Remote work has become the norm nowadays, as the pandemic has forced business leaders around the world to send their employees home and migrate their operations online. While there are many benefits of the remote work model, there’s no denying that enabling a remote workforce can be a difficult task. Not only do you need to leverage the right Chrome extensions to make your work more efficient, but you also need to start using the right internal tools to ensure seamless communication and collaboration.

One of the best ways to achieve all of this right now is to make better use of the Google Workspace suite of tools. Google Workspace is a comprehensive system that has all the tools and features you need to manage a remote workforce seamlessly and achieve better results while working remotely. That said, you need to know how to maximize the potential of the Google Workspace platform.

Here are the five tips you can use for better remote team collaboration, communication, and management. 

Create project or team rooms

One of the most useful features in Google Workspace is the Chat tool, which allows you to create projects or team rooms in Chat or even in the Chat section in Gmail. This feature is great for bringing remote teams and employees together on a centralized communication platform. You can put different team members in different chat rooms so that they can communicate and collaborate easily with different departments as well, effectively eliminating department silos in your business.

This will allow your teams to communicate in real time about projects and concrete tasks, goals and KPIs, and they will also be able to brainstorm with ease, exchange valuable information, and more. Chat is a useful feature for driving innovation forward in the new normal as well, as it eliminates communication bottlenecks and allows everyone to contribute to the conversation. 

Access important work data from anywhere

Google Drive is an integral tool in the Google Workspace platform, and it is one of the most popular file storage and sharing tools in the online world. Whether you’re trying to build a successful software business remotely or if you are managing numerous clients digitally, it’s important to have a file sharing tool at your disposal that everyone in your company can access securely from any device. 

Google Drive allows you and your employees to seamlessly share important files and folders with each other, grant different levels of access to different people, and stay in full control of your work. For example, some employees might only get commenting rights on certain files while others might get editing privileges. On the other hand, if a client wants to see how their project is progressing, you can always grant them viewing rights so that they can take a quick look at the work you’re doing. 

All of this data is stored in a secure online location, on a single platform.

Share and manage your Gmail contacts

Email communication is without a doubt one of the most important elements of remote work, and Gmail is the foremost tool used in business today. All of your teams use Gmail to communicate internally and externally, and drive your sales and marketing processes forward. However, to do that effectively, your remote employees also need the ability to share Google Contacts with others in their team and in different teams.

Some of the best extensions out there like the popular Shared Contacts for Gmail integrate seamlessly into the Google Workspace platform and your Gmail accounts, allowing everyone to manage and share their contacts with their colleagues. You can also assign access levels to different team members, making sure that some employees can only view a contact, while others can make edits and fill in the missing information. This will allow you to take your sales, marketing, and support processes forward.

Host team meetings and events

Google Workspace has a great virtual conferencing tool called Google Meet, and you can use it to quickly hop on video calls with your remote team members. This tool also allows everyone in your organization to meet in groups as well, and also organize presentations and more.

Google Meet is full of functional features that make video conferencing a breeze, all of which facilitate effective remote team collaboration, brainstorming, and project-specific communication. Your team members can share their screens, chat in real time on the side, blur their backgrounds, and use a variety of features to make every meeting more efficient and successful.

Work together in real time

The Google Workspace platform has a number of programs your employees can use together in real time, including Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Chat. You can create and share new documents, presentations, and Spreadsheets with your team members, and then invite them to comment and edit. 

This is a great way to handle internal projects like optimizing your Google My Business page or innovating products and services, but it’s also a good way to work with your clients on projects in real time and get instant feedback. 

Over to you

Managing remote teams and a decentralized operation is a difficult task, but Google Workspace aims to make everything more efficient with its collaboration tools. Be sure to start using these features in the Google Workspace platform to empower your remote teams and facilitate growth in 2022 and beyond.