How Microsoft 365 Can Help You Overcome Remote Work Challenges

Fraser Beadle
September 12, 2023

The massive shift to remote work over the past few years has posed significant challenges for teams trying to collaborate, manage projects, and stay connected. Without the ability to work together in person, many tasks become more difficult and communication breaks down. However, with the right technology tools, remote teams can thrive. In this post, we'll explore the common difficulties faced by remote teams and managers, and how Microsoft 365 provides solutions to enable productivity and engagement regardless of physical location.

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Challenges of Remote Project Management:

Communication and collaboration becomes more difficult without in-person interactions. It's harder to have spontaneous conversations to brainstorm ideas or gather feedback. Whiteboarding sessions to map out plans are trickier over video chat.

Tracking progress can be challenging without being in the office. It's more difficult to visually oversee work and check-in frequently when you can't walk to someone's desk. Project managers may struggle to have visibility into day-to-day tasks.

Building team cohesion from afar is tough. Water cooler chats to get to know colleagues personally don't happen naturally. Lack of in-person events and activities can negatively impact team bonding. This can cause collaboration issues if team chemistry suffers.

Technical difficulties like connectivity, accessing files, and clunky tools can hinder remote teams. Spotty internet, VPN issues, version control problems, and disparate systems create headaches. Frustration over tech gets in the way of efficient work.

Challenges of Managing Remote Staff

Reduced oversight - Harder to observe and coach employees. When employees work remotely, managers have less visibility into their work progress, performance, and challenges. This can make it difficult to provide timely feedback, guidance, and recognition. Managers may also struggle to set clear expectations and goals for remote employees, leading to confusion and misalignment.

Collaboration across teams - Silos can form when teams don’t interact in person. Remote work can reduce the opportunities for spontaneous communication, brainstorming, and problem-solving that happen in a physical office. Teams may become more isolated and less aware of what other teams are working on. This can affect the quality and efficiency of cross-functional projects and initiatives.

Distractions at home - Employees may struggle to stay focused. Working from home can pose many distractions, such as household chores, family members, pets, noise, and internet issues. Employees may find it hard to maintain a consistent schedule and a dedicated workspace. They may also face interruptions from colleagues who are in different time zones or have different communication preferences.

Feeling disconnected - Employees can feel isolated and disengaged. Remote work can reduce the sense of belonging and camaraderie that comes from socializing with co-workers in person. Employees may feel lonely, isolated, or unsupported by their managers and peers. They may also miss out on the informal learning and mentoring that happens in a physical office. This can affect their motivation, morale, and productivity.

Microsoft 365 Tools That Can Help

Here are just some of the Microsoft 365 Tools that can help with managing teams and projects remotely.

Microsoft Teams 

Enables real-time communication through chat messaging, high-quality video meetings, and file sharing. Channels organize conversations and teams by topic, project, department, etc. Built-in collaboration apps enhance teamwork.

Planner

Provides a simple yet robust project management solution. Interactive boards visually organize plans into to-do items, assign tasks, set deadlines, and track status. Planner integrates with other Microsoft apps like Teams, Outlook, and Office to streamline workflow. Automatic notifications keep team members updated on progress. Charts and schedules provide at-a-glance views of current workloads, making it easy to adjust priorities and capacity when managing multiple projects across remote teams. Checklist functionality helps create structured, repeatable processes. By combining an intuitive, visual interface with integrations into key productivity tools, Planner enables remote teams to coordinate projects seamlessly.

SharePoint 

Provides a centralized hub to store, organize, share, and access files so teams have one single source of truth. Features like robust permissions, approval workflows, and version control safeguard documents and their history. Tight integration with Office apps makes creating documents easy.

Microsoft Viva 

Microsoft Viva is the new hub for employee engagement and knowledge sharing. Features like Viva Connections replace the Yammer newsfeed with a customizable portal for communications. Viva Topics applies AI to connect employees to knowledge, experts, and resources across the organization. Additional Viva modules focus on learning, insights, and wellbeing.

Stream

Video service where users can securely upload, view, and share recorded videos. Great for training materials, team updates, presentations, and more. Videos are easily searchable and shareable.

Power Automate

Automates repetitive processes and workflows through pre-built templates and custom flows. Connectors unite data between apps and services. Approvals, conditions, and controls add logic and efficiency.

Power BI

Interactive dashboards visualize metrics, KPIs, and analytics through charts, graphs, and dynamic reports. Data modeling and AI provide actionable insights. Easy to create, share, and consume on desktop or mobile.

Whiteboard

Is a digital canvas that allows for real-time collaboration and creative brainstorming sessions, even when teams are remote. Team members can jointly edit images, text, sticky notes, and drawings on an infinite canvas. Built-in templates help jumpstart ideation for projects, designs, processes and more. With pen, touch, and keyboard support, Microsoft Whiteboard provides a natural way to bring visual thinking into virtual meetings. Features like immersive inking, drag-and-drop content, and laser pointers replicate the analog whiteboarding experience online.

How these tools can help

More specifically here are some details on how these product might help with the different challenges discussed:

For communication and collaboration

Microsoft Teams enables instant messaging, video meetings, screen sharing, and virtual whiteboarding to replicate in-person interactions. Channels keep projects organized.

SharePoint facilitates real-time co-authoring of documents and centralizes files so everyone is working off the latest versions.

Viva Connections facilitates social conversations, updates, and access to resources across distributed teams and remote employees to keep them engaged.

Viva Topics surfaces institutional knowledge and subject matter experts so remote teams can find information they need quickly.

For tracking progress

Planner provides interactive dashboards to assign tasks, set deadlines, and track status visually.

Power Automate creates workflows to automate status reports from multiple systems.

Power BI dashboards consolidate metrics, KPIs, and data visualization for data-driven insights.

Viva Insights provides data and trends on collaboration patterns, work habits, and digital wellbeing.

For team cohesion

Microsoft Teams has features like praise badges and memes to inject fun into remote interactions.

Viva Connections communities unite employees across regions and departments to mingle and share experiences through its social feed.

Viva Connections facilitates centralized social conversations, while SharePoint newsfeeds enable topic-specific sharing and discussions.

Stream facilitates uploading and sharing videos like team updates, trainings, and events.

For technical difficulties

Microsoft 365 admin center provides tools to monitor usage, troubleshoot issues, and optimize performance.

Power Platform facilitates integration between apps and automates processes to simplify workflows.

SharePoint and OneDrive provide robust security, access controls, and file syncing.

For distractions at home

Microsoft Teams has a "Focus" mode that blocks notifications and sets your status to appear busy, minimizing disruptions.

Power Automate can automate turning off notifications from certain apps and channels during set working hours.

Planner and To Do provide ways to create structured daily and weekly plans to stay focused.

Power BI dashboards can include metrics on time spent in apps, meetings, etc. to identify distraction trends.

For feeling disconnected

Microsoft Teams has virtual social events like quiz nights, comedy hours, and coffee chats to recreate "water cooler" moments.

Viva Connections communities unite employees across regions and departments to mingle and share experiences through its social feed.

Viva Learning makes training materials and courses easily accessible to remote teams.

Viva Topics helps remote employees find and connect with subject matter experts across the organization.

Stream facilitates creating and sharing videos on company culture, values, and people to reinforce connections.

SharePoint newsfeeds and Yammer groups give employees an engaging platform to interact and participate.

Power BI can survey and analyze employee engagement data to pinpoint disconnection issues early.

Conclusion

The massive shift to remote work over the past few years has posed significant challenges for teams trying to collaborate, manage projects, and stay connected. Without the ability to work together in person, many tasks become more difficult and communication breaks down. However, with the right technology tools, remote teams can thrive. In this post, we'll explore the common difficulties faced by remote teams and managers, and how Microsoft 365 provides solutions to enable productivity and engagement regardless of physical location.

We have a fantastic workshop at the Collab365 Academy called The Ultimate Guide To Setting Up Teams And SharePoint For Project Management that covers many of the aspects discussed in this post and more.

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