What happens when an organization is forced to telecommute? Teleworking brings lots of new challenges, in particular that of the management of remote work teams. Many remote working solutions must be put in place in order to allow teams to continue collaborating effectively.  In this article, you will learn about the Microsoft 365 tools that you can use to manage telecommuting.   

How to Track Results Using Microsoft 365 

While Microsoft 365 offers a number of services and tools that make life easier for your employees, it’s important for businesses to make sure their teams stay productive. 

Microsoft Teams keeps your team connected through chat and video calls. Teams makes it easier to hold conferences and improves collaboration and communication among members of the organization. Microsoft Teams also allows you to track statistics on the productivity of your employees, such as: 

• Number of team calls 
• Number of team chats 
• Number of private chats 
• Number of meetings 

Organizations are also able to see who is attending these meetings, whether they are at the department level, or individual. Teams stats keep track of who’s involved in teamwork and who works alone. 

Advanced reports and analytics can provide all the information you need to identify each employee’s level of engagement, and employee effectiveness. 

These statistics from Microsoft 365 can be used to ensure that employees remain productive during their shifts. However, it will also allow companies to see how employees use Microsoft 365 on a daily basis. 

Improved collaboration and communication is possible with Microsoft 365. Employees have access to applications such as SharePoint or OneDrive, so they can continue to collaborate even from a distance. If the IT team keeps track of the use of these tools, it will be easy to determine which documents and programs are being used the most. 

Thanks to the reports issued by Microsoft 365, it will be easier to identify training opportunities in order to better support your employees in their telecommuting collaboration. 

Performance Measurement with Microsoft 365 

Many companies need efficient tools in their daily operations. Microsoft offers a high-performance ecosystem of applications that provide detailed statistics of employee work. Microsoft 365 offers a wide variety of these products on a subscription basis. 

Good performance measurement solutions should be able to detect when multiple SharePoint operations are slow, or not working. A global performance measurement solution in this case could offer full visibility into all of SharePoint’s components: site collections, web application, database, events, and more, so that administrators can: 

• Measure all aspects of the infrastructure 
• Obtain perspectives for performance optimization 
  
  

Security Monitoring in Microsoft 365 

The issue of cybersecurity is at the heart of concerns about teleworking. It is therefore important to ensure that all employees are working with a secure infrastructure, and set up a secure workspace in order to share information securely. 

From collaboration to file sharing, defining a safe workspace is one of the most critical steps to consider when virtually all of our employees are working remotely. By using the Microsoft 365 suite and Teams, your business can use online backup solutions that will keep files and documents safe and accessible for your entire team. 
To learn more about backups in Microsoft 365, do not hesitate to consult our article on the subject.

Basic Elements to Secure Your Data: 

• Organizations should require that employees only access organizational information when they are connected to a secure network. Consider updating your internal policies to include this requirement for all employees. 

  When employees are working remotely, especially from home, it’s easy for them to connect from personal devices. This potentially opens the door to several types of attacks. Organizations must therefore ensure that personal devices have the same level of security as devices owned by the company. 

  By being on a network outside the organization, your employees should be even more sensitive and aware about updating their passwords on a more regular basis – at least every 60 or 90 days, according to experts. 

In short… 

Working remotely can be a barrier for many organizations during this time. Don’t let your business suffer, take the necessary steps to protect yourself. Thanks to Microsoft 365, you will be able to monitor the performance of your employees remotely, but also work while keeping your data secure. For more information on Microsoft 365, contact an expert.