The modern workplace is changing. Cultures, challenges, needs and ways to communicate are changing and with it, technology is adapting to meet those needs. In order for your organization’s teams to get work done, they have to find the best way to interact, which is really the inspiration for Microsoft 365, with Teams acting as the central hub force of productivity.
The changes in the workforce are the drivers for these technologies, as teams continue to grow at various levels. We know that employees and teams are growing.
We also know that companies need to be able to extend access to certain information to people both within the organization, as well as externally, with control and governance. Beyond that, teams continue to become more geographically dispersed and diverse, which has employees expecting technologies to keep them productive wherever they are.
Challenges at Various Layers of an Organization
Not all employees are created equal. Front-end workers have different needs than administrators, who have different needs than in-house IT pros, who have different needs than members of the c-suite. Layering this are business considerations that impact the organization as a whole, including adoption rates of the technologies that help emloyees to engage. When we peel back the covers and look at how organizations are working today, we see a myriad of tools in use. There’s the team of developers who is using team chat, the executives who use email and the HR team that helps the organization connect over enterprise social.
The reason multiple collaboration tools are in use is because every group is unique and has their own functional needs and workstyle. Some will use only email while others will live primarily in chat. And if end users don’t find the IT approved option for their preferred tool, they’ll simply download the consumer grade version and that leads to a terrible user experience with multiple logins, difficulty sharing and no single view of content.
Solving These Problems with Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365, with Teams as the central hub, provides every layer of communication that employees need—from enterprise social with Yammer and Office 365 groups that provide larger group commentary, to Teams chat and Outlook that allows for teamwork within smaller circles. It’s then layered with the best in cloud security to avoid risk of external platforms and ensures everything shared within the realm of Microsoft 365 is safe from threat or breach.
The chart below helps to show how conversations can be started based on need and tool, and how all those conversations are based around information—files, content and sites—accessible on the cloud through SharePoint and able to be leveraged at the right scale per the situation.
Teams at the Center
Microsoft Teams is the communication hub for productivity within the Microsoft 365 toolkit. Teams allows for a majority of work to happen in one space, saving time and acting as a platform for employees and users to express their thoughts clearly and in the proper space. Teams houses files, groups, calendars, all video conferences, chats, and more. And as Microsoft Teams is continually developed, more features are being added to create a more cohesive and useful experience.
Teams, as the anchor to Microsoft 365, gives your users flexibility in how they connect which is the key to connecting various generations, work styles, roles and geographically dispersed teams to create uniform tools and streamlined productivity.