At AfterDark, we’re fortunate to be going through a period of considerable growth. We’re keenly aware that the opportunities in front of us are due to the efforts of the team we have. We’ve therefore been looking at our internal communication strategies to keep our progress and employee engagement on track. One strategy imperative to adapting to change is for us to continue communicating with and not at staff.
At the same time, our responsiveness to rapidly-evolving ICT trends must also be prioritised. One of our core values is to invest in ourselves so that we may transfer what we learn into practical and more efficient solutions.
So HOW do we keep conversations and collaboration open, responsive, transparent and accessible for the whole company during substantial growth and change?
Our preferred solution: Microsoft Teams
What is Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams is an online meetings and chat solution for people who work in groups to collaborate with customisable transparency. It’s equipped with many of the same tools most office staff today are already familiar with. As with SharePoint and OneDrive, external access can be enabled and managed.
How is it different to Outlook?
We still use Outlook especially when we need to interact with people outside of the team. Where Microsoft Teams is more useful is when working on a project or within a group for a long period of time. Vital to us is its ability to build history and context, so when new members join to our growing departments, we don’t need to spend hours catching them up in meetings.
Unlike having to follow never-ending email threads, Microsoft Teams allows you to be part of a group or conversation without having to be distracted every time it’s updated. Being @mentioned will pull you back into a conversation when you’re needed so you can be selective with the information pushed to you and better control your day.
Email forces you to accept communication. In Microsoft Teams, communication is automatically separated into channels for you to tune into and be notified when relevant.
Behind every successful team is a group chat hyping them up
Different groups have different needs, but in one centralised hub we have access to:
- Mail, files and calendars
- Chat-based work space for private and group messages
- Share applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Website and OneNote
- Co-authoring content
- Audio and video calls
We’ve been using Microsoft Teams in-house for over 12 months and have been impressed with how quickly staff adopted the platform. It’s quickly become the centralised hub for the majority of our correspondence and information.
If you need guidance on turning on Microsoft Teams in your Office 365, reach out and we’ll gladly assist.
