software
A knowledge base is an organization's biggest asset. A finely tuned knowledge management system makes collecting, organizing and accessing information easy.
The best features to look for in a knowledge management system are advanced search functionality, collaboration capabilities, version control, branding and customization and integration with third-party tools.
6. Document360
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Capterra Rating: 4.7/5 stars
Document360 Pricing: Basic: Free. Standard: $149, Professional: $299, Business: $399, Enterprise: $599
Document360 allows you to instantly create an internal knowledge base for your customers and employees. You can easily build product help docs, tutorials, online user guides, FAQs, SOPs and private documentation for employees.
Document360 offers an array of integrations (like Drift, Intercom, Freshchat and more) and extensions (like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zapier and more). In addition, it offers version control, localization, custom branding and every other feature you will need to create an excellent knowledge base.
HR software
With remote work setting in, keeping employee information has become challenging. HR leaders need help with recruiting and hiring, evaluation, retention, payroll management, etc. This makes it crucial for HRs to integrate dedicated software to manage information efficiently.
7. Paychex
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G2 rating: 4.2/5 stars
Capterra Rating: 4.1/5 stars
Paychex Pricing: You can request the pricing from the team
Paychex is a scalable HR software that works best for remote teams. It offers daily client onboarding support, time and attendance scheduling, employee benefits and automated employee and tax payments.
HR teams can seamlessly operate on various processes, from recruiting to employee benefits. Paychex provides excellent customer support 24/7 from experienced professionals.
8. Rippling
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Capterra Rating: 4.9/5 stars
Rippling Pricing: Custom pricing
If you're looking for a dedicated, easy-to-use HR platform for onboarding, offboarding and employee changes, then Rippling is what you need. Rippling offers extensive features for each step of the onboarding process, including e-verify, offer letters, payroll setup and employee benefits.
HR leaders can automate training work by delivering the right courses at the right time with intelligent course management. Rippling should be your one-stop destination for all your HR needs.
Performance tracking
Performance tracking can seem like a herculean task for managers working remotely. Since they cannot directly observe employees' work activities, performance management software comes to the rescue.
The performance tracking tool allows employees and managers to set and track performance goals individually and for the team. It simplifies the employee review process and lets managers get a bird's view of how the team is performing.
9. PerformYard
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Capterra Rating: 4.8/5 stars
PerformYard Pricing: Professional: $5-10/person/month, Enterprise: You can request the pricing from the team
PerformYard is an easy-to-use corporate performance management software that manages feedback, reviews and goals. It incorporates feedback from across the organization, including clients and other stakeholders, to facilitate a 360-degree employee review.
Managers can determine individual and team goals and see their yearly progress. All this data is visually depicted on charts for managers to assess goal progression, find trends and identify future leaders.
10. Primalogik
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Capterra Rating: 4.4/5 stars
Primalogik Pricing: Starts at $159/user/month for a 3-month minimum
Primalogik is a cloud-based performance-tracking solution to help managers assess employee performance and development. Its key features are goal tracking, performance appraisals, 360-degree feedback and engagement survey.
One of the key features of Primalogik is creating an unlimited number of questions to collect straightforward and transparent feedback. With its advanced reporting features, managers can get more in-depth insights into employees' performance and task completion.
File sharing & collaboration
Remote teams need to be on the same page to collaborate in real time or based on their schedules. As the name suggests, file sharing and collaboration software help remote team members share files in multiple formats, including documents, audio, videos, images, forms and other formats.
An ideal file-sharing tool should be easy and secure to use, allow seamless collaboration, facilitate efficient segregation and help track activity on the file.
11. Google Drive
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G2 rating: 4.6/5 stars
Capterra Rating: 4.8/5 stars
Google Drive Pricing: Basic Plan (100 GB): $1.99/month, Standard Plan (200 GB): $2.99/month, Premium Plan (2 TB): $9.99/month
Google Drive is a cloud-based storage solution for easy storage, access, sharing and collaboration for team members. It allows users to update access permissions to keep files private within their teams.
Some of the key highlights of this product by users are its ease of use, intuitive interface and low cost. Other features include real-time editing and synchronization, role-based permission on files, file sharing, storage and management, auto backup, online and offline access, collaboration tools, notifications, and activity tracking.
12. Box
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Capterra Rating: 4.4/5 stars
Box Pricing: 14-day free trial, Business starter: $5/month, Business: $12/month, Business Plus: $20/month, Enterprise: $28/month, Enterprise Plus: Custom pricing
Box is a cloud content management platform that allows a secure, collaborative and user-friendly ecosystem for your files. It helps in file creation, storage, sharing, collaboration, e-signature, and classification.
Powered by AI, you can seek answers and insights from large files with info and data, and take important decisions in less time. Box users love it for its ease of use and security. Even though it’s more expensive than Google Drive, users find Box to be more secure in comparison.
Time management
Time management tool helps you list down your most important goals of the day, prioritize the important ones, find time for things you care about and thus keep you sane. You can decrease stress and procrastination while boosting productivity and focus.
This software is essential for remote teams looking to find the best time to schedule meetings, collaborate on projects and track time spent on each task.
13. Todoist
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Capterra Rating: 4.6/5 stars
Todoist Pricing: Free, Pro: $4, Business: $6 per user/month (plan suited to remote teams)
Todoist is a time management tool that keeps track of tasks and schedules them for you or your team members. With this, you can prioritize tasks, track progress, set deadlines and synchronize across multiple devices in real-time. It's suited to individuals as well as teams.
It allows you to create task boards and centralize your to-do list in one place. You can also have project-related discussions in the comments on the taskboard. Apart from tracking, you can visualize the progress in the form of graphs and charts to identify weak and strong points.
Fadeke Adegbuyi uses Todoist every day to block time and organize her work days as a remote worker.
14. Time Doctor
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Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Time Doctor Pricing: 14-day free trial, Basic: $5.9 user/ month, Standard: $8.4 user/ month, Advanced: $16.7 user/ month
Time Doctor helps enterprises and BPOs measure and analyze employee time to enhance team efficiency and productivity. It works in a non-intrusive manner and ethically tracks performance data.
Features like real-time online and offline tracking, automating repetitive admin tasks, integrating payroll tools, video screen recording, and executive dashboards make Time Doctor a great choice for HRs.
Async messaging
Messages that don’t need a live or immediate response from your team can be sent through Async messaging software. It’ll allow your team to respond to messages at their convenience. Remote teams, especially one that has its members scattered across the globe in different time zones, can benefit tremendously from this software.
15. Loom
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Capterra Rating: 4.7/5 stars
Loom Pricing: Free, Business: $12.50 per creator/ month, Enterprise: Contact the Loom sales team
Loom is a video communication tool by Atlassian. You can record yourself, your screen or both and edit it to send it to your team. It can be used to explain complex graphs and data, brief your team on a project, explain a complex topic or align your team for a specific goal using an async video message. You can extend the use case for sales purposes, customer support, marketing and product management.
Once you record a video with Loom, you can embed it into your Google doc, Slack and Notion. Your video message can be transcripted in 50 other languages to help connect people in a better way.
16. Miro
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Capterra Rating: 4.7/5 stars
Miro Pricing: Free, Starter: $8 per user/ month, Business: $16 per user/ month, Enterprise: Custom pricing
Miro helps remote teams create a collaborative visual workspace to help brainstorm, strategize projects, visualize data in real-time and create process maps and mind maps.
Users highlight Miro’s collaborative interface, templates and intuitiveness. Apart from the usual use case, you can also use it to create workshops, explain complex topics to your team and create a client brief with your team.
Zubair runs a remote web development agency and uses Loom + Miro for async communication.
Why do you need remote team management software?
In just a few years, remote work has taken a big shift, and more organizations have started to adopt it. Buffer's latest report shows that 72 percent of companies are permanently planning to allow some remote work in 2022, compared to 46 percent in 2021.
But that doesn't defy the challenges team leaders face managing a remote team.
And that's where remote team management software comes into play. It helps team leaders overcome those challenges and help companies transition to remote work smoothly.
Here are some of the biggest roadblocks you can tackle with the right tools.
1. Managing communication between the whole team
Lack of communication is the biggest challenge when managing remote teams. You cannot just walk up to your employees and ask them what they are working on or have any casual conversations. This leads to employees feeling disengaged and less connected to their coworkers.
That’s why 78 percent of companies have built systems and tools for remote team communication.
Team leaders can overcome this challenge and streamline communication by creating a tech stack and different channels for employees to exchange information and connect with their colleagues.
2. Creating a single source of truth
Every organization has at least hundreds, if not thousands, of documents created, shared and stored every week. Managing all this can quickly get out of hand and result in knowledge loss.
That’s why teams need a knowledge-sharing tool to prevent data loss and ineffective knowledge transfer over the years as new members join. Your documentation includes easy-to-access guides, templates and documents your team members can follow.
Sergio Pereira, a remote work advocate, advises all remote team leaders and startup founders to set up documentation workflows early on to avoid bottlenecks in the future.
3. Tracking your team's productivity and work
Team leaders are used to occasionally hovering over an employee's desk to understand what tasks they are working on and their overall progress or evaluate if things are going as planned. This isn't possible if your teammates are working from home.
Performance tracking tools are the best way to measure employee performance, operational efficiency and productivity. You can set and track individual goals, identify areas of improvement and provide insights on employee productivity trends over time.
4. Streamlining the onboarding process
A recent Slack report shows that new remote workers find it challenging to communicate and find information at work. The HR's job is to ensure that employees are equipped with the right resources, introduced to the right people and adapt to the company's culture as seamlessly as possible.
Remote team management software does all this for you; it streamlines onboarding, provides a centralized space for communication and access to important documents and ensures that employees follow company guidelines.
5. Collaborating with team members from across the globe
Collaboration can be a major challenge for teams that are working in different time zones. Buffer's remote work report shows that about 8% of remote workers find it difficult to collaborate with their teams. Apoorva Govind, who runs a remote team, shares how collaboration is tricky in a remote environment.
Be it working on projects, approaching deadlines or developing your product, you need your team to collaborate seamlessly. With the right tech stack, you can eliminate the physical distance and be in the same virtual space to work together.
Your tech stack should empower you and your team to boost connection, facilitate the exchange of ideas in multiple formats, brainstorm and come up with solutions, and visualize data and processes.
6. Keeping your team on the same page
With remote teams, goals can often misalign and members may lose clarity on expectations and outcomes. Zain Hasan, co-founder & CEO at RTA Group talks about this challenge and how he manages it with his teams in his LinkedIn post.
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The right software stack will keep your team on the same page. This means that the frequency of your team members will match with each other in terms of goals, expectations, ideas and timelines of projects.
Choose the remote team management software your organization needs!
As remote work becomes more popular, the need for remote team management software is only growing higher than ever. From communication and project management to performance tracking and knowledge sharing, there’s a tool for everything.
When choosing these tools, start by creating a list of essential features for every use case and setting a budget. This will help you filter tens of options quickly and make an informed decision.
