Transitioning your employees into a remote workforce whether you have 5 employees or 5000, can be daunting. Having the right tools on hand can make a huge difference in minimising disruption to your businesses. For us, using Microsoft Teams (who are currently offering free licenses) has allowed us to make the transition smoothly, we’ve been utilising the tool for the past 18 months, but its value has really shone through in the past two weeks. Our company has left the office and entered the homes of our employees and we’ve had no downtime or impact to staff productivity! Here are our top tips to keep your company productive: The Set Up: Even if you don’t have a home office you can still be productive from home. Teams is designed to be a virtual office that you can take with you anywhere. While you may not have access to your desk phone or a printer you can:
- View and Collaborate on documents in real time
- Collaborate on tasks in real time using Planner
- Securely store and access files
- Jump into Video Conference calls and team meetings
- Record notes in OneNote and share with the team
- Share your screen
All this, within the one tool! Whilst Teams is designed to provide you an office space – anywhere, its important to have a dedicated working area, where you can be productive and focus. That could be a corner of your bedroom, the breakfast table or the spare bedroom. Anywhere that provides a quite space that can double as an office, and don’t worry about the room not looking ‘office like’ – you can always background blur during video calls. Communication: When we’re working from home our routine may change, especially those who are balancing childcare and work. Communicating your working hours with your teammates is important, making sure your team knows of everyone’s general availability will help maintain productivity. You can also do this by setting a status message in Teams to proactively share the information. Posting progress reports, updates and insights in your team channels make a big difference when you’re team are all remote, by building this habit it keeps your team connected on what everyone is working on, when they don’t have access to those ‘water cooler’ conversations. It also provides a space where teammates can later search the channel to spark ideas or refresh their memory on the content. Running effective meetings Without a conference room to gather in it can feel like a challenge getting together for your team meeting, by adding the virtual join option to your meetings you create a virtual conference room, which is even better if everyone has their video on. Face – to – face interaction goes a long way in keeping people connected. If you’re looking to transition to a remote workforce, get in touch today. We are here to help.
If you’re looking for consultancy services to help design your own IT business processes, contact Starboard IT to find out what we can do for you.
