Currently, people all around the globe are adjusting to an age where the majority of work takes place from a remote location. Microsoft’s Corporate VP for Microsoft 365, Jared Spataro, recently published a blog discussing how this shift in work has changed the meeting environment.
According to Jared Spataro, face-to-face meetings are still essential, even in this social distancing environment. Microsoft is inspired by the way that customers are connecting in their Microsoft Teams landscapes, using tools from background blur to broadcasts to share information. What’s more, the company has also experienced a massive increase in the number of meetings happening on Microsoft Teams. There’s a new daily record for the company of 2.7 billion meeting minutes in a single day floating around the office.
To further explore the changing state of the meeting space, Microsoft posted findings from its latest Work Trend Index. The report highlights how work is changing through the use of various new interactive and collaborative tools.
What Did the Report Discover?
Researchers from the Microsoft report, such as Dr. Fiona Kerr have discovered that physical connection and eye contact increases dopamine and reduces stress hormones. Microsoft believes that it’s no wonder that people are using video in Teams meetings two times more than often in this confusing new environment.
The report found that the total number of video calls in Microsoft Teams grew by over 100% in March. What’s more, Norway and Netherlands were found to be the countries using video the most (60%), while people in Australia, Chile, Switzerland and Spain followed close behind. Even users in the UK are using video 47% of the time in their meetings.
While Microsoft notes that there’s no true replacement for collaboration in-person, the company is working harder than ever to innovate and reduce pain points, while increasing human connection. Recently, Microsoft Teams has introduced:
- Custom backgrounds: Replace the background in Microsoft Teams with a fresh and fun home office, or another location. This is an alternative to the AI-assisted background blur solution that was available from Microsoft up to now
- Raise hand features: This feature was introduced in February and began rolling out globally recently. This allows meeting participants to indicate that they want to jump in and say something during a meeting
- End meeting: All meeting organisers can now end a meeting for all participants with the touch of a single button. The end meeting solution is within the meeting control bar
- Participant reports: Meeting organisers and leaders can now download participant reports to see the joining and leaving times for each user
- Real-time noise suppression: Later in the year, Microsoft will be introducing an AI-enhanced real-time noise suppression service to reduce distracting background noise in meetings
Creating Better Connections with Videos
In an age where businesses are struggling to adapt rapidly to full-time remote work, Microsoft is seeing a larger number of companies using video and meeting technology in new ways. Large conferences and events are moving online, and people are recording meetings so that everyone can share the same useful information.
Microsoft Stream, the service for powering live events and meeting recordings in Teams, has seen an increase in use of over five times in the last month. Nuance, a company which uses AI to solve tough problems in a range of industries, replaced their in-person global event with a Microsoft Teams solution recently. Organisers connected hundreds of customers with a PDF agenda and Teams channel to guide them to sessions.
At the same time, this new environment is leading to new ways of working for the modern team. Throughout the month of March, the average time between a person’s first log into Teams and their last use of the app each day increased by over an hour, indicating that people are breaking up their days in a way that makes sense to them.
The Way We Work is Evolving
Microsoft’s report also noted that as organisations are continuing to work in the best way that they can during this challenging scenario, the company has seen an increase in mobile Teams users too. The number of weekly users grew more than 300% between February and March.
Microsoft believes that this moment in history will be a significant one, changing how we operate as businesses and teams for decades to come. We’re beginning to recognise that we can effectively collaborate and communicate across distances in a way that is more convenient than ever before. There is still two times the number of new Teams users appearing on the app in China every day compared to January.
Microsoft’s mission is to help every individual and company achieve more. At this moment, the company is proud to be empowering employees to continue working at their best in one of the most complicated times the world has ever seen.
