Posted On 13 May 2021

For obvious reasons, the last year or so has seen a greater focus on the potential for working from home than at any other time in modern history. It’s hard to imagine how the economies of many nations could have survived without the help of IT solutions that allowed many people to carry on almost as normal from their spare rooms or kitchen tables.

Below we list five of the best apps for working from home intelligently and productively.

Slack
A pre-requisite of successful homeworking is that teams should be able to communicate flawlessly with each other. Slack is generally regarded as the number one option for communicating and data sharing between team members: it can be customized, expanded, you can share files, and it can run in dark mode. Slack is free to use with a 10,000 message capacity, integration for 10 third-party apps, 5 GB of storage and one-to-one video and voice calling; the Standard plan with more features is $6.67 per month, and the fully featured Plus plan is $12.50 per month per user.

Teams
Microsoft Teams is effectively the company’s homegrown version of Slack and is available as part of the Office 365 suite. There is a free version with some limits on functionality, or you can choose the paid version, starting at $5 a month per user.

Zoom
With the pandemic lockdowns, Zoom has arguably become the most recognized brand of the last year, providing video calling solutions for business and personal users. The Zoom app works well for chatting, presentations, meetings, interviews, and more, and it has immense popularity, although some questions have been asked about the company’s claims of end-to-end encryption that don’t stand up to scrutiny. There are many free versions of Zoom, but they all come with limitations; the paid for versions begin at $14.99 per month.

Trello
The Trello app is designed to assist users in tracking their work and synchronizing with their teammates, arranging tasks, meetings and more using a virtual card-based system.

Time Doctor
One of the biggest anxieties for companies during the homeworking boom caused by the pandemic has been the fact that it is difficult to know whether employees are actually working for the company or enjoying a beer out on the porch during working hours. The Time Doctor app makes sure that employees remain productive by checking and reporting on what they are doing during working hours without invading their privacy.