We are at the forefront of a technological revolution transforming how we communicate and collaborate worldwide. The future of work in the cloud is enabling people to collaborate regardless of their location or device. However, managing a mobile, distributed, multi-generational workforce comes with its own set of unique challenges.

As companies put a bigger focus on team performance, workplace technologies are making the way we work more productive and efficient. As a leader in your organization, it’s important to put the right tools in your team’s hands so they can communicate and collaborate effectively. Though there are a number of great productivity boosting workplace applications out there, one of our favorites is Microsoft Teams. This solution integrates seamlessly with existing Microsoft Office programs and other third-party services and is quickly becoming the go-to option for many organizations.

Let’s take a closer look at the three primary ways Microsoft Teams is helping to transform workplace productivity and collaboration and overcome some of the challenges of managing a digital workforce.

Consolidate and Simplify

Traditionally, team members have collaborated on a document by saving a copy to their desktop, making edits, and emailing the document back to the group. This process then continues back and forth, often times leading to a lot of confusion and errors along the way. It’s not uncommon these days to have documents and file duplicates saved in several different locations. This makes identifying and collaborating on a single source of truth a challenge. By uploading your documents to Microsoft Teams, your entire team can access the file from a single web-based location. This significantly reduces the number of files you’re managing. Additionally, built-in security features add another layer of protection when sharing sensitive data, such as passwords, terms and agreements, credit card information, etc.

Enhance Collaboration

When users are all working from a single source of truth, the ability to collaborate more effectively is dramatically enhanced. Microsoft Teams also allows you to track changes and revert to previous versions if needed. It enables co-authoring to enable users to collaborate in real-time. With a single “working document,” users no longer have to decipher which version is the most recent, who else has been working on the document, or worry that their changes will be lost in an email thread.

Reduce Application Overload

Without a centralized location to access all your communication applications (documents, calls, voicemails, chat, etc.), users are spending too much time switching between windows and searching for the information relevant to doing their job. Teams brings together conversations, meetings, files, Office apps, and third-party integrations – all from a single window. This enables your workforce to participate in more productive meetings with minimal context switching.

For some organizations, the switch to Teams is relatively easy, especially if you’re already using Microsoft 365. Of course, we always recommend you have a solid change management strategy in place. Don’t just turn things on and expect users to start using it right away. For many organizations, the transition to Teams will first require the organization to modernize their infrastructure and security in the cloud. Learn more about how to move from a legacy state to a fully cloud-managed platform in our article, Modern IT Management Roadmap.