Is It Time to Switch from Email to Microsoft Teams for Internal Communications?
Most companies used to be predominantly office-based. Then, the pandemic changed things and ushered in the era of hybrid work. Even as covid-19 (hopefully) subsides, the world of work has clearly changed for good. 74% of professionals expect remote work to become standard, while large companies like Twitter, Slack and Salesforce have all announced an ongoing commitment to hybrid work.
In this new paradigm, the way employees communicate and collaborate has changed. In the office, it was easy to go up to a colleague to ask a question but, when working from home, many teams have to rely on email communications for conversations that would typically take a matter of seconds.
Imagine you and several other co-workers are discussing a topic or working on a project using email. Picture your inbox and try to follow that conversation and any attachments that someone shared. There are probably several other emails from other people in between, and even if you use conversation grouping settings in your email application, it is still cumbersome to follow.
In line with this, research indicates that a face-to-face request is 34 times more successful than an email. But going back to the office full-time doesn’t make sense for most businesses. Working from home is cheaper and gives employees a better work-life balance.
In order to move forward, companies need to innovate their approach to internal communications. As the saying goes, it’s out with the old and in with the new. We strongly advise you to replace email for internal communications with a platform like Microsoft Teams.
What is Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams is a chat and video platform that’s perfect for the era of hybrid and remote work. Statistics show that over 155 million people currently use Microsoft 365 Business, and these numbers are constantly increasing. If your business uses Microsoft 365, you already have access to Microsoft Teams.
Don’t worry if you don’t use M365, though. You can still access a basic version of Microsoft Teams for free – or sign up for Microsoft Teams Essentials, which lets you unlock all of Teams’ features without paying for other Office 365 tools like Word and Excel.
Benefits of Using Microsoft Teams for Your Business
By deploying Teams, you can empower your people to communicate and collaborate more efficiently, without having to go back and forth over clunky emails.
Teams isn’t the only communications platform on the market but, in our view, it’s undoubtedly one of the best. Plus, if you subscribe to Microsoft 365, using Teams definitely makes sense. Here are the main benefits you can unlock by deploying Microsoft Teams:
- Unify internal communications: When your employees use Teams, they can work on shared documents, store documents in saved places, chat and hold meetings. Essentially, Teams becomes your one shop stop for internal communications.
- Improve productivity: Teams makes it easy for your employees to communicate with each other no matter where they are. This is perfect for the age of hybrid work. Moreover, with a range of communications functions – including video calls, audio calls, chats and even gifs and emojis, Teams helps your people to have productive workplace conversations. Using Teams for collaborating on work is far more efficient than a string of emails.
- Keep up with the pace of innovation: Microsoft Teams is a cloud-based software that enables your company to store data and files in the cloud. The cloud has long been touted as the future of business. By using Teams, your company is keeping up with the pace of change. Because Teams is cloud-based, it also enables your people to access their files from any device once they’re logged in to the app.
- Integrated with Microsoft 365: Teams is integrated with all of Microsoft Office 365’s apps, including Word, Excel, OneNote, SharePoint and PowerPoint.
- Effortless onboarding: Joining a new company can be daunting – especially if you join remotely! Teams goes a long way to tackle this issue. With video and chat communications, it’s much easier for you to build a sense of company culture and onboard new employees.
- Microsoft Teams is more secure than email: Around 90% of cyber attacks start via phishing emails. Often, these attacks use social engineering to lure their victims – with the attacker often posing a co-worker with an urgent request. Communicating internally using Teams drastically reduces this threat.
Ultimately, email is an archaic way for employees to communicate in today’s day and age. We advise that you reserve email communications for chats with partners, clients and prospects and move internal collaboration and communication to a platform like Teams.
Unlock the power of Microsoft Teams in your company today!
As with any new technology, there are learning curves involved with Teams adoption, but the advantages outweigh the temporary “pain” of change for most businesses.
Book an appointment to set up a Teams demo or have Skyline IT Management help get your organization set up with Teams.
