In the past two years, Zerocater has gone from a stand-alone, San Francisco-based start-up, to a company spread across four U.S. cities. Is it exciting to be part of such rapid growth? Yes, definitely. Does it come with a few challenges? Absolutely.
With 100 employees spread across three different time zones, it can be easy to let projects, notices, and priorities fall through the cracks. One of our company values is talk to customers, but we could easily add a memorandum to include talk to teammates to ensure we are properly addressing our priorities while expanding to new markets. Open communication is vital not only to project management and efficiency, but to the overall wellbeing and morale of employees company-wide.
When expanding to new markets, it’s important to keep all remote offices tied to headquarters. This keeps a synergy between the corporate brand and the brand at the local level. In addition, it allows remote offices to have access to upper management, and ensures all voices are heard—no matter where that voice may be originating.
To insure open communication at your company, here are a few of our favorite tools to connect headquarters with our satellite offices:
For project management:
- Asana – Asana combines tasks, projects, and priorities without relying on email. Teams can break down large-scale projects into individual to-dos, and then assign various tasks.
- Trello – Extremely simple to use, Trello organizes projects into lists filled with cards. Track the progress of a task through the project life cycle (Ideas, To-Do, Doing, Done!) and see what your whole team is working on.
- IDoneThis – IdoneThis is the easiest way to track the progress and productivity of your team. Write a to-do list each day, and then check your progress over the course of a day, week, or month.
For communication:
- Hipchat – Hipchat provides group and private messaging for teams. Ping users to ask questions, share files, and collaborate—no matter where you are in the world.
- Slack – A messaging app for team collaboration, Slack uses hashtags to follow and search for discussions across your organization.
- Yammer – Yammer is a private social network for businesses. Create groups, share projects, and easily join discussions.
For brainstorming:
- Realtime Board – Realtime Board is your regular whiteboard, re-thought to be used online. Draw, sketch, or post sticky-notes to share ideas.
- Aww: Aww is a web whiteboard that lets you immediately start sketching out your ideas. Simply invite team members to your board to start collaborating.
- Twiddla: You don’t need to sign up to use Twiddla, which allows you to share websites, start meetings, or whiteboard on a blank canvas.
For presenting:
- GoToMeeting: GoToMeeting allows screen sharing, video conferencing, and even webinar recording.
- me: join.me is incredibly easy to use—share your screen instantly with your team during team meetings, with no downloads required.
- Swipe: Swipe allows you to turn any PDF into an interactive presentation. Teammates can view, ask questions, and respond to polls on any device.
What are your favorite tools to keep in touch with your remote workforce? Tell us in the comments!
