Microsoft 365 for housing associations: You don’t know what you don’t know

Microsoft 365 for housing associations: You don’t know what you don’t know

According to our research, 70% of M365 applications are under-utilised. The chances are, you aren’t aware of every single thing that’s available when it comes to the extensive Microsoft applications suite.  

In fact, a business standard M365 licence comes with applications such as SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, in addition to the more well-known apps like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, which is what your workforce are likely to be using on a daily basis. With the right knowledge, these applications can create a seamless workspace that connects your entire organisation and makes collaboration and productivity easier. 

However, with that being said, it can be difficult to gauge how knowledgeable your workforce is. For example, most organisations are using Microsoft Teams for chat and video but it offers so much more than that. There are lots of training options available to bolster your knowledge, but it’s important to have a plan in place to disseminate this training to your people. 

There are three parts to this: understanding what’s available to you in the M365 suite, how to effectively make use of these tools, and ensuring everyone on your workforce is enabled to get the most from these applications.  

Why does training matter for housing associations? 

Over the last two years, we’ve seen many housing associations implement Microsoft 365 and Teams as a response to the pandemic and the shift to working from home. These tools proved to be fundamental to our ability to work and provide services while preserving productivity.  

Many people are now thinking about what needs to be in place on a more permanent basis as part of a post-pandemic modern, hybrid workplace. As work increasingly becomes something you do rather than a place you go, skills and digital literacy of your employees are key to ongoing productivity and organisational performance, as well as well-being and information governance.  

In fact, most organisations we speak to make a substantial investment in Microsoft licensing, so it stands to reason that you want to make the most of your entitlements, sweat your assets and deduplicate your expenditure.  

Why does training your employees matter at all? 

Training your employees with courses such as Microsoft Teams online training,  enables your organisation to be more efficient, productive and collaborative. 

By uncovering the entire breadth of the applications that your M365 licence gives you, you’ll receive better ROI from your applications and the investment in training your teams will pay for itself. 

TSG takes a data-driven approach to training – we know organisations may not be sure what they’re missing out on. That’s why we identify those gaps in knowledge and the opportunities that are being missed by looking at the usage data behind your licences and getting to know your entire business.  

For example, a recent customer approached us for training and only wanted their office-based team to receive Microsoft training. After getting to know their business and how their licences were being used, we were able to query them on why they had not considered training their team out in the field. In fact, it turned out they weren’t aware it was possible to install teams on their mobile devices, which changed their outlook and existing training plans for the better, whilst uncovering an instant-win. 

Microsoft Teams & M365: Document collaboration & communication made easy  

In particular, we’ll look at Microsoft Teams when assessing a customer’s usage of their Microsoft licences, which actually has a lot more to offer than you might realise at first glance – especially when it comes to document management. 

For example, with Microsoft Teams you can… 

• Securely share your documents in Teams for quick and easy access on the go and change editing permissions as necessary.

• Create a document in Microsoft Teams that can also be accessed via OneDrive. Documents that are created and shared in Microsoft Teams are then accessible in SharePoint, where it’s stored. 

• Co-author documents and collaborate within one document, both in real time, and after a conversation has ended.  

There’s so much more you can do thanks to the way M365 works with other applications on the cloud, but if you want to know more, you need to understand what you’re missing out on. 

Watch our latest Lunch & Learn session: Housing Hacks: You don’t know what you don’t know 

Unlocking the potential of your M365 licence starts by understanding what you’re missing out on – and this means you can benefit from support in the form of an expert IT training partner who can provide you with that insight.   

I hosted a Lunch and Learn on Tuesday 24th May at 12.30pm, alongside our housing team, giving insights into the opportunities and value training that you could add to your organisation, whilst diving into areas you could be missing out on within your Microsoft applications, with a particular focus on Microsoft Teams training.  

Please get in touch with us if you’d like a copy of the session.