Make Productivity Your New Years Resolution
Written by Rob Quickenden, Cisilion’s Chief Strategy Officer
Happy New Year everyone! With many of us still hanging on to our resolutions, most focus on things to give up, things to start doing and things we want to do better in 2020.
When it comes to our work and the things we do – we should think about how we can work more efficiently when we return to work this week.
You see, people are seen to be as collaborating if one person edits and shares a document – Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote etc. – and then at least one other person accesses it or collaborates on the same version of that document.
So what. why are you telling me this?
The more people collaborate, the more they’ll invest in each other’s ideas, which in turn leads to efficient authoring, easier interaction, faster response and more agile decision making. It can also be more secure since access to these documents is controlled, the files don’t end up untrackable after being shared all over the place via email and everyone is ‘on the same page’.
Since we’re all part of multiple teams at work, taking these simple steps will:
- Help you to save time every day while increasing your content collaboration
- Improve security and compliance within your organisation
- Making it more effective to work on or update files together rather than emailing multiple versions backwards and forward via email as we did in the 90s (and many still do today)
Rob’s Top Tips to be more productive in 2020
1. Encourage yourself and others to collaborate better
It’s proven that we work more effectively when we collaborate better – although many of us still save our files locally or use VPNs (yes they are still a thing) and then share files via email attachments.
Let’s be honest, no one likes trying to merge all the changes from the many reply to all emails you get back with multiple versions of the same file – especially when everyone has different ideas or responds to an out of date version.
In 2020 – it’s time to improve your collaboration posture, your security yin & yang and be more productive. Heres a short video to introduce – okay, remind you – of the benefits of saving and sharing files in the cloud, co-authoring in real-time, and collaborating with comments and @ mentions.
2. Learn about & adopt the benefits of cloud storage
Hopefully, you’re not still storing stuff on your unprotected/ non-backed up desktop or using old school file shares.
Using OneDrive, and thereby storing files in the cloud, means they’re always backed up, available from other devices, and set up for real-time collaboration and secure file sharing. Watch this quick video to understand the benefits using OneDrive has for you.
3. Replace those email attachments with “shared links”
Rather than sending files via attachments, it’s far more effective to share a link to your OneDrive, Teams or SharePoint file within your email message. This way everyone that you decide can view and update – if given permissions – the file and see changes and collaborate in real-time. This is also far more secure as you prevent recipients downloading or editing the file plus you can always revoke permissions if you wish.
Find our more by watching this short video clip.
You mentioned the word score –
How is productivity measured?
That’s right! It’s now (well, it’s in Public Preview) possible to measure how productive your organisation is through a new service within Office 365 called “Productivity Score”.
Productivity Score provides insights that help transform how work gets done. It aims to provide your organisation visibility into how your organisation works, insights that identify where you can enable improved experiences so people can reach their goals, and actions to update skills and systems so everyone can do their best work.
There are two categories that your score is built from; employee experience and technology experience. Both include a benchmark that helps you compare how you are doing compared to organisations similar to yours (based on size, geography and sector).
Employee experience
Shows how Microsoft 365 is helping to create a productive and engaged workforce by quantifying how people collaborate on content, work from anywhere, understanding communication styles, and developing a meeting culture.
Technology experience
Helps you ensure the technology isn’t getting in the way by assisting you to optimise your device experiences such as proactively remediating common helpdesk issues and improving PC startup times, and your network to ensure your apps work well.
Your Next Steps
Productivity Score is available now in the Office 365 Admin Centre- with a simple registration/sign up request required until it releases formally in early 2020.
Our collaboration team are already using the new app and are ready to answer your questions on how the data can help drive organisational efficiencies in your business.
If you’d like a chat, fill in the form below and we’ll book some time in our Innovation Centre. But for now, that’s it from me! As always, I welcome any feedback and comments – all the best for 2020!