Retrofit ACM, Part 1 – Microsoft Teams – Now What?

The sudden shift to work from home (WFH) has pushed companies to quickly adjust their unified communications strategy. Many companies are now celebrating their quick adoption of Microsoft Teams. However, because the need for speed was greater than the need for their end-users to have an in-depth understanding of the tool before implementing, organizations are now realizing that they’re left with some lingering questions: Do our employees feel enabled and supported? What is their WFH experience like? The Microsoft Teams box was checked, but now what?

If you are a voracious reader of blogs and articles about Change Management, you’ve probably noticed a blaring commonality - the vast majority are written from a formal business or clinical perspective. These articles often point to the fact that a different approach is needed in this modern work from home world, yet the blogs themselves do not follow their own advice. People have a need to feel connected, and the old status quo of business writing is no longer as effective.

With this in mind, let’s focus on our objective, which is to start a conversation and provoke thought about the discipline required to take an after-the-fact, Retrofit ACM approach to reach business outcomes that were not achieved (or underachieved) as a result of quickly moving to a work from home model.

As of now, we can declare with certainty that we are no longer working from home - we are now living at work! Even though most people won’t be directly impacted by the circulating virus, they will be impacted by the sub-pandemic and the fact that life as we used to know it has changed, at least for now.

Remote working tools are not a new phenomenon, but the utilization and wide-spread use is. Remember BlackBerry phones? When those hit the market, the promise was that they would serve as a magical device that enabled people to virtually work from anywhere. However, the result of this meant that IT crews were forced to work from anywhere in order to survive. They were essentially on-call 24/7, outside of their regular business hours at the office, in order to make house calls for employees working at home who needed IT services.

In a twist of fate, the world now is being exposed to what IT was experiencing for a long time. Some love it, some loathe it, and some are in the middle. Regardless of how you feel, WFH is here to stay for many organizations. Your company may have adopted Microsoft Teams and has now enabled your employees to work remotely, now is the time to work retroactively to ensure that your organization is prepared and properly equipped to support your end-users’ WFH journey. Are you ready?