As COVID-19 disrupts economies around the globe and social distancing becomes common practice, business leaders are urgently searching for strategies and tools to help support their newly remote workforces. As a company, we are heavily deployed in the cloud, and it’s the reason we were able to quickly relocate our workforce while remaining productive. It’s realistic to assume that for many people, working from home will be the new normal, at least for a little while, so we thought we’d share our perspective on how you can help your workforce to work from home, the right way.

“Communication is KEY at Keste — Salesforce, FinancialForce, Microsoft Teams and other cloud-based tools enable our employees to work from home effectively, making it so that distance is never a barrier. Finding and selecting the right tools was critical for us, and it’s the reason we’re able to bring value to our team and our customers every day, no matter where we are. We rely on the cloud to collaborate and automate, enabling Keste to be fully functional whether at home or in the office.” Tracy Robertson, Customer Experience VP at Keste

COLLABORATE:

The key to maintaining productivity when working remotely is keeping up with communications. Most people are used to working in close physical proximity to their teams, so it’s important to reach out to coworkers and managers regularly to make sure everyone is staying motivated and on task. Here’s how.

Microsoft Teams

When in person conversations are no longer an option, finding a way to keep your employees communicating effectively is critical. At Keste, we use Microsoft Teams to keep in touch, chat with coworkers, and conduct meetings. We’ve found that user adoption has been incredibly high, most likely due to the tools comprehensive feature set. Teams is our one stop shop for everything from COVID communications and sharing the latest developments from important projects, to Friday night virtual team happy hours. Microsoft Teams is currently free for six months as part of a new six-month Office 365 trial for enterprises.

Salesforce Chatter

Chatter is another great tool for sharing news and information — it’s a free social collaboration tool built on the Salesforce platform. It allows users to collaborate securely when sharing files and status updates, and helps them to keep in touch by leveraging social media like features that allow users to follow people, information and groups. It’s a great tool for private collaboration and sharing your work and ideas in real time. Visit this link to learn more about Chatter, and how you can get your own free license.

Salesforce Quip

If your employees are struggling with working remotely and staying productive, Quip can help. It’s an all-in-one platform that combines documents, spreadsheets, and chat, so remote teams can collaborate together effectively and stay on top of workflows. Sign up here for the free Quip Starter license, valid until September 30th, 2020.

AUTOMATE:

Keeping your team on track isn’t as easy as it was just a month ago, but innovative back office solutions can help your remote teams to keep their projects moving forward. Whether it’s tracking time and expenses or managing documents, automating your processes is the right path forward.

Tracking Time and Expenses

If you’re already using the Salesforce platform, integrated ERP tools that can help you keep track of your workforce are a must for maintaining productivity. Freeing up your back office and automating your financial operations has never been more critical, and tools like FinancialForce help us to do just that. Trusted by companies big and small, FinancialForce integrates seamlessly to drive intelligent, continuous business accounting practices, on a native Salesforce platform.

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM)

Contract lifecycle management tools are ideal solutions for remote workforces. These solutions not only help you to onboard clients, partners and customers faster, they also help streamline your current processes and prevent bottlenecks, security threats, and errors. Traditionally an on-prem solution, CLM has come a long way since the advent of cloud-based computing, and it now delivers speed and flexibility that can meet the legal needs of most remote workforces. Companies like Conga sell comprehensive, all in one tools to help with document creation, contract management and eSignature capture — allowing your workforce more time to collaborate and innovate. Learn more about the Conga Contract Lifecycle Management solutions here.

eSignatures

These days, signing a document isn’t a long and drawn out process. You shouldn’t have to jump through lots of hoops either — receiving the document, printing it out, signing it, scanning it, re-uploading it, and then returning it. That’s because there are a number of services that let you sign electronically — no printing or scanning involved. Tools like Docusign and BlueInk not only allow you to efficiently and securely sign documents with an eSignature, they also help you to manage your contract pipeline, thanks to real time dashboards and advanced insights. BlueInk is currently offering their BlueInk for All plan free for 6 months, until September 15, 2020.

INNOVATE:

Forecasting your pipeline has never been more critical. Changing demands and customer needs means that we all need to be watching our past, present and future business opportunities closely. Tools like Salesforce Einstein provide intelligence features that help leaders across the business to accurately pinpoint opportunities, forecast outcomes, and get the recommendations that they need to make informed business decisions. With built in dashboards, reports and insights, data visibility and collaboration has never been easier.

Supporting our remote workforces with productivity and workflow tools is one of the most impactful things we can do today to address the current crisis. Every day at Keste we help businesses to digitally transform. Together, we can find ways to make the most out of virtual work experiences, navigating immediate disruptions like the coronavirus outbreak, while also remaining focused on our work.

How can we help?

Need help with Quip? Get in touch, for a limited time Keste is offering free Quip consultations — let us help you to get up to speed on setup and other best practices so you can use the tool to its fullest extent.