As many of us find ourselves working from home due to COVID-19, we’re all trying to find ways to control what we can and bring some normalcy back to our lives. Compassion and empathy are the essential ingredients to creating a positive work environment, and this is needed more than ever as many of us are navigating this new ‘remote’ lifestyle. 

Employers and managers, please consider: 

Do your employees have appropriate hardware and internet connections? 

Also, remember that their kids are likely home and many are stuck indoors for the unforeseeable future. 🙋 

Everyone, please consider:  

Be kind to yourself. Take a moment of zen 🌊 when you can—we’re all in this together. 👬 

This empathy and compassion can and should follow us into the digital world as we all do our best to continue to foster team and client relationships, keep our projects moving forward, and handle our daily tasks. So how can we replicate our in-office environment online? Office 365 offers many ways to translate the IRL office experience to your digital workspace. Here are a few ways we’ve found success here at PixelMill.  

💬 Meetings & Chat = Microsoft Teams  

Miss popping over to your favorite co-worker’s cubicle? Microsoft Teams enables you to have one-on-one ad-hock conversations with your team members as well as group chats. You can also ‘meet now’ for quick catch-ups, or schedule future and on-going meetings with ease.  Plus, you can video chat or screen share, bringing a personal touch and some much-needed facetime with your team and clients.

 📆 Schedules & Calendars = Teams Empowered by Outlook  

Keep your team up to speed on your calendar and schedule in Teams. Utilize the scheduling assistant when setting meetings so you know when your team is available. Share your calendar with your immediate teammates.  As we are all navigating this remote working thing, you can also keep your team in the know on your availability by updating your status in Teams.  

📑 Personal File Cabinet = OneDrive 

OneDrive allows you to access, share, and collaborate on all your files from anywhere.  

💧 Watercooler = MS Teams Channel or Yammer 

Keep morale up with an element of fun. We all know some of the greatest conversations happen around the watercooler, so create your own virtual one via Yammer, or follow in our footsteps here at PixelMill and create a Teams channel dedicated to lighthearted conversations that we can all appreciate today.  

📢 Crisis Communications Bulletins = SharePoint Communications Site 

If you already have an intranet, consider creating a communication site dedicated to crisis communications where you can share important updates. If you don’t already have an intranet, you can quickly spin up a site using Microsoft’s new crisis communications how-to post.  

📃  Suggestion Box = Microsoft Forms 

Many organizations offer a suggestion box for employees to provide feedback. Quickly provide a way for employees to give you feedback digitally utilizing Microsoft Forms.  

Does your team require a quick solution to activate remote work right now? Don’t know where to start? Join us tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. PST for our free webinar, Activate Remote Work Immediately with Office 365. 

We also offer a Microsoft Teams accelerator package to get you and your team up and running remotely as soon as possible. We’ll help you implement a Microsoft Teams strategy that fits your unique company culture, workflows, and day-to-day tasks. Connect with one of our Teams specialists, and let’s activate remote work for your employees!