Microsoft Teams: Why Underutilizing It Hurts Productivity
Your employees probably use Microsoft Teams every day. It’s the de facto communication tool for any organization set up with Microsoft 365. That said, despite its widespread use, your team probably isn’t getting all they can out of Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft Teams can be so much more than a messaging app. When fully used, it can become a company’s hub for communication, collaboration, file sharing, task automation, and more.
In this post, we cover how businesses underutilize Microsoft Teams, how that can hurt productivity and security, and how an MSP can help small businesses get more out of a tool they’re already paying for.
Teams Should Be Your Collaboration Hub
If you ask your employees what they use Teams for, they’ll probably say messaging and video calls, and probably not much else.
They probably don’t realize that if they used Teams just a little bit more, there’s a good chance they’d be able to improve their workday. Teams lets employees work on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files together in real-time, automate repetitive tasks and notifications, take shared meeting notes, manage phone calls, use AI-powered tools like Microsoft Copilot, and connect with hundreds of third-party applications and Microsoft services.
While we aren’t saying you need to learn and use every single feature, prioritizing communication and collaboration through Teams can save employees from swapping between multiple applications.
At the end of the day, Teams offers a lot more than many employees realize.
The Truth About Underutilizing Microsoft Teams
It’s natural for there to be some application sprawl across your company. Teams isn’t accounting software or a design suite, and your employees will need specialized software to do their jobs.
But when companies lack proper oversight, and sprawl gets too large, employees end up spending more time swapping between apps while creating security gaps in the process.
Swapping Between Apps Wastes Times
While it may not seem so, the desire to stick with applications they’re comfortable with can slowly whittle away at your employees’ productivity.
A Harvard Business Review study shows that employees toggle between different apps and websites nearly 1,2000 times a day. This constant back-and-forth can result in roughly four hours every week, or 9% of total work time, being spent simply reorienting themselves between apps.
Multiply those four hours across, say, a team of ten, and that’s 40 hours of lost productivity.
Think about it. Your employee receives a message in Teams to send over an image. They pop out of Teams, locate the image, and instead of dropping it in a shared Teams folder, they either email it over or put it in Dropbox.
Now the recipient has to get the image and place it in the shared folder.
It may seem like a small inconvenience, but these small inefficiencies add up.
And while we’re not saying you need to squeeze every drop of productivity out of your employees, consolidating applications where it makes sense can remove unnecessary and tedious steps from their day.
That’s exactly the kind of problem Microsoft Teams looks to solve.
Application Sprawl Creates Security Risks
Employees are spoiled for choice when it comes to collaboration tools, and there’s a good chance your employees already have their favorite applications. If that app isn’t Microsoft Teams, there’s a good chance they’ll stick to what they know.
Think Slack instead of Teams, or Dropbox instead of OneDrive or SharePoint. On paper, it might seem like a small issue, but the risks can have some serious ramifications.
Every piece of software creates one more account that needs to be managed and secured. But not every employee reports exactly what they’re using.
We call this shadow IT, and according to CISCO, 80% of employees use software not cleared by IT.
That’s a lot of undocumented software. And IT can’t secure what it can’t see.
If even one of those pieces of software experiences a data breach or a similar cyberattack, it could expose your company without anyone ever knowing.
That doesn’t make every third-party application dangerous. But businesses need to know what software their employees are using and have the appropriate controls in place to keep it secure and managed.
Training Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Adoption
You sat your employees down for a Microsoft Teams crash course. Maybe your IT department put on a demonstration, maybe you sent them a few YouTube videos to review. Either way, your employees were informed about what Teams offers.
Yet, not everyone’s still using it.
That’s because without regular testing practice and encouragement, your employees might either forget what they learned or simply go back to the applications they’re more comfortable with using.
It’s like any skill – it takes time and effort to get used to. And while learning how to fully utilize a collaboration tool may not be the most exciting for every employee, reinforcing its importance and offering continual training can go a long way toward helping your employees retain what they’ve learned and understand how the tool can make their jobs easier.
You’re Already Paying for Microsoft 365
Then there’s the plain fact that you’re already paying for Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft does a great job of creating affordable subscription bundles for small businesses, like Business Premium, which includes all sorts of applications – Microsoft Teams included.
And while Teams is only a small part of the larger Microsoft 365 package, employees who go out to either purchase other applications or use their own personal accounts for work-related tasks can mean you’re ultimately paying for something your team isn’t using.
In small businesses where budgets are often limited, every unnecessary application account adds up.
Before your employees add another tool to your business, ask them if it’s worth using, or see if you already have something that can accomplish the same task.
Work With an MSP to Help Support Microsoft Teams
If you want your employees to truly adopt Microsoft Teams, get the most out of its collaboration features, and cut back on shadow IT, a managed service provider (MSP) can help.
That’s because many MSPs offer their clients regular productivity training designed to help employees get comfortable with the technology they already have.
The best MSPs know that training takes regular practice and continuous review. That way, your employees can truly understand what Microsoft Teams is capable of, while also having an expert they can reach out to for questions.
Beyond that, an MSP can help mitigate shadow IT by providing stronger endpoint monitoring and management while boosting security across your company with tools such as multi-factor authentication and zero trust security policies.
All of it comes together to make your business safer and more productive.
The 20 MSP Gets Teams
If you’re looking for a trusted IT partner to help turn your team into a more software-savvy workforce, look no further than The 20 MSP.
For a flat-rate, predictable monthly fee, you get access to a wealth of IT expertise and training programs, alongside security solutions that can keep your business efficient and secure – all on top of our 24/7 U.S.-based helpdesk and rapid onsite support.
If you have questions about Teams, software usage, or really anything IT, reach out today. We’d love to see how we can help your business.
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About The 20 MSP
As a leading provider of managed IT services, The 20 MSP serves thousands of businesses nationwide, including single and multi-location organizations, delivering white-glove service, secure and streamlined IT infrastructure, and 24/7/365 support. We believe in building lasting relationships with clients founded on trust, communication, and the delivery of high-value services for a fair and predictable price. Our client’s success is our success, and we are committed to helping each and every organization we serve leverage technology to secure a competitive advantage and achieve new growth.
