Delegates attended a virtual Commsverse event today, focused on navigating a hybrid work world with Microsoft Teams.

The sessions covered topics across the Teams landscape including devices, meeting rooms, security and culture.

We’ve pulled out some of the key takeaways from the event below:

Low-Code Software Developing is Taking Off

 Many businesses have, or are in the process, of returning offices and implementing a hybrid work structure. This is a huge challenge and one that needs to be navigated with employee safety as the number one priority.

April Dunnam, Power Platform Advocacy Lead at Microsoft, talked delegates through the challenges that businesses are facing as they build out their plan for returning to work.

There are multiple stakeholders involved in the planning of a company’s working culture, she said, making it a complex process that can be difficult to manage.

Many businesses are turning to software to help them through this, she said, but one big hurdle is that there aren’t tailor-made solutions on the market.

“The problem with having all these stakeholders and needing is this software… is that there’s really no off-the-shelf software for a hundred-year pandemic,” she said.

“We are starting to see more software coming out now, but the problem is each organisation is unique in what they need to facilitate a safe return to work”

“We need something really customisable and that is exactly why low-code solutions have really taken off during this pandemic. We’ve seen an overwhelming surge of people turning to low-code to monitor the crisis and return to work safely.

Conditional Access is Crucial

 The explosion of remote, and now hybrid, work has only been facilitated because we have the technology to do so. But this has also created unprecedented challenges for security, with employees dispersed and often using personal devices and networks.

For that reason, businesses need to take a zero-trust approach to security, according to Microsoft MVP and head of security, compliance and identity at CPS, Peter Rising.

“Zero trust in Microsoft 365 is a set of services and featured that are all joined together, and the principles are to verify explicitly, assume breach and always provide a secure platform for your users.

“Conditional access is one of the things that I always say to customers that they need to be deploying in their Microsoft 365 environment regardless of whether they are cloud-only or synchronising their active directory to an Office 365 tenant.

“The most basic form of conditional access is multifactor authentication which really is security 101. You need to be doing this on all of your identities, not just Microsoft 365.”

Viva Connections is Perfect for Hybrid Work

 Microsoft has been steadily rolling out Viva features since announcing the employee experience platform at the start of the year.

Paul Dredge, Microsoft MVP and Senior Technical Consultant at Hable, said that Viva can play a crucial role in developing a hybrid work culture.

One of the first solutions I’d be looking at for hybrid work is Viva Connections,” he said.

“Viva Connections allows organisations to connect their employees and push out information in a personalised experience”

“It really surfaces the things that are targeted to the right people, so if I was looking at kickstarting hybrid working, Viva Connections would be my first stop.”

Audio-Only is Not Enough

 Prior to the pandemic, it was perfectly acceptable to have meeting rooms equipped with devices to facilitate audio conferences.

 Matt Ellis, UC Architect at SNC-Lavalin, said that this is no longer enough – will companies now demand video in most meeting rooms.

“What we once thought of as a pretty good strategy of at least having audio in the room is now not enough,” he said.

“I’m seeing [customers ask] ‘Why doesn’t this room have video capability?’. This was an overnight change because people were fairly happy with audio conferencing up until this year, but now they’re so used to video that they’re coming in and asking for this to happen.”

 

 



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