With many businesses focusing on boosting employee connectivity and productivity over the past few years, Microsoft Teams has increasingly become a foundational communication and collaboration tool for many. MS Teams was developed to be a communication platform, housed within the Microsoft 365 family of products and services. With more people working flexibly than ever before, such a platform that provides real-time meetings, conversations and collaboration spaces has been essential for business maintenance and growth.
Today we explore the tips and tricks you should be using to maximise yours and your employees productivity at work. By utilising all the features MS Teams has to offer, you can streamline and expedite your daily processes.
If you want to focus and streamline your discussions within MS Teams, then you can create channels that allow you to engage with specific groups. This removes the need for the constant creation of new group chats with colleagues, minimising clutter within the app and simplifying communication channels. You can also pin your most used channel to the top left-hand side of your Teams window; this saves you searching for important conversations, keeping your work communications simple to find and access.
One of the most frequent questions asked about MS Teams is around its device compatibility and accessibility, with many employees wanting to know which devices they can install and use the application on. MS Teams is available for installation on PCs, Macs, and mobile devices – and can also be accessed via a web browser. In order to boost your productivity at work, we’d suggest downloading the mobile app version of MS Teams. Having the app installed on your mobile device allows you to access key files and conversations on the go, also allowing you to join meetings remotely. Although, having the Teams app available 24/7 begs the question, how do I set a good balance between work and home time – which leads us to tip number 3…
It’s essential to have strong work-life boundaries in place to ensure you and your employees can give 100% in working hours. For that reason, MS Teams has a Do Not Disturb functionality that allows you to control notifications whilst outside of the app. Similarly, the activity status options available within the app can boost productivity during working hours – if employees have a high priority project that requires quiet and concentration, they can set their activity status to ‘busy’, ‘focusing’ or ‘do not disturb’.
As collaboration is at the core of MS Teams, it’s essential to be utilising all the opportunities for collaborative working that Microsoft have made available. File-sharing has often posed a challenge to businesses and employees, with limited options for collaborative online working. However, in MS Teams it’s possible to work on files simultaneously – simply share your Office document in your teams channel, and work on it in real-time within the application. This functionality ensures no changes are missed, and all team members are working on the most current version of your document, increasing productivity whilst minimising risks of error and duplication.
To speed up your work processes and day-to-day tasks, it’s possible to learn the shortcuts within Teams. If you want to skip to a frequently used location or task within the app, type the ‘/ ’ key followed by the location you’re seeking, and you’ll be linked straight to it. Similarly, there are a number of keyboard shortcuts to be learnt that can cut time off your day, for example ‘Command+N’ starts a new chat, and ‘Command+Comma’ opens the MS Teams settings.
If your business is yet to move to MS Teams, it would be highly advisable to do so in order to boost business and employee productivity. Microsoft have announced a number of exciting updates for Teams in the coming years – including the introduction of its very on Metaverse (Mesh for Teams) that’s aimed at boosting collaboration and social functions even further.
As Microsoft Gold Partners our team at Fitzrovia IT are experts in Microsoft and the Office 365 suite and can provide further guidance to your business in gaining the most from your MS apps and services.
If you want to find out more about the opportunities available to your business in MS Teams, or discuss other Microsoft products and services, contact one of our experts today.
You can also access our Ultimate Guide to Microsoft Teams, which provides an in depth look into the application.