Over the past decade, work has shifted from office-based tasks to remote flexibility, with the Covid-19 pandemic accelerating the adoption of hybrid working models. In fact, 75% of employees have expressed that they feel more productive when working remotely, and 82% of workers say they prefer a remote job to an office-based one.
But here’s the catch: remote teams often encounter a whole new set of challenges, with 7 out of 10 remote workers believing their team needs new tools to properly support remote work.
In this article, let’s look at the top tools that make managing creative workflows and teams remotely easier and more efficient.
1. Asana Best for : Teams involved in multi-step production workflows
First on our list of business tools for remote teams is Asana , a project management tool that teams can use to assign, track, and monitor tasks. This tool takes pride in being a “platform for human + AI collaboration,” making it a good option for companies looking to amplify their impact with AI tech. You can use this tool to assign tasks, set due dates, and monitor progress.
Pricing : Free for 1-2 people, paid tiers for teams start at $10.99 per user, per month, billed annually
2. Monday.com Best for : Cross-department creative collaboration
Monday.com , meanwhile, promises to provide an “AI work platform for any kind of work. Though it’s a great tool for creative collaboration across departments, its features make it a great option for teams managing sales and marketing tasks, and IT and engineering projects. This tool features AI Blocks, which let AI run manual workflow sections, allowing humans to focus on more crucial tasks.
Pricing : Free for up to 2 seats, paid plans start at $12 per seat per month, billed annually
Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels 3. ClickUp Best for : Teams looking for one tool for planning, document-sharing, and tasks
ClickUp , meanwhile, is worth checking out if you’re looking for an all-in-one tool for project management. This platform offers a handful of capabilities, including projects, chat, AI agents, time tracking, scheduling, and more.
Pricing : Free for 60 MB storage, paid plans start at $7 per user per month, billed annually, for unlimited storage and advanced features
4. Trello Best for : Simple team tasks and content pipelines
Ideally, the remote services you use already come with built-in apps especially made for their unique functions, such as Penji ’s app, made for design requests and client-design team communication. If, however, your service provider doesn’t have its own app, Trello can be a simple yet sufficient tool for project tracking and collaboration.
Pricing : Free for up to 10 collaborators per workspace, paid plans start at $5 per user per month if billed annually, with advanced features
5. Smartsheet Best for : Tracking data-heavy projects
If you’re having trouble managing creative workflows and teams remotely amid data-heavy projects, Smartsheet can be a smart way to make tasks easier to carry out. This tool offers AI-powered intelligence, which allows teams to get deeper analysis, personalized insights, and tailored solutions.
Pricing : Plans start at $9 per member per month, billed yearly
Photo by olia danilevich from Pexels 6. Slack Best for : Regular team communication
Slack , meanwhile, is a great tool for managing creative workflows and teams remotely through effective communication. This real-time communication platform allows users to organize communication lines by team, by project, and even by client. In addition, Slack also integrates with thousands of tools, including Google Drive, Notion, ChatGPT, Asana, Zapier, and many others. These integrations allow users to manage tasks and collaborate all in one communication hub.
Pricing : Free for 90 days of message history, paid plans start at $4.38 per user per month, with unlimited message history
7. Microsoft Teams Best for : Teams already using the Microsoft ecosystem
If your team and clients are already using the Microsoft ecosystem, then using Microsoft Teams just makes sense. Powered by AI, this tool allows users to keep organized and do things faster with AI features, such as enhanced messaging, cloud recording, and many others. Since it automatically captures notes and action items and summarizes points during meetings, you can focus all your attention on matters at hand without having to write things down while discussing with your team.
Pricing : Microsoft Teams Essentials starts at $4 per user per month, paid yearly
8. Zoom Best for : Synchronous collaboration, creative presentations, and workshops
Zoom is one of the most popular video conferencing platforms and has already become synonymous with video calls. Since the platform supports breakout rooms and screensharing, it’s a tool you can use not only for team meetings but also for workshops and webinars. Its recording feature, meanwhile, makes it a good tool for feedback reference from clients or external teams. Aside from team, Zoom also offers other features, including seamless instant messaging through team chat, a cloud-based phone system, mail, calendar, and scheduler.
Pricing : Free for up to 40 minutes and 100 participants per meeting, paid plans start at around $22 per user per month
Photo by Julio Lopez from Pexels 9. Loom Best for : Creating training walkthroughs, async feedback
Next on our list of tools is Loom , a screen and video recorder in one. You can use this tool to record your screen, your video, and audio, making it a great tool for projects, onboarding, training, and giving asynchronous feedback. Loom can save you a lot of time if your team spends a lot of time stuck in online meetings, and it’s also an awesome solution for remote teams working in different time zones.
Pricing : Free for 25 videos, paid plans start at $18 per user per month, which comes with unlimited videos
10. Notion Best for : Documentation and creating a knowledge base
Last but not least in our tools for managing creative workflows and teams remotely is Notion . This tool is a great option for automating projects and empowering teams to capture knowledge and find answers. Busy teams can use Notion agents to automate repetitive tasks so they can focus on other tasks that need their full attention.
Pricing : Free for individuals, paid plans start at $10 per member per month
Featured Image Credit: Photo by Charlotte May from Pexels
