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The Best 7 Free and Open Source Remote Work
Software
Organizations no longer consider remote work as a
threat to the productivity and tenacity of their
workforce. Businesses have realized that
contingency remote work plans are essential to
mitigate work disruptions due to climate change,
political turmoils, pandemics, o?ce space
issues, natural disasters, etc. The adoption of
remote work culture has made businesses more
resilient to unforeseen circumstances. While
organizations around the world had already
envisioned remote work as the future of work
culture, COVID 19 ramped up their speed of
expanding remote capabilities. Technology and
software tools are the backbones of remote work.
They lay the foundation for a virtual o?ce, and
without their seamless functioning, remote work
is not possible at all. The challenges of
managing remote teams, numerous spreadsheets,
virtual meetings, tasks, projects, emails, and
communications can be mitigated only when
organizations deploy the best remote work
software for their business needs.
What is Remote Work? Any workstyle outside the
traditional o?ce setup is known as remote work.
In a remote work scenario employees and even the
management work from home, or remote locations
away from the traditional o?ce. The growing
remote business landscape has also expanded its
reach with traditional industries such as
engineering, project management, marketing,
legal, education, etc. The ?exibility of work is
no more privilege but a business necessity that
enables leaders to continue their business
growth. The substantial bene?ts offered by
remote work has mitigated the challenges faced
by many organizations that were struggling to
operate traditional o?ces due to a variety of
reasons. Remote work increases your workforce
diversity and provides you access to a global
team of skilled workers.
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• With no workplace distractions, noisy o?ces,
  multiple keyboard typing, people taking calls,
  gossip-ready water coolers, and chatting
  cubicles, research suggests that employees
  become more productive. Flexibility to work
  remotely has always been considered as an
  incentive for employees, and thus it reduces
  employee attrition rate, onboarding cost, and
  training expenses.
• It saves transportation costs, clothing costs,
  childcare costs, costly canteen food for
  commuters.
• It also reduces the burden of greenhouse gas
  emissions on the environment. Working 'remotely'
  means less need to commute.
• With the ?exibility of working remotely, people
  can spend more time with their families, and the
  work-life balance becomes easy to manage. Even
  during illness, employees have a better chance
  to recover at home.
• What is Remote Work Software?
• Remote work software provides application tools
  to businesses to e?ciently manage their teams
  and work?ow remotely. It keeps everyone connected
  in real-time and empowers the teams to work in
  an o?ce-like situation. Remote work software is
  today one of the topmost strategic technologies
  for the future of work apart from AI, smart
  machines, and digital architecture. A remote work
  software assists organizations in managing the
  ?ve essentials of remote work
• Online connectivity
• Data security
• Communication
• Screen sharing and collaboration
• Project management

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What are the key features of Remote Work Software?
Remote work collaboration A remote work software
has tools for screen sharing, email sharing,
real-time access to projects, etc. for effective
team collaboration. Remote workers can connect
together with the tools and design and form their
own virtual teams. Virtual Private Network Most
of the remote work tools run on their own virtual
private networks for the secure transmission of
data and enhanced cybersecurity. Project
Management The remote work solution comes with
features for project planning, scheduling, and
team collaboration in real-time. Managers can add
or remove team members, share ?les, import or
export data after applying ?lters, and many
more. Chat Tools The chat tools of remote work
software provide remote workers with nuanced
communication that helps them to collaborate
e?ciently. These tools follow the
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joint team code of conduct to establish clear and
concrete communication between team
members. Video conferencing Remote work
software has features to allow teams video
conferencing facility with HD recording of a
video conference for future reference. It has
tools for screen sharing while the call is on.
One should use a reliable internet connection and
high-quality headphones to minimize video call
disruptions. O?ce Suite An o?ce suite is an
essential set of productivity tools required for
remote o?ce work. Remote work software either
has its own o?ce suite application or can
integrate with third-party o?ce suite software to
provide facilities of spreadsheets, word
processing, and presentation programs. Centralize
d o?ce The remote work software offers managers
a centralized dashboard to manage their teams.
Managers can monitor, time track, control access,
and allot work from a single dashboard. It's the
admin area of the software suite and works as the
administrative block of a traditional
o?ce. Third-party integrations A remote work
software can integrate with other third-party
applications to provide more features and added
functionalities. Google Drive, Slack, Dropbox,
Zapier, O?ce suites, Google Calendar, etc. are
some popular third-party integrations. Productivi
ty Analysis The productivity analysis feature
provides detailed statistics on team members'
productivity, the progress of projects, work
completion, individual worker progress graph,
etc. This feature of remote work software helps
managers gauge the overall effectiveness of
their remote teams and ?nd the de?ciencies, if
any, in work. The remote work software detects
any loss of productivity, and this alerts the
managers to take corrective measures for
improvement. Managers can eliminate unnecessary
activities and ?x loose ends. Reporting tools
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Remote work software also provides detailed
reports about individual workers and teams. Time
tracking reports, leave reports, late arrivals,
and many more. Security Remote work software
provides a secure working environment, end to end
encryptions, and multiple layers of security to
keep data safe and ?les securely.
What are the bene?ts of remote work? Retain
Staff Sometimes the best employees may face
some sudden turn of events in their personal
life that may make them unavailable for regular
o?ce hours or o?ce settings. However, they can
keep contributing to the organization's growth if
allowed to work remotely. In such situations,
remote work software is required to provide them
remote o?ce facilities. Easy Hiring A sudden
spurt in work or a bagging a new project may lead
to more requirements of staff. Especially in the
IT industry, a heavily project-dependent
industry, a new project may require the industry
to hire freelancers and contractual employees.
Often, companies can't accommodate them in the
o?ce setup. With remote work software,
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• it is easy to ?ll vacancies by providing work
  from home or remote working options to temporary
  employees.
• Unhampered work
• Regular work may get disrupted in extraordinary
  circumstances such as earthquakes, ?oods,
  pandemics, rail or road closures, protests on
  streets, political situations, etc. In such
  anti-work conditions, remote work solutions allow
  businesses to continue their work by providing
  WFH facilities to their employees.
• Cutting costs
• Organizations have to deal with the
  ever-increasing costs of o?ce spaces and
  increased operating expenditures. With remote
  work solutions, organizations can reduce the
  need for o?ce spaces by taking feasible remote
  work measures.
• Increased employee bene?ts
• If employees are not required to come to the
  o?ce, it saves the commuting expenses for them.
  Especially in costly cities, commuting leads to a
  signi?cant waste of money and time. By remote
  work, software organizations can enable staff to
  save the unnecessary expense for transit and
  time.
• Employee Monitoring
• Companies that provide their employees with the
  ?exibility to work, and do not pressurize them
  to prove their digital visibility constantly are
  more likely to perform better than their peers.
  At the same time, a normalized status update from
  a remote worker regularly can make him or her
  feel important and increase overall
  productivity. Businesses need to monitor if their
  staff isnt slacking off on work.
• Virtual conferencing

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• enhanced visibility. Once you have scheduled a
  meeting, you don't need to micromanage as you
  can set up automatic reminders and noti?cations.
• It is one of the equalizers in the digital age
  that democratizes access to a skilled workforce
  irrespective of geographical location.
• Remote software can track employee availability
  across multiple time zones. This helps in the
  synchronization of meetings and conferences.
• It lets managers add speci?c information,
  personal details, skill set, and professional
  info regarding their workforce. With a single
  click, they have all the data required to make
  decisions on project teams.
• Remote work software builds a scalable security
  program for organizations.