Working abroad is challenging as there are many logistical, mental, and cultural hurdles to face. There are a lot of daily challenges to confront while working remotely away from the native place. Foreign workers face many challenges like language barriers, adjusting to the new culture, knowing the legalities to work in a country, managing their personal and work life, adjusting to the time differences, transportation problems, and many more.
It could be a nightmare for many who take their first steps to start an aspiring life in a new country. Many people travel to a new country to work with the hope of building their dreams of living a happy life. However, they should overcome many obstacles to make their dreams come true.
As the world has become a global village and technology has progressed with new inventions and innovations, it is effortless to manage life in a new country with the help of many useful apps. The new innovative apps have made the world of travel more convenient. Having the best apps on your smartphone helps you deal with challenges efficiently in a foreign land. Keeping your gadgets charged is essential for traveling, so remember to pack with the help of a digital survival checklist to ensure nothing is left behind!
It is essential to have a helpful translation app or language training app and a simple messaging app to communicate appropriately with locals and overcome language barriers.
So, it is vital to choose the right tools that ease your work and help you overcome the challenges in a foreign land for a better living. This post details the five best useful apps while traveling or working abroad. The apps we discussed are compatible with both iOS and Android users.
Five Great Apps For Remote Work In A Foreign Country
- Citymapper
Citymapper is the ultimate app for travelers exploring a city for the first time. The app provides navigational help for various modes of transport, including live schedules. It also integrates information about walking times and distances between two places.
Fans of the app have gushed about how intelligent it is and have found the up to the minute updates extremely helpful.
While Citymapper might not be available in every country, it’s got most of the popular cities around the world, such as London, New York, and Hong Kong covered.
Citymapper is free to download on both iOS and Android.
- Google Translate
Google Translate is a bonanza for all people traveling and working abroad. It is one of the best translation apps in the world and a great asset to those living in various countries for work purposes. It is a free app by Google and translates text, images, handwriting, or speech in over 100 languages.
It does text translations in 103 languages, handwriting translations in 93 languages, camera translations in 38 languages, and translates real-time conversations instantly in 32 languages.
Google Translate is famous for its outstanding features. The “Tap to Translate” feature instantly translates any text when you enable the option. The other very useful feature is the “phrasebook,” where you can save phrases you come across in your daily communication. The phrasebook not only helps you through informal communication but also with business-related words.
Google Translate is free and available for both iOS and Android users.
- Tinder
You visit new countries to study or work by leaving your friends and families. When you land in a new place, you might be encompassed with a feeling of loneliness. So, for those who want to build new friendships and contacts, the Tinder app is a great way to meet new people, expand your social network, and hang out with the locals.
Many believe that Tinder is a “hookup app,” but it has many more benefits. You can make lifelong friends and meet business partners and professional clients. Never mind the dating reputation, as most people install Tinder in search of making new friends. Install the app, set up a new profile, and connect to one of your social media accounts. You can always ignore or block accounts with which you do not want to interact.
Tinder is for both iOS and Android users. The app is free with some basic features. If you want extra features, you can buy a monthly plan depending upon your requirement.
- WhatsApp Messenger
WhatsApp is a free messaging app, and the majority of people use this app for communication across the world. It is an instant messaging service connecting people across the seas. You can send text messages, documents, photos, videos, GIFs, emojis, and audio messages. You can also make free voice calls and video calls to your contacts on WhatsApp.
WhatsApp also has a group chat feature that allows communicating with multiple members from any corner of the world simultaneously. As the app works through the internet, it does not charge any fee for local or international calls or sending text messages.
It is a great way to stay in touch with family and friends back home. The best part is all the communication and messages on the app are secured with end-to-end encryption. So, you don’t need to worry about messaging on WhatsApp as it has in-built safety features.
WhatsApp is compatible with both iOS and Android users.
- Dropbox
Dropbox is a file hosting service that brings files, cloud content, and web shortcuts together in one place. It is one of the world’s leading file-sharing services, which securely saves your important files like pictures and travel photos.
It is also a fantastic tool for collaborating with colleagues across the world. Dropbox is an innovative idea that simplifies file sharing activity for a better outcome. Yesterday was the day when you used USB drives to share large files or documents.
Dropbox is a fantastic invention that lets you view pictures or anything on your phone when you don’t have a flash drive. It creates a folder on your device and syncs it with all other devices that share the same folder. Sharing and syncing with Dropbox is like a cakewalk as it affiliates with Gmail and Adobe Acrobat.
Dropbox gives you 5GB for free and 1TB for $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year. It is compatible with both iOS and Android users.
Advantages Of Working Remotely
The advancements in technology have paved the way to accomplish professional challenges even from working remotely. Almost every facet of life has transitioned online in recent times. The biggest transition is from office work to remote work. Working remotely has its benefits.
- The primary advantage we get to our mind on working remotely is better work-life balance. Working from home or working remotely eliminates long and strenuous commutes. It relieves stress and expands the time to spend with your loved ones.
- Working remotely saves a lot of time and lets the workers attend and accomplish their duties in time. Being struck in traffic and waiting for transportation ceases when it comes to working remotely.
- Teams working remotely can save a lot of money as they don’t need to spend a lavish amount of ample office space. It would be enough to start their business in a small affordable office space or even wholly opt for a cloud-based operation.
- The other significant advantage of working remotely is reduced absenteeism. The freedom and trust employers show in their employees develop positive feelings toward the organization and are less likely to call off work or quit the job.
- Surprisingly, according to a Great Place to Work report, remote workers showed a higher or stable productivity rate in the business. This might be due to the termination of daily commutes and time-taking in-person meetings.
If the employees are free to choose where they work, they could swap their suburban office space for a more feasible work spot. Digital workers believe that flexibility in working is the key to their productivity. During the pandemic, when working together was eliminated, digital workers who primarily rely on digital technologies employed various software programs and devices while working remotely. The software programs are greatly helpful in enhancing productivity.
A Gartner survey of more than 10,000 digital workers from the U.S, Europe, and A.P.A.C. reveal that workers have the flexibility to choose where they work, which has shown increased productivity. Many success stories of remote workers made a striking difference between regular office work and remote work.
Mercedes Rodriguez-Sanday, Argentina, says that remote work saved her life as she had been stuck in a succession of jobs. In her own words,
“When I started at Distant Job, I found something I had been missing since my amazing first job at IBM – a strong connection, a posse, a shared sense of nerdiness that suddenly had me enjoying what I was doing every day. The groundbreaking aspect of remote work is that you don’t have to sacrifice to find your perfect job. You don’t have to commute 3 hours to get the chance to work in a cutting-edge tech company, and you don’t have to put up with your office being in a cold, damp, windowless dungeon just to get a better salary. When you’re working remotely, there’s a world of opportunities at your fingertips.”
So, it is up to digital workplace leaders to decide and establish new guidelines for employees to work effectively and efficiently in a hybrid workplace. While the decision isn’t always easy, allowing employees to work remotely could lead to increased productivity.
Also Read: Learn To Program With Apps
