When organizations switched to remote work in 2020, Microsoft Teams became the preferred hub for collaboration for millions of users around the world.
Microsoft recently announced that Teams has more than 270 million monthly active users. Now, as some offices begin to reopen but employee demand for flexibility remains high, we are looking at an era of long-term hybrid work. Microsoft has even conducted its own research into hybrid work, which reveals that 70 percent of employees want flexible remote work options while 65 percent also want more in-person facetime.
What does this mean for Microsoft Teams usage? How will the platform support and transform hybrid work practices around the world? To explore this further, let us first understand the role Teams plays in a hybrid workplace.
What Is Microsoft Teams and Why is it Important for Hybrid Work?
Microsoft Teams is a chat-based collaboration platform that also supports unified communications use cases through built-in calling, video, virtual events, file sharing, and contact center capabilities. Teams is hosted on the cloud, but there are separate editions for government use. There are several reasons why Teams is a preferred platform when it comes to hybrid work:
- It works on any device: Since it is hosted in the cloud, Teams is accessible as a web app from any browser. There are dedicated Teams apps for android devices and iPhones, as well as an iPad application. In 2019, Microsoft also announced Teams for Linux workstations. A hybrid workforce typically operates in a heterogeneous device environment, where the same platform has to run on multiple devices, configurations, and user interfaces (UIs). Teams achieves this with ease
- It is designed for the world of remote working: Microsoft Teams was first launched in 2017, by which time remote working was already popular. Some companies allowed employees flexi-working as a workplace benefit, while others had several full-time WFH employees. That’s why Teams factors in the needs of remote workers, with built-in video calling features, remote surveys and polls, and a growing list of integrations
- Microsoft is investing in Teams Rooms infrastructure: Microsoft Teams Rooms are a set of hardware solutions meant to run Teams in physical meeting rooms. It allows a hybrid workforce to collaborate from a mix of traditional office spaces and home-based remote work setups. There is a wide range of Teams peripherals to choose from, as well as Microsoft’s managed services to help design the end-to-end experience
- It is affordable and scalable: Microsoft Teams is available at a variety of pricing plans, starting from a free version to $12.5 per user per month for the Microsoft 365 Business Standard plan. It also has very high capacity limits, accommodating up to 25,000 members in a single team, 250 participants in a private chat, and 10,000 attendees in a live event. This makes it suitable for large organizations with a distributed workforce that need to adopt hybrid work
New Microsoft Teams Features that help in Hybrid Work
Recognizing the importance of hybrid work for employee retention, satisfaction, and productivity, Microsoft has launched several features that would help employees in different work environments and shifts to collaborate better. These include:
Front row for Microsoft Teams Rooms
Front row is a new meeting layout in Teams. It places the speaker or the content being presented front and center of the gallery, with the video feed of other participants appearing on the bottom. Meeting participants can focus on what is being communicated at any given moment, without getting distracted, similar to how we experience face-to-face interactions.
Teams-certified intelligent cameras
Microsoft will equip Teams Rooms with a new category of AI-powered intelligent cameras that use audio, facial movements, and gestures to detect the speaker. These cameras can be positioned in conference rooms as well as home offices to provide immersive and distraction-free meeting experiences. The company intends to work with Jabra, Neat, Poly, and Yealink on this feature.
Automatic lighting corrections
