Microsoft Teams features

Covid-19 has changed many aspects of our daily working lives and in particular, led to a vast surge in remote working. Remote workers everywhere have been thrown into a world where informal corridor conversations, hot-desking and cramped meeting rooms are a thing of the past. Video conferencing and better use of technology have enabled geographically remote teams to work efficiently and productively during lockdown.

As lockdown eases with the gradual return of employees to the workplace, many organisations will be looking to create a hybrid working environment. Many workers may choose to spend most of their working time at home, whereas, some will opt to venture into the workplace for most of their working week or only occasionally. Either way, creating a flexible hybrid working structure is essential to keep workers safe and ensure they are comfortable with how they work going forward.

So, with a more hybrid approach to working an imminent practicality, how will organisations keep their teams communicative and productive to ensure business continuity? The answer is Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Teams features for calling and video conferencing

Global usage of Microsoft Teams has increased exponentially since lockdown measures were implemented. Teams has become a key technology for collaboration, communication and calling. In a hybrid workplace, Teams offers seamless meeting environments for small groups in the workplace as well as remote workers in their home offices.

Teams Room Systems

Teams Room Systems allows seamless access to Teams meetings through video conferencing facilities and enhances the ability to whiteboard and brainstorm with colleagues whether they are in the room or joining virtually.

Chat and conversations in Teams

Persistent chat and conversations in Teams provides a place for those water-cooler and corridor chats to continue, with the added advantage of being able to share the outcomes with all project colleagues easily.

The combination of informal and formal communication methods in Teams means individuals can instigate those quick chats with their team-mates in a central location when working from home, or post a quick update in a Team for any in-person conversations that have led to new decisions.

Voice calling in Teams

Avoiding contact with shared devices such as desk phones is just one of the challenges we have to get used to in today’s new working environment. However, organisations still need the ability to make and receive phone calls and transfer these calls as they usually would.

Microsoft Teams supports being able to make and receive voice calls to the outside world via the public telephone network. With a simple headset and your laptop running Teams, your desk phone follows you wherever you are working.

Microsoft Teams live events

Live events is an extension of Teams meetings, enabling users to broadcast video and meeting content to a large online audience. Live events are designed for one-to-many communications where the host of the event is leading the interactions and audience participation is primarily to view the content shared by the host. Attendees can watch the live or recorded event in Yammer, Teams, and Stream, and can interact with the presenters using moderated Q&A or a Yammer conversation. Teams live events provide a broad-reaching solution to share rich content with up to 10,000 attendees, and can take the place of in-person conferences, training and learning sessions and global town hall sessions.