The one where the first person gives a direction and by the time it makes its way to the last person, the message is completely wrong.
Inefficient communication can drag down office productivity, cause mistakes, and cause endless frustration.
So, how do you improve communication and foster teamwork? By using a full-featured cloud-based collaboration tool, like Microsoft Teams, which was designed to give offices a central communication hub to keep their whole team on the same page.
Microsoft Teams is part of the popular Office 365 suite of productivity tools. Microsoft has taken a big step forward with this cloud-hybrid, offering the best of both worlds – their standards (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) along with an entirely new toolkit of collaborative applications.
We’ve found that Microsoft Teams is one of the most impactful new applications for our clients. It’s easy to use and can completely transform communication both inside and outside the office.
Here’s a list of the seven top transformative features of Microsoft Teams:
1. Organized Conversations.
You can set up customizable “chat channels” within Microsoft Teams that allow you to organize team conversations. For example, you might have one channel for sales and another for HR. All chat channels are also permission-based, so only those users invited can see them.
2. Central Work Hub.
How much time does your team spend accessing the applications and websites that they use often? You can cut that time down significantly by having the ability to launch multiple applications and websites from within the Microsoft Teams interface.
3. External Project Management.
Once you start using Microsoft Teams for internal communications and project management, you’ll find it so efficient, you’ll probably wish you could use it with your clients and vendors too. You can!
Microsoft Teams has a guest feature that allows you to invite those outside your organization to a chat channel you’ve designated. So, for example, if you’re coordinating a client’s construction project, you could create a “Project X” channel where your team, your client, and any sub-contractors could keep up to date and have fluid communications.
4. Audio & Video Capabilities.
Have you been struggling with how to implement remote workers and keep everyone productive and connected? Microsoft Team’s Skype integration is a perfect way to help your team communicate more fluidly no matter where they are.
When text chat isn’t completely conveying the message, quickly video or audio call to discuss a project. This helps replicate the benefits of being able to pop your head into someone’s office, while still giving you the freedom of a remote and mobile workforce.
5. File Share and Collaborate More Securely.
If your team is using free public tools to conduct business, you could end up with some security issues or compliance problems. Microsoft Teams helps your communications stay secure.
6. Highly Customizable.
Studies have shown that happiness can increase productivity as much as 12%, and workers are happier when they can customize their workspaces. Microsoft Teams is highly customizable so each member of your staff can edit how their application looks.
7. Search Documents and Conversations.
Have you ever spent an hour looking for that one email where someone sent you something important? While email programs do have search capabilities, they tend to be very limited and don’t always work for attachments.
If most of your inter-office conversations and file sharing are done within Microsoft Teams, finding information becomes much easier due to a powerful search feature that can bring up users, communications by channel, and shared documents quickly.
Bring your business communications up to date by employing Microsoft Teams as your central workspace hub for collaboration. One final reason to bear in mind: it’s a standard part of most Office 365 Business subscriptions, so you already have ready access to it. No more to pay!
Darryl McAllister is managing director at Netcare. Visit
