Microsoft Teams is among the most popular tools for UCaaS in the world. With 145 million daily active users, Teams skyrocketed into the spotlight as hybrid and remote work became more popular through the 2020 pandemic. Even as restrictions on office places began to subside in 2021, Microsoft remained at the heart of many future working strategies.
Today, Microsoft Teams offers almost everything a company could want for productivity and collaboration. You can share files through Teams, launch video meetings, and even make calls. However, for those keen to truly make the most of their hybrid environment, it’s definitely worth checking out the Microsoft app store.
Apps and integrations can further empower your teams, deliver higher levels of productivity, and even improve workplace performance. Here are some of our top apps for hybrid teams.
Trello
Widely regarded one of the best tools for workflow management, Trello for Microsoft Teams helps employees to work collaboratively, regardless of where you are. You can create boards with lists of tasks you need your team members to complete, assign “card” projects to different users, set due dates, and mark activities as complete.
Thanks to the in-depth integration with Microsoft, users can simply add Trello as a tab within the Teams channel, so everyone can quickly navigate the service and track their to-do lists. You’ll even be able to set up notifications and reminders for your hybrid employees.
Decisions
Struggling to make decisions in a world where your employees are distributed around the world? This Microsoft-awarded application can help. Decisions allows you to create meeting foundations with agendas within teams, complete with attachments and objectives. You can share agendas in the Teams channels of your choice and even track meeting time to keep everyone on the ball.
Once you make your decisions, it’s easy to follow up on next steps with integrations into Microsoft Planner and One-Note. You can also allow team members to vote on their preferred options quickly and easily with absolute security.
Polly
A fantastic tool for keeping tabs on your workforce, wherever they are, Polly allows you to run surveys, quizzes, and polls in Teams. It’s easy to keep people engaged with live Q&A sessions when you need to keep your finger on the pulse of your team. There are quizzes you can make in advance and send according to your schedule, instant feedback options, and trivia tools.
Polly also has support for a range of handy templates to help you get started, including tools for all-hands meetings, remote team check-ins and more. Polly ensures that you can still listen to the needs and insights of your employees when they’re not in the office.
Breakthru
Sometimes, making the most of your hybrid team means reminding them to look after themselves. Breakthrus are two-minute immersive microbreaks intended to improve work/life balance and encourage better productivity and creativity. Guides are included at the beginning of each break, so you can encourage your team members to get up and move.
You can run breaks in a chat, Teams meetings, and more. It’s a great way to ensure your hybrid team continues to focus on wellbeing when not in the office. If you’re worried about your employee’s health and wellness, this app will help with that.
ClickUp
ClickUp is one of the most popular productivity tools available for Microsoft Teams. This task management service is great for hybrid teams, with helpful notes, reminders, calendars, scheduling, goal tracking and more. You can easily assign specific tasks to people in your teams and allow your employees to customise their dashboard according to their work styles.
ClickUp has a beautiful design that’s easy to use in and out of Teams. You get notifications, rich unfurling options, task searching, and more within Microsoft Teams, to keep everyone in the project up-to-date. Click Up also has notifications and alerts, so your team members are less likely to fall behind on deadlines.
Kudos
Kudos for Microsoft Teams is an excellent app or integration for hybrid teams who want to make sure that their remote employees stay engaged and motivated. You can send and receive recognition among team members at the click of a button. This means it’s quicker and simpler to keep everyone aligned, even if they’re not in the same office.
Kudos for Microsoft Teams helps to make recognition timelier and more visible when you’re running a company with both in-office and remote workers. You’ll have no trouble getting your staff inspired when everyone can motivate each other. You can even create customised recognition messages or create a channel entirely for Kudos.
Freehand
Intended to improve the way everyone works in the new hybrid workplace, Freehand encourages creative thinking and brainstorming with a beautiful whiteboard where anyone can sketch ideas. Freehand is a simple and approachable shared whiteboard, where teams can plain, brainstorm and draw together during meetings and conversations.
There’s support for mind-mapping, organisational charts, and a range of other templates to make planning and innovating easy. You’ll also be able to access things like virtual sticky notes, images, text, and pins. Freehand keeps your information secure with in-built encryption, and privacy features too. So there’s no need to worry about compliance issues.
Health Hero
Health Hero is another fantastic hybrid working app for Microsoft Teams. This tool is a quick and simple way to build fun and engaging wellbeing activities for Teams of any size. You can bring your employees together anywhere, with access from browsers, tablets, and smartphones. The Health Hero experience includes competitive and gamification elements, as well as an all-in-one dashboard for tracking performance.
This is a great tool for companies who want to keep their employees engaged outside of the office, and improve focus on wellbeing and wellness. Happy and healthy employees are more productive, so it’s always worth investing in tools like Health Hero if you’re trying to support the best hybrid team.
