Throughout 2019, Benelogic’s IT department transitioned all employees to Microsoft 365 which included our now de facto communication tool: Microsoft Teams. While our organization was very “instant message” centric for the previous decade, most of these communications were one-to-one. Even though we had the capability to use other communications (multi-person chats and audio/video conferencing), we rarely found ourselves doing so. We were in the office and these types of meetings generally happened in-person. Our open floor plan office lent itself well to off-the-cuff collaboration and inclusion of individuals from other departments at a moment’s notice.
On March 16th, with the global pandemic looming, we went 100% remote. The in-person communication styles we’d always used went out the window. While Teams was already in place and we were mostly familiar with the capabilities, much of its usage was still for one-to-one chats. Naturally, this had to quickly change for us to adapt to our new fully remote working situation. Teams audio and video usage replaced our usual in-office collaboration.
We had to come up with new ways to keep everyone engaged with each other, not only for workplace comradery, but for the sense of community we covet. Teams became our bulletin board, our conference room, and even our favorite Friday happy hour spot.
We weren’t alone. It wasn’t just Benelogic that had to go through these changes, the rest of the world was adapting to a new normal too. We found ourselves using Microsoft Teams to adapt to and solve a substantial new set of challenges. And over the next couple months, Microsoft stepped up, adding new features like pop-out chat windows, increasing the total number of video participants on a single screen, and even adding the now ubiquitous swap background/blurring feature. Most importantly, we saw that the overall performance of Teams improved greatly.
Why does any of this matter?
As a company we needed to adapt almost overnight. We couldn’t do it alone. We needed a Partner. We felt that Microsoft understood our needs as they put their team into high gear to support rapid change. Observing, listening, learning, adapting, improving, and growing. These are the things that good companies are doing in order to thrive in 2020’s quickly evolving business environment.
These are the same processes baked into the core of who Benelogic is as a company.
We are thrilled to see so many of you are stepping up to the challenge as well. We are changing, growing, and evolving with you.
When you need help making those changes, just ask. We are here, ready to be your online Benefits Administration partner.
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