Joe here. I’m taking over the blog again in the hopes we can all work better.
Since COVID and Microsoft Teams had to be instantly adopted around the world, there has always been a group of users/skeptics of it. I am truly exhausted hearing all the complaints about Teams. Was reading Reddit this morning and was overwhelmed by a whole boatload of complaints about it.
It seems like it’s mostly Google people complaining about it, too.
Honestly, it’s really not that bad. Yes, it has its issues and problems — just like EVERY OTHER PIECE OF SOFTWARE OUT THERE.
When I start the process of rolling out Teams to both new and existing clients, the positive outweigh the negatives and there always is a wow factor from people. Not because it is anything new with the tech — it’s because of a whole new way looking at how to work.
Statements and questions like:
“I can see everything in one place?”
“I don’t have to switch between five apps?”
“We can basically create a whole web portal and have it right in Teams?”
Yes, yes and yes. And probably “yes” to the next questions.
Some examples that help your workflow stay in one place:
The Meeting That Isn’t a Meeting
Working on a document or spreadsheet together? Link it in a group chat or channel. Then everyone works on it in the same place — and on their own time. Chat about it in the channel, leave comments in the document (and get notified) and more than one person can have it open at once.
Eliminate endless meetings and work more asychronously.
Bringing Back the Intranet
Remember everyone’s (not) favorite thing in the 90’s and 2000’s? Well, THE INTRANET IS BACK! Call it whatever you want now, but it’s your internal website to share information with the organization, your department or group or your stakeholders.
Put an icon in the left rail and everyone has access to it right in Teams. Additional bonus: you never leave Teams. Additional, additional bonus: the search bar at the top searches the information stored on the Intranet along with everything in Teams.
Onboarding
Use the channels in Teams to your benefit. Create one for onboarding new employees, contractors, vendors, whatever. Then in the tabs at the top, pin documents, tabs of information, a folder of forms — anything you can think of. Leave some self-guided instructions or messaging in the Posts area of the channel and let it rip!
Training
Microsoft Word documents for SOPs, job aids, whatever you want to call them are gross. Don’t do that.
Instead, use SharePoint pages where you can embed pictures, videos, leave comments and surface easily through a web browser, through Teams or on the SharePoint app on your phone or tablet.
My Final Word
I could keep going forever.
All these little things add up to save big amounts of time for your employees and start to supercharge your processes. That’s a BIG WIN, especially when there are so many companies out there trying to get your money with ANOTHER service and ANOTHER app and ANOTHER layer of complication.
In most cases, it’s completely unnecessary. You’ve got a toolbox of tools to help you right here.