Free Enterprise Remote Tools amid Coronavirus 🔨
I wrote a few weeks back about how the Coronavirus outbreak has forced one of the largest remote work experiments globally. Since then, the situation has only worsened with the disease spreading to over 100 countries affecting over 100,000 people with 3000+ mortalities.
More firms adopting remote work
Nations, businesses and individuals are fighting Coronavirus in their own ways and are taking large-scale preventive measures. Leaders of large companies have sent out company-wide circulars encouraging their employees to work remotely and travel to office only if needed.
Here are just a few examples -
- Jack Dorsey, Twitter's CEO, shared his plans on encouraging remote work for all Twitter and Square employees through this public twitter thread. Also, work from home is mandatory for employees in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong.
- Sridhar Vembu, Zoho's CEO, tweeted publicly that they are opting for remote work as the default option for all employees worldwide until the Coronavirus threat passes.
- Tim Cook sent a memo expanding work-from-home policies for employees in California and Seattle area as well as encouraging employees worldwide to work remotely if possible.
- Airbnb has asked all of its Bay Area employees to work remotely for the next two weeks.
Free enterprise remote tools
Amidst all this, makers of remote collaboration tools have come forward to offer free enterprise-level features free for the next 3 to 6 months. This is a very kind gesture and great news for businesses and educational institutions to ease their transition into remote work in this time of crisis. Additionally, it's a good opportunity for you to try out these tools in your team/ organization, as a measure to be prepared or to just upgrade your remote working capabilities.
So we have put together this handy resource listing the free enterprise tools offered by companies along with the duration of free usage, features and link to the product(s) itself. With this tiny initiative, I am hoping we are able to inform at least a few teams or individuals and help them avail this benefit.
We would be updating the details of the tools listed on the page and making additions periodically. If you have any suggestions or know of any other such tools, please drop me a line. I would also love if you take a minute to help us spread the word on Twitter :)
Here's the link to the set of tools again - remote.tools/free-enterprise-remote-tools-coronavirus.
Remote Working Chronicles - A remote data engineer at GitLab who loves reading books and doing CrossFit
Emilie and her husband were college sweethearts and she knew from the beginning that his work would require a lot of travel. So she narrowed down to remote work as a primary requirement right after college. She struggled quite a bit with isolation during the initial period since she didn't know anyone in an entirely new city and it was difficult to suddenly make new friends.
However, she soon realised that to make remote work work, she had to intentionally get out of the house. She now works out at least 4-5 times a week and is a passionate CrossFitter. Additionally, she spends dedicated time for social interaction and self-care each day. Intrigued to know more? Read her full story here.
As always, here are our top-picks of remote-first products:
✔️ Hilo helps employees share the highs and lows of their workday
✔️ Remotehour is a calling app for freelancers/ remote workers
✔️ Townchat helps connect travellers with locals
✔️ Person8 is a decentralized toolkit for digital nomads to help restore identity
✔️ Twobird is a productivity tool to organize your emails and todos