Teams in the Hybrid Office
Microsoft Teams has consistently been a key player in the video conferencing industry, and has increased in market share throughout the pandemic. Teams has become an even more popular option for enterprise level collaboration since Teams is part of the Microsoft 365 package. Many employees of large organizations are familiar with this tool as part of their daily productivity tech stack.
As large companies continue to utilize the hybrid model, leadership needs to determine the best way to reliably collaborate between in-office employees and their remote workforce. A campus with a vast number of conference rooms are no longer empty and stagnant, but are used by a variety of team members from small teams having a quick huddle to large board meetings. These conference rooms are necessary to accommodate both remote and in-person employees, but many of them are outdated and desperate for newer technology.
How can large organizations utilize Microsoft Teams to bridge the gap between remote and in-person team members? Here are some ways that integrating Microsoft Teams into your collaboration rooms can simplify your company’s hybrid meetings.
Native Teams Experience
When employees work from home three days a week and in the office for two, meetings are much simpler to maneuver when the conference room experience looks similar to the desktop meeting experience. With a Microsoft Teams Room, the touch panel and display screens show the same user interface that is familiar to those who use Teams remotely. Users in the conference room can start a meeting, share content, and invite users all on the touch panel. By having the native Teams user experience in the meeting room, it cuts back on the frustration people encounter when using a new system.
Phone Features
Microsoft Teams conference rooms can be used for more than meetings. These rooms can be enabled with the Teams phone service or users can enter their existing SIP phone line into the Teams room as their phone system option. This can be useful if someone in the office wants to use the conference room’s privacy and equipment without having a video conference.
Front Row
Microsoft’s latest contribution to hybrid work is their new meeting layout called Front Row. In this view, gallery view is moved to the bottom of the screen so that in-person attendees can see the remote attendees face to face. It also places the shared content, chat, and other meeting components to the main section of the screen. Now everyone in the room can have an equal presence and the conversation can feel more natural and inclusive. As the requests for Front Row become more popular, users will be looking for dual display, larger screens, or video walls to accommodate for the immersive experience Front Row brings to the meeting room.
Getting Started with Microsoft Teams Rooms
Enterprise-level Teams users can optimize their hybrid workplace by integrating Microsoft Teams Rooms into their offices. Not only does this bring a consistent and familiar experience to the employees in the office, but it democratizes the meeting so that remote team members can participate and feel like equal members of the conversation.
Rolling out Teams Rooms throughout several collaboration rooms can seem like an overwhelming task, but can be well worth the investment. Profound Technologies is a Microsoft Teams Partner and integrator and has successfully implemented hundreds of Teams Rooms nationally. We offer engineering, installation, and support services to our clients, providing a simple meeting experience through our Teams integration solutions. For more information on our partnership with Teams or to reach out to us regarding a project, read more here.
