Driving Workday Productivity with MS Teams

With many employees now settled into the remote and hybrid working world that is set to remain, it is important to ensure we are utilising critical technology to the best of our ability. Microsoft Teams usage soared during the pandemic due to its ability to facilitate remote work and connect people regardless of geographical location.

As move forward, Microsoft Teams will play a huge part in our new normal working environment. To avoid becoming fatigued with the technology, it is important to use it in a way that benefits your working day, making you more productive and efficient. Below we’ve compiled some tips to help boost productivity using Microsoft Teams.

Minimise distractions

Although Microsoft Teams is known as a collaborative hub for teams to improve productivity, it can at times be distracting. Colleagues can instant message, or call one another at any time which can distract others from their flow of work. This can differ from office-based work, when a colleague is seen to be busy at work another colleague is less likely to distract them. With remote working, it is hard to know when someone is busy or trying to focus on a priority task. However, Microsoft Teams offers a solution for this. Through using insights, users can schedule focus time to work on critical tasks. At this time, their teams status is set to focusing while also blocking out calendar time. There is also an option to set yourself to do not disturb where users will only see notifications from selected users, for example, their manager.

Integrations

Integrating commonly used applications used into your Teams environment can turn it into a singular digital workspace. This saves users time from switching between and loading other working applications. Consider the apps, tools and dashboards used in the business and add them to Teams using the apps tab. Some common apps that are added to Teams to enhance productivity are Microsoft Planner, to help keep on top of your workload and SharePoint Intranet to keep up with company news and updates. Others include Yammer, company Power Apps and Microsoft Forms.

Use Channels

Rather than creating a new team for every new project, users can create channels within a general team. This avoids confusion for users over having to keep up with multiple teams. Channels are a good way to break out smaller groups from the main team for specific projects. This works particularly well for larger teams so team members only see content relevant to their work in these smaller channels. Channels also facilitate collaboration with a direct space for posts, discussions and updates.

Collaborate in Teams

Microsoft Teams is well known for its collaboration abilities that go beyond instant messaging and virtual meetings. Users can collaborate on documents together within Teams. Users can create Word, PowerPoint and Excel in Teams and can co-author them with colleagues while leaving notes and adding comments. This eliminates the need to leave Teams to collaborate which in turn avoids emails back and forth and multiple document versions.

Download the Teams App

Downloading the Microsoft Teams app across your devices – mobile and desktop, ensure users are equipped to work anywhere at any time. This is especially helpful when operating in a remote or hybrid work environment where users can have a seamless and secure experience across all devices. This flexibility is crucial as we move into the future world of work. However, it is important to note that this does not mean that workers should be available 24/7. Time spent away from work is critical to be more productive during work. Users can set ‘quiet hours’ or ‘quiet days’ to ensure they are setting their own boundaries between work and free time.

If you would like to learn more about rolling out or optimising Microsoft Teams usage within your organisation, contact us today to speak to a specialist or watch our on-demand Microsoft Teams webinar here.