The implementation of Microsoft Teams has gained momentum over the last year, even more so now as the way we work is rapidly changing. Modern workplaces are enabling more employees to be on-the-go, securely working wherever, whenever.
To us, a modern workplace is an ideal blend of people and technology empowering collaboration and productivity. Our modern workplace has been enabled by tools such as M365, Windows 10 and OneDrive, SharePoint, and Skype for Business and now, Microsoft Teams.
The now essential business application is rolled out company-wide and improving collaboration and productivity by integrating notes, files, conversations, and meetings into a single hub.
Our transition to Microsoft Teams was led by our Head of Solutions, Alana Reynard. We asked her the most frequently asked questions about our implementation and adoption of Microsoft Teams:
Q: What prompted The Missing Link's transition to Microsoft Teams?
Here at The Missing Link, we are always investing in new technology that enables our remote workforce to operate more efficiently and cohesively. Teams offered the advantage of tying all our Microsoft applications into one powerful cloud platform while taking collaboration and productivity to the next level. Beyond this, Teams delivers enterprise-grade security and compliance to ensure that data is always safe and secure.
Our team had been setting the foundation for our transition to Teams for a while; however, the rollout of Teams was accelerated due to COVID-19. In these unprecedented times, we needed to have a reliable application that simplified communication, collaboration, and connectivity with our colleagues, partners, vendors and most importantly with our clients.
Q: How did we introduce change and foster the adoption of Microsoft Teams company-wide?
Introduction of our migration to Teams was communicated through an internal campaign, using a combination of videos, emails, and office posters to generate anticipation, excitement, and awareness. The key value proposition was that Teams could provide a new culture for collaboration and productivity.
From the beginning of our transition to Teams, we took a user-centric approach and configured the platform from an end-user perspective. We did this by involving broader business stakeholders in a pilot team to gather feedback and make agile improvements along the way. This made the adoption easier, given that the platform mirrored our already existing work processes and systems.
These stakeholders also helped in driving adoption in their teams by encouraging and empowering them to use the platform through word-of-mouth promotion.
Q: How did our training framework support the success of our transition?
Our training framework was a critical part of empowering our staff to use Teams. We focused on creating a personalised learning experience that was immersive, interactive, and where possible team specific.
Our first training sessions were with team leaders and other staff members who would need to regularly create 'Teams' and 'Channels'. This training was aimed at empowering the staff to configure their own Teams workspace and embedding governance, security, and standards. These team leaders were key in our accelerated rollout as they moved their own team and processes to the platform.
Alongside the team leader training, we provided two company-wide training sessions. These sessions were 30 minutes long and focused on developing the basic features of Teams (e.g. chat, channels, files, planner, meetings, and phone calls).
Once we launched Teams, the training sessions were on-going for another six weeks, where we provided sessions each week on different features of Teams that progressively got more complicated as people got comfortable with the platform. The last session being the most challenging one, diving into the integration of Power Automate to automate tasks and create workflows.
As a leading IT company, we recognise that many of our staff are early adopters; however, we also have team members that prefer to learn at their own pace. We foster this by providing our training sessions on-demand and a support team that is available to help our staff 24/7.
Q: How has Microsoft Teams changed the culture of our workplace?
Teams is now an integral aspect of our modern workplace culture and has set the foundation for a more interactive, engaging, and motivating way of communicating.
Even though we are currently working outside of a traditional office, we have used Teams to enhance our company culture and remove the barriers of distance. We have made our usual office banter possible by creating channels that facilitate non-work-related discussions (e.g. Beer Club and 'Bunnings Anonymous' are some of the crowd favourites).
Our collaborative culture will continue to develop and improve as Microsoft brings out new features to evolve the user experience. A new feature that we love is the together mode in video calls, which was a big hit at our recent company trivia night which was hosted on Teams. It felt like we were all sitting in the same room, allowing us to have some much-needed fun and interaction that we miss from being in the office.
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