10 Best Remote Work Tools for UK Businesses

Best for team communication

Slack is one of the top remote work tools and it’s one that almost everyone has heard about or used at some point. When it comes to team messaging apps, in our experience there’s nothing that beats Slack for features and ease of use.

If you want to stay in touch with your team asynchronously, share company-wide updates quickly, and introduce opportunities for employee engagement, you need a team chat and instant messaging app like Slack.

• Create channels for different topics, teams, and projects
• Engage with messages through replies, reactions, emojis, and GIFs
• Share files in channels or by direct message
• Start audio or video calls or drop-in “huddles” without leaving the app
• Integrate with other apps to automatically send updates to and enhance your Slack channels

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Best for high quality virtual meetings

For a lot of people Zoom is the default video conferencing and webinar app, but at Charlie we’re actually big fans of Google Meet. If you’re already part of the Google ecosystem, using their built-in video call software makes perfect sense — and if you’re not, it’s still our recommended option.

Google Meet is ideal for small teams that want to meet up in video calls, discuss ideas in breakout rooms, and share their screen to show what they’ve been working on in team meetings. It’s super easy to use and feels really intuitive — even for colleagues that are new to remote work.

• Schedule video meetings or host ad-hoc video chats with your team
• Capture video recordings and transcripts
• Get access to high quality video (up to 4k), advanced lighting options, and noise cancellation
• Stay secure with data encryption and privacy controls
• Enjoy easier collaboration across other Google Workspace products

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Best for remote collaboration

For many remote teams, using Google Drive as your go-to place for file storage and remote collaboration just makes sense. Not only does Google Drive give you a secure and user-friendly place to store everything from your policies to your image library, it’s also designed with teamwork in mind.

With easy access to files from any device, built-in security and data loss prevention, and an intuitive file sharing system, Google Drive remains one of our favourite remote working tools.

• Store and share Google Docs, Google Sheets, and other files
• Access files from any device thanks to cloud storage
• Organise files into folders, subfolders, and shared drives
• Find what you need in moments with real-time search
• Work seamlessly across other remote work tools with integrations

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Best for visual collaboration

Spreadsheets, databases, and text documents are great, but sometimes you just want a more visual way to share ideas, solve problems, and come to the right decision. That’s where a visual collaboration tool like Miro comes in.

Miro is like a digital playground or whiteboard where you and your virtual team can work together. Map out processes and workflows, brainstorm ideas, build wireframes, and strategise — all in a highly interactive way.

• Collaborate in a more engaging way with a virtual whiteboard
• Get started quickly with built-in templates
• Work together on the same document in real-time
• Customise access levels and permission controls
• Integrate with other remote work tools to streamline your process

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Best for planning and organisation

When it comes to planning, organisation, and team productivity, Notion is one of the best remote work tools out there. It’s a highly customizable online workspace where you can build wikis, manage projects, collaborate, and more.

At Charlie, Notion is a key part of our behind-the-scenes workflow. We use Notion to manage our content and store some of our important documents, creating guides for our team on how to use platforms for example. Whether you want to plan a new project or create a company wiki, Notion is the right platform for the job.

• Use one tool instead of different apps for task, project, and people management
• Work together on documents, wikis, and data
• See tasks assigned to you and get notifications when tagged
• Customise your views with boards, tables, timelines, and lists
• Surface the right data at the right moment with an intuitive search

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Best for project management

Trello feels simple, easy, and uncomplicated — and that’s what we like so much about it. It’s a tool that helps your team manage projects, tasks, and to-do lists in a clear way, with the help of Kanban-style boards.

If you’re someone that likes the satisfaction of moving a task, card, or ticket from “to do” to “done”, you’ll like Trello. For teams that want to streamline the way they approach task management, Trello is a wonderful choice.

• Map out tasks into easy-to-understand cards and lists
• Move cards from one column to another to show progression
• Collaborate with team members within individual cards
• Visualise tasks, due dates, deadlines, responsibilities, and potential roadblocks
• Use built-in automation features to speed up your workflows and processes

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Best for screen sharing and video recording

Asynchronous communication makes working together as a remote or distributed team easy. With the help of a tool like Loom, you and your team can share updates, walkthroughs, and feedback without hopping on a live video call.

Loom allows you to record video messages when it works for you, then share them with your team so they can watch, review, and respond when they’re ready. Capture your screen and yourself, for a more engaging experience versus simply sharing a screen recording.

• Record and share video messages asynchronously
• Respond to your colleagues’ videos with your own comments, video replies, and emojis
• Enhance recordings with illustrations and drawings
• Create a better video with built-in background noise filtering and editing features

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Best for automatic video transcripts

Keeping accurate notes from a video call, meeting, or interview is always handy — especially if you work in HR, legal, or compliance. Instead of relying on your own handwritten notes, invest in an AI-powered assistant to get the job done, like Otter.

Invite Otter to your video calls and meetings and it’ll generate transcripts, summaries, lists of actions, and key highlights. We’re a fan of this remote work tool because it allows you to fully focus on the discussion, creates accurate records, and saves you admin time.

• Create automatic transcripts of online meetings
• Automatically build a list of action items then mark them as complete
• Use Otter AI Chat to find highlights, action items, and takeaways from previous meetings
• Summarise interviews to make faster decisions during the hiring process

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Best for accounting and payroll for remote workers

Collaboration and communication tools are a must-have for us, but there’s also a need for software for those behind-the-scenes processes — like accounting and payroll. When it comes to remote working tools for managing finances, we think Xero is the best of the bunch.

Xero is a cloud-based accounting tool that feels simple to use, making it ideal for smaller businesses. If you’re looking for a streamlined and effective way to accept payments, pay bills, run payroll, and manage money, give it a try.

• Oversee accounting and payroll from one place
• Manage expenses claims, projects, budgets, and invoices
• Send invoices and get paid in a variety of ways
• Automate pay, tax, and pension calculations

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Best for HR management

HR management should feel effortless, and that’s what we set out to create with Charlie. And we don’t just use our own software internally because we made it, but because we believe it’s the best for small teams.

‍So if you’re a CEO, founder, or perhaps ops manager juggling many other tasks, Charlie can help you stay organised. For me, Charlie helps me work at my best, thanks to clever automations, user-friendly workflows, and people-focused features. It’s not just another HR platform — it’s one we’ve designed with people, simplicity, and engagement in mind.

• Welcome new employees with personalised onboarding workflows
• Simplify and automate your time-off process to reduce bottlenecks and increase transparency
• Support your remote employees with impactful performance reviews that promote growth
• Get valuable insights and build stronger connections with engagement surveys and polls
• Introduce your teams to an industry-leading perks and benefits system with over 30,000 deals and discounts
• Connect Charlie with your other remote work tools seamlessly with easy integrations

Whether you’re a team of one juggling HR alongside other responsibilities, or want a platform that can support your entire HR team, Charlie can help you run your HR operations smoothly.

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