Five key tools that will make your workplace truly modern. THE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE IS WHAT COUNTS

The modern workplace has evolved far beyond the anonymous cubicles and corner offices of the past.

Work is wherever your workers are, with a host of tools now available, allowing flexible and secure collaboration that empower employees to work in ways that let them achieve their potential.

We believe that a great employee experience is crucial to delivering a great customer experience. Any organisation will struggle to deliver great products and services in a way that delights its customers if its own employees are frustrated and held back from working in the way that best unlocks their productivity and creativity.

Organisations are increasingly looking for talent in a marketplace in which there are various and ongoing skills shortages. The vast majority of new jobseekers are millennials, which means organisations need to carefully reconsider what makes them attractive to potential employees.

Many workers in the modern era are less concerned with their bottom-line remuneration and more concerned with being fully empowered to do their jobs in a flexible and collaborative way. In fact, research shows that 83 per cent of workers would turn down an employment opportunity that didn’t offer flexible working.1

Beyond that, today’s workers want to know that the work they’re doing will propel the company forward, not merely maintain the status quo. They want to use work tools that are as familiar and intuitive as the social media and entertainment platforms they use during their downtime. BEYOND THE CUBICLE & CORNER OFFICE

This shift towards work as an activity rather than a location means organisations need to provide robust and reliable mobile tools that keep employees productive no matter where they are in the world. In Australia, nearly half of all employees already work remotely for at least half the week and 70 per cent work remotely at least once each week.2

But being able to work flexibly depends on businesses having the technology in place to support new ways of working. For example, one study found that 42 per cent of employees said their employers didn’t provide them with the digital devices they needed to be able to work remotely, while 29 per cent were unable to use chat and video conferencing technology or document management systems as collaboration tools.3 This highlights a key challenge facing businesses looking to evolve; they simply don’t know how to modernise their workplace for maximum benefits.

A modern workplace should be highly mobile, collaborative, data-driven, connected, and supported by new and emerging technologies. The key to achieving mobility, collaboration, data-centricity, and connection often lies in the technology that businesses choose. When employees have the right tools, they can start to demonstrate the behaviours required to cement a strong culture of high performance.

This eBook outlines just five of the key tools in the environment you can adopt that will make your workplace truly modern. Five Key tools that will make your workplace truly modern. 1. Office on the mobile: Android & iOS – your way, your work

Windows 10, Microsoft’s flagship desktop may not be a smartphone platform any more, but that doesn’t stop you from harnessing the power of Microsoft Office apps on your mobile. 1 All Office 365 plans let you view documents using the Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or OneNote apps on Apple’s iOS operating system which powers the iPhone and iPad, as well as on Android, which is the software of choice for billions of phone users.

Full editing ability and functionality will depend on whether you have a qualifying Office 365 plan. If you do, you are well on your way to marrying the most comprehensive productivity suite in the world with the convenience of your smartphone.

The Android and iOS versions of the core Office apps - Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook are fully featured and offer seamless continuity between your desktop apps and the mobile versions. If you are using OneDrive for cloud-based storage of documents and files, the OneDrive app will replicate the storage on your smartphone, or you can choose a third-party cloud storage service such as Dropbox.

Teams is Microsoft’s unified messaging platform and now has over 13 million daily active users. Its communications and collaboration tools are functional on the mobile. For many organisations, this will be the technical glue that binds their teams together.

OneNote is an indispensable tool for your smartphone that lets you take minutes or meeting notes, keep lists and update documents that are shared with other team members. Most of the other key Microsoft apps that are in use in your organisation, including SharePoint, Azure and Dynamics 365, are available as smartphone apps too.

Microsoft’s Companion app also lets Android users connect their smartphone with their PC letting you send text messages right from your computer, easily transfer photos and sync notifications between the two devices.

The idea with all of this is to allow you to continue being productive and collaborative, no matter the medium, no matter the device, drawing on the Microsoft apps that power your business.

Just head to the App Store on iOS devices or the Google Play store on Android phones and tablets to download the official Microsoft app you need to stay productive and keep collaborating in the mobile environment. one 2. Teams – moving away from email

Bringing disparate workers closer together requires robust systems that go well beyond email, messaging, and even video conferencing. It’s essential to have solutions that make team members feel just as connected to each other as they 2 would if they were working in the same room. And, it’s also crucial to give them a shared workspace that lets them work together without concerns around version control or security.

Using the right solutions can help companies get their products to market faster, reduce operating costs, and increase revenues. For example, when team members can instantly access their colleagues’ work to keep projects moving forward, they can save almost two hours per week. By using the more intuitive Teams solutions, they save the five to ten minutes typically needed to get meetings started, delivering incremental productivity improvements. Moving to cloud-based collaboration tools instead of on-premise solutions saves around 20 hours of downtime.4

Additional benefits from leveraging modern teamwork tools like Teams include fewer interstate and international trips for colleagues who can, instead, collaborate just as effectively online. This means employees get less fatigued from excessive travel while still maintaining a strong connection with their colleagues.

How Microsoft Teams works Microsoft Teams was designed explicitly to bring closer together and empower their collaboration. It suits different workstyles and requirements with functionality that includes:

Online meetings Web conferencing is a powerful way to get face-to-face with people who aren’t in the same room. Using Teams, organisations can hold small group meetings or host events for up to 10,000 attendees, all using the same platform.

Smart features like scheduling assistance, notetaking, desktop sharing, in- meeting chat, and the ability to upload files for in-the-moment collaboration take web conferencing to the next level. These features streamline virtual meetings and let people concentrate on the task at hand rather than wasting time trying to get the meeting up and running.

People can dial into web meetings using Teams even if they don’t have an internet connection. They can either dial in to the meeting using a dedicated number or be called directly from within Teams so they can join the call no matter where they are.

More reliable calls In the old days, colleagues would call each other on their desk phone, then try their pager (later, they’d call their mobile phone), then try any other alternate numbers they may have for that colleague. This process wasted time, and often left colleagues unable to connect with each other when they needed to. two In Teams, businesses can replace the traditional PBX and manage all calls using Microsoft’s Azure platform, and in Australia Telstra Calling for Office 365, which combines the functionality of Microsoft’s cloud collaboration tools and Telstra’s voice and network services. Teams users can create custom phone groups that let colleagues answer their calls, ensuring phones never go unanswered. Businesses can 2 also configure shared numbers with multiple lines for multiple calls, giving a more streamlined way for people to connect.

Keeping people connected Keeping people connected is crucial to fostering strong team culture, outcome- driven collaboration, and effective skills management. Teams lets employees communicate with each other in a business setting using the same types of channels they’re comfortable using with their friends and family. Chat and calling options keep information flowing while employees can also gain remote access to documents from any location.

Businesses can get even more out of Teams by incorporating additional apps. For example, scheduling shifts and ensuring optimum workload balancing can be made far easier by incorporating this functionality through a first-party app.

Firstline workers who may rarely be in an office or in front of a computer can use their mobile device to request time off, swap shifts with a colleague, access training videos, and much more. This gives even the remotest of workers a feeling of belonging and inclusion, as well as empowerment over their own experience.

two 3. Microsoft Power Automate – automating the simple stuff

How many seconds here and there do you waste every day saving files that you’ve been emailed or selecting a photo and uploading it to social media? That’s what Microsoft created Microsoft Power Automate for. It automates repetitive tasks using 3 your favourite apps.

For example, marketing staff may be searching Twitter daily to discover mentions of the company or brand name. Using Microsoft Power Automate, they can set up an automated trigger that sends them an email every time someone tweets using a specific keyword. This saves the person time and ensures they never miss a mention of that keyword, making the process both more efficient and less error-prone.

Flows can be as simple or as complex as necessary, and modifying them is just as easy as creating them in the first place.

No development expertise required Before Microsoft Power Automate was developed, any organisation looking to automate workflows had to use traditional tools and employ developers with extensive coding and programming experience. This made it practically impossible for many organisations to get the apps that would boost their business productivity because they either couldn’t afford to hire the right talent or because their existing resources were always overwhelmed with projects.

The automation benefits delivered by Microsoft Power Automate can include exceptional efficiency improvements.

In organisations that use PowerApps and Microsoft Power Automate to eliminate burdensome and tedious tasks, employees will be able to contribute more meaningfully and creatively to the organisation’s growth. This is a huge driver for many employees and can help contribute to strong morale in the company.

Every Microsoft app works with Microsoft Power Automate, as well as a wide range of third-party apps including Slack, Dropbox, MailChimp and Gmail.

There are three types of Microsoft Power Automate you can create to make your life easier: Automated Flow – a type of flow which is activated when a pre-selected event occurs. An example is when a file is updated, other employees will receive a notification.

Scheduled Flow – a flow which occurs at a specified time such as receiving an alert notifying everyone daily about an upcoming event.

Button Flow – a flow triggered by the press of a button.

Microsoft Power Automate helps you save time and better organise your day, letting you automatically share information with other team members to make everyone’s life easier. three 4. Microsoft 365 usage analytics – your compass to adoption

Gain real intelligence on how your teams work, including visualisations and analysis of Microsoft 365 usage data, build custom reports and compare usage across departments of your organisation. 4

Microsoft 365 usage analytics is a content pack that is free to all customers using the Power BI service, which is also free. Among the useful features of Microsoft 365 usage analytics are:

Adoption overview report – Gives you a summary of Microsoft product adoption trends across the organisation. You can use reports in this section to learn how your users have adopted Microsoft 365 as well as how overall usage of the individual services has changed month to month. See how many licences are in active use. Find out how many people are using the product for the first time, so you can assist them with training and support.

Product usage report – Gain more in-depth detail on key activities for each service, offering key insights on how individual users are using the Microsoft 365 suite.

Communication report – Determine immediately how people in your organisation prefer to communicate, be it using Teams, Yammer messaging, email or making calls. Determine shifts in patterns of usage and spot where adoption of tools you have made available is low.

Collaboration report – See how people are using OneDrive and SharePoint to store documents and collaborate with each other, and how these trends change month to month. You can also see how many people share documents internally or externally and how many SharePoint sites or OneDrive accounts are actively being used.

Microsoft 365 usage analytics is a content pack that gives you access to a pre-built dashboard that provides a cross-product view of the last 12 months and contains several pre-built reports. Each report provides you with specific usage insights. User specific information is available for the last full month.

four 5. Intune – managing your workforce’s devices

With the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) movement well entrenched in the modern workplace, you need to find a way to let employees work on their device fo choice while keeping them and their work safe and secure. 5

Microsoft Intune’s service is one of dozens available on the Azure cloud platform. It allows full management of the organisation’s devices, apps and data to meet your security requirements. Through a management portal, you control which requirements need to be checked and what happens when those requirements aren’t met.

Devices used by your employees must first be enrolled in Intune devices, after which they are issued a certificate that allows them to communicate with the Intune service.

Intune lets you easily management a diverse mobile ecosystem of iOS, Android, Windows and macOS devices from a single management solution and streamline deployment, policy management and updates to keep your information and working environment secure.

REFERENCES 1. http://assets.regus.com/pdfs/iwg-workplace-survey/iwg-workplace-survey-2019.pdf 2. http://assets.regus.com/pdfs/iwg-workplace-survey/iwg-workplace-survey-2019.pdf 3. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ch/Documents/innovation/ch-en-workplace-of-the-future.pdf 4. Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study: The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft 365 Teamwork Solutions: five Improved Business Outcomes and Lower Costs. June, 2018. 5. http://assets.regus.com/pdfs/iwg-workplace-survey/iwg-workplace-survey-2019.pdf SECURITY BUILT INTO EVERYTHING

With the frequency and severity of cyberattacks continuing to grow, and legislation in Australia, New Zealand and around the world imposing strict penalties on organisations that don’t adequately secure information, savvy businesses are elevating IT security, considering it an all-of-business risk. Organisations that don’t take security seriously could be opening themselves up to significant repercussions including reputational damage, fines, and operating losses.

For some businesses, this could create a temptation to do less work online, rather than more. However, this approach would stymie productivity and make it incredibly difficult to compete effectively for workers and customers alike. Organisations simply must embrace a more modern way of working, which includes cloud services and online operations.

Therefore, it’s essential for modern businesses to choose solutions that add to their security rather than create vulnerabilities.

Modern workplace solutions need to have security built in from the ground up. This should include multiple products to address security risks that arise from growing amounts of cloud consumption as well as on-premise infrastructure. It’s essential for these security tools to cover advanced threat protection, data loss prevention, information barriers and retention policies, anti-malware, anti-virus, and more.

For example, Windows 10 requires that any code that runs is signed by Microsoft or the hardware maker, which ensures bad code won’t run. It also includes ransomware protection and exploit/threat protection, ensuring users are protected against the most up-to-date threats. https://www.empired.com/ReimagineWork

https://www.intergen.co.nz/ReimagineWork

CONCLUSION

The benefits of a modern workplace include increased productivity, improved revenues, and higher employee morale, among others. In fact, research showed that 85 per cent of respondents confirmed that productivity had improved in their business as a result of greater flexibility, which is a hallmark of the modern workplace. And, when faced with two similar job offers, four out of five candidates said they’d choose the one that offered flexibility.5

In today’s battle for the best talent, organisations need to offer the flexibility that workers demand, along with the tools required to help those workers maintain optimum productivity, regardless of where or when they work.

Choosing the right tools to modernise the workplace can be tricky. It’s essential to choose solutions that: facilitate strong collaboration; turn data into useful insights; streamline and automate processes wherever possible; keep workers in touch with each other even if they’re rarely face to face; and build security in at every turn.

When workers know that they can access all the information and execute all the actions that are required for them to perform to their highest ability, they are more likely to be loyal to the organisation and to realise their potential.

Empired and Intergen experienced Microsoft partner who can help you understand how to use the Microsoft stack to modernise your workplace, unleash your team’s talent, and outperform the competition. We work exclusively with Microsoft technologies, so are well-placed to help businesses leverage those technologies for cost savings, increased productivity, and enhanced business performance.

Contact us to find out more about how we can help you and your employees experience all the benefits of the modern workplace – Australia: https://www.empired.com/ReimagineWork or New Zealand: https://www.intergen.co.nzReimagineWork Australia: https://www.empired.com/ReimagineWork

New Zealand: https://www.intergen.co.nz/ReimagineWork