Enrich Collaboration During Coronavirus Epidemic with Free Access to Microsoft Teams

Enrich Collaboration During Coronavirus Epidemic with Free Access to Microsoft Teams

Keeping your employees connected is vital for your company’s success, particularly during the current coronavirus crisis. Maintain secure and efficient ties with the full Microsoft productivity suite, including Teams.  

Many businesses have been suddenly thrust into a world of working remotely without adequate preparation. The COVID-19 virus has caused many companies across the globe to shut their doors, with hundreds of thousands of employees out of work and seeking unemployment. Others have quickly adapted to the new reality and allowed their employees to work remotely. Remote workers face a completely different set of challenges, such as the isolation that makes it critical to find ways to bring teams together virtually. Remote communication can distort the pace of conversations, and relying solely on texts, emails, and conference calls to communicate undoubtedly leads to confusion. The formality of an email, the tone of a text, or those who tune out listening in on a conference call can easily lead to misunderstandings. This means finding new ways to collaborate, such as Microsoft Teams — allowing individuals to work remotely without feeling disconnected from colleagues and customers.

Video Conferencing

When people interact face to face, they feel more connected. Video conferencing builds online relationships and boosts collaboration because it adds an essential element of communication, body language. With video conferencing, you can share presentations, documents, and data in real-time. You can record the meetings for those who can’t make it on-line and allows remote workers to review anything they missed.

Instant Messaging

Sometimes all you need is a simple answer to a question. Instant messaging allows remote workers to respond quickly, as opposed to sending them an email that might not be read for several hours or days.

Real-Time Document Revision

Emails are not the most efficient way to share documents. Using a cloud-based storage system allows everyone working remotely to access a document if they need to. They can find a specific version, add feedback, and save a copy. This preserves all versions of the document in a central location without erasing each-others work.

Project Management Tools

Simplifying the planning process using a scheduling tool allows remote workers to understand exactly what they need to do and when. It will enable you to create a centralized view of projects for your remote workers using an interactive visual roadmap. As a result, your teams receive up to date and relevant feedback. Missing deadlines that delay the completion of a project costs both time and money. Fortunately, Microsoft Teams offers a variety of built-in customizable templates using industry best practice with no need to create them from scratch.

Here are four project management tools to keep track of workflows and boost collaboration among remote workers.

Gantt Charts

Gannt charts use basic horizontal bars to display the project phase and progress to date. Remote workers can quickly see what work has been completed, what still needs doing, and when they need to contribute in real-time.

Task Assignments

Using an online tool to keep track of task assignments makes it easy for remote workers to stay on top of tasks they are responsible for. There’s also a function that sends emails about looming deadlines. A significant advantage of this tool is project managers can keep an eye on their team remotely to ensure tasks are completed on time.

Resource Allocation

An online resource allocation tool makes it easy for remote workers to track hours against estimates. For instance, employees may need to home school their children for part of the day during the pandemic. They can mark hours they can and can’t work, giving you the ability to build realistic timelines.

Feedback Tools

One of the downsides of face-to-face meetings is some team members are more vocal than others. Feedback tools within Microsoft Teams allow all remote workers to vote and rank various versions of deliverables making the less vocal feel more empowered. It’s essential to build and maintain the morale of employees working from home. Ask your remote workers for ideas on how they can use Microsoft Teams to keep the team positive, engaged, and inspired.

To afford to keep remote workers employed during this pandemic, ongoing business development becomes more critical than ever, and CTECH Consulting Group can help. Schedule your zero-obligation consultation appointment today by contacting our professionals at 403-457-1478 or via email to info@ctechgroup.net. Whether your company needs a public or private cloud, IT infrastructure support, or simply consulting services during the COVID-19 crisis, our team of experts has the insight and experience that you need to be successful.

Written by Carl Fransen

posted on April 28, 2020

Carl Fransen

My passion is to make my mark on the world in a positive and lasting way. I want to set an example for my son that his father can compete with integrity in today’s world, be very successful, and leave the world a better place for him.

Combining my technical/business-based education with a long career steadily progressing up the corporate ladder, I decided to build a company that held true to my values. So, I founded and designed the next generation of IT support firm: CTECH Consulting Group Inc. We are a completely automated, cloud-based IT company designed to compete against any other IT firm without the overhead. We promote a lifestyle to all our staff where they can work anywhere, at any time, access any information on any device that is relevant to their job, and collaborate with anyone they want to.