Six common issues hindering collaboration 💔

Table of content 💖

Introduction

  #1 - We have so many applications and tools, it's tricky for our users and pricy 🤑

#2 - I need to change apps often and it takes a lot of time regaining focus ⏰

#3 - Well, everything is challenging with files 🗃️

#4 - Why am I alone in the office 😢

#5 - I just want IT to work and be secure 🔐

#6 - Tools won't fix a broken behavior - YOU will 🥰

This spring I've been posting a series on LinkedIn (don't forget to follow me there for more posts) on common issues that hinder us from being the best collaborators we can be. In this blog post I want to summarize those issues in one post. These six issues are issues I encounter with my customers, with my friends and often even with myself. Working on a solution for these issues may result in perks such as saving money, saving time and getting happy coworkers that can collaborate even better. These are six commons issues hindering collaboration, let's dive in.

#1 - We have so many applications and tools, it's tricky for our users and pricy 🤑

😩 PROBLEM 😩 We are trying to accommodate every different kind of user and their favorite applications, but we forget that adding yet another tool to our toolbox for collaboration and creation will make it even harder for our users to find information. Was that chat in Slack? Teams? WhatsApp? Where did we document our amazing findings from the meeting? Where and how did we innovate together 🤯🤯? The more is not the merrier in this case. Many applications have overlapping functionalities which can lead to the above-mentioned problems making it hard for the users and lead to expensive license costs.

💡SOLUTION💡 Did you know Microsoft 365 was built specifically for businesses and can help you with almost any need? Create, collaborate and communicate 💝. Microsoft 365 will in one license cover the need for most of your users, and for those with a specific need you can help them case by case. All it needs is an understanding of what you have and a firm hand pointing the users the right direction. We do better when we don't have to think too much about where to find what we need for our work! And a bonus is saving money💵💵!

#2 - I need to change apps often and it takes a lot of time regaining focus ⏰

🤯PROBLEM🤯 There is a lot going on during our workday and things happening everywhere, this forces us to switch applications on a regular basis. Did you know it can take over 23 minutes to regain focus after switching context from one application to another? And that we use an average of 11 applications during our workday? If you do the math, you see that the time quickly adds up and that it can be very time consuming 🥺.

💡SOLUTION💡Did you know that Microsoft Teams is the hub for collaboration and one stop shop for almost any of your business needs. In Microsoft Teams you will reach people (both in and outside of your organization), you will reach your files, you will reach your meetings AND you will reach all of your apps you need during your day such as for task planning, engaging with colleagues or visit your intranet. Besides all apps expanding Microsoft Teams built by Microsoft themselves there are endless third-party apps to enrich your day; maybe your organization uses Jira, ServiceNow or Miro? And if that's not enough you can build your own apps.

#3 - Well, everything is challenging with files 🗃️

🤔PROBLEM🤔 Working with files is in the center of many people's workday, if files aren't in the center of your business at least you have one sheet with everybody's vacation. Have you ever been in a situation where you want to edit a file, but it's checked out to someone who's impossible to reach, staring at a file and not being sure if it's the up-to-date version or the worst part not even finding it in an enormous folder structure. It takes a lot of time from being productive, right?

💡SOLUTION💡There are so many ways Microsoft 365 will take your files game to a completely new level. Let me share a few reasons why I haven't stored files locally in almost 10 years and always use SharePoint or OneDrive. First of all, saving them in SharePoint or OneDrive will make the days of 10+ different versions go away since the build in version history does everything you need in terms of seeing who did what and when. Being able to co-edit a file is both engaging and makes writing files together easier. Metadata (data about data) can help you organize your files without needing a 10 folders deep structure. And one of the latest releases from Microsoft is the new and improved OneDrive (which you also can find in Microsoft Teams). There you can find your files based on search, who shared them, if they were shared in a meeting, etc., regardless of where they are stored, OneDrive, SharePoint or a team! And don't let me start talking about how gen AI can make magic with your files ❤️‍🔥.

#4 - Why am I alone in the office 😢

🏢PROBLEM🏢 The world will never be what it was before the pandemic, that's equally fun, equally challenging because hybrid work is hard. Did you know that 87% of employees report being productive at work while only 12% of managers have confidence that their team is productive. When managers are used to "measuring" productivity by seeing people in the office flexible working locations makes it troublesome. On the other side 73% employees says they need a better reason going into the office more than just company expectations but that 84% thinks the promise of socializing with peers would be motivating to go in. Besides the struggle of the office or not, hybrid meetings are a real hassle. 43% of workers says they don't feel included in hybrid meetings, and I think we can say that almost all meetings will be hybrid in some form for a long time.

💡SOLUTION💡 Well I hate to break it to you, but this is first and foremost a culture issues. Measuring value in time in the office will never measure any real value. Outcome over time spent should be the mantra for every modern organization. While you make your culture even better there are of course ways Microsoft 365 can help you! Have you heard about Microsoft Places? Microsoft Places was announced years ago and is finally in public preview. Places can help us to see when people are coming to the office and help make smarter decisions on where to work. Places can help us nudging our colleagues to come to the office, and Places can support us in planning lunch and fika at the office. Make people want to come to the office! And if they stay home be ok with it. There's a lot more to Places but knowing when my peers are coming to the office is all I need. But how can Microsoft 365 help with bad meetings? My favorite way to make hybrid meetings more inclusive is that everyone in the meeting (even those in the room) join with camera from their laptop. This makes sure everyone is seen. If you've invested in a MTR system those are smart enough to divide the big video to smaller feeds, and also show who is talking even though you are using the same mic. Tech can help us be better, but it's us humans who need to do an effort 🫶🏻.

#5 - I just want IT to work and be secure 🔐

👾PROBLEM👾 Let me get out my comfort zone a bit and highlight a common issue for many of us who just want ✨it✨ (and IT) to work. Did you know that 65% of people re-use their password (and that "password" actually is top 5 most used passwords 😅)? But what is the problem with re-using a password you think, well poor passwords can be pointed out as the reason for up to 81% of company data breaches, and data is everything.

💡SOLUTION💡How can we just make IT work and not put all the pressure on our employees picking good passwords? Security by obscurity by extremely long passwords that need to be changed often will only result in a post it with the password on it. There are so many ways Microsoft can help us here, Windows Hello can let you use a super strong password but easily login if with your face 👼🏻, multi-factor authentication with Microsoft Authenticator is a hygiene factor for every account even private ones to avoid data-breach if someone finds your re-used password 🙈, Microsoft Authenticator can also save your passwords so you can have strong different password everywhere! And don't let me get started with how Purview can help you with keeping your data safe or how Microsoft Defender can make sure you don't click any weird links!

#6 - Tools won't fix a broken behavior - YOU will 🥰

🤷🏻‍♀️PROBLEM 🤷🏻‍♀️ Do you think IT and swanky applications and features is the magic solution to all of your problems? That AI will fix work? Or that our tools will make us better people that send less emails and schedule less meetings? No, no, and NO! I'm ending with a post that basically says that scrap everything I said before. Tools won't fix a broken behaviour🫣.

🦄SOLUTION🦄What will make any new implementation is a combination of many things, one of them is strong leadership. Leaders who walk the talk and use the same tools, techniques and ways of working. A strong leader will inspire their team to be more productive and innovative. A strong leader will inspire and create a work environment where people are engaged. And a leader doesn't have to be the one signing your paycheck, it can also be the informal leader in your team. Well, everyone needs to put in effort to make change happen. Besides strong leadership leading the way we need time to learn and develop new skills, skills about new tools included. Did you know that 76% of employees say they’d stay at their company longer if they could benefit more from learning and development support. It's a matter of how tech can support us as well as retaining employees. So how do we make work a nice place (with the help of all our lovely tools 🥰)?

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In summary technology isn't something that magically will fix everything, but it can sure make our day and collaboration a lot easier if we use it as intended.