A Hybrid New World (6)

Cross-Department Collaboration

in a Hybrid World

In this issue:

A Hybrid New World - Part 6 - Cross-department collaboration
From the Tech Corner - What we like about Apps in MS Teams
Nomadic Webinars: Power Skills for Managers
On Nomadic IBP's Calendar

A Hybrid New World - Part 6

Cross-Department Collaboration

in a Hybrid World

As we speak, almost every organization is busy figuring out which approach to hybrid working fits them best. From bakery to big tech, from automotive to investment banking, everyone is engaged in what -in previous blogs- we have called one of the biggest transformations in how we organize work since the onset of the personal computer. One of the key criteria in this journey of discovery, is to define for what purposes we need to have face to face contact at work. A lot has been said about for which tasks a team can best work together in-person. Less has been said about cross functional contacts, which means collaboration with people from other departments in the organisation. I came across a large-scale study done at Microsoft, which sheds some light on this topic (‘The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers’; Yang et. Al in Nature Human Behaviour Vol. 6 January 2022).

The researchers studied e-mails, calendars, chat messages, online meetings, and workweek hours of more than 61.000 employees and came to some interesting insights:

Firm-wide remote working caused the collaboration network of workers to become more static and siloed, with fewer bridges between disparate parts.
This made it harder for employees to acquire and share new information across the organization.

From the Tech Corner

What we like about Microsoft Teams:
now it's now easier to integrate external apps

into the meeting app.

Although we might have once said that Microsoft Teams was not conceived as a tool for training, the fact is that these days we see more and more people using it for this purpose. Actually, we have to admit that it has improved pretty much since it came out a few years ago. And like other similar tools, Microsoft also always now to integrate external apps into the desktop app, so you can use them during your meetings (training sessions).

Here are just some of the apps that we find interesting to integrate in Microsoft Teams as a trainer:

Mentimeter, Slido or Microsoft Forms to quickly do polls during your training sessions. Slido, besides allowing you to use polls, also allows you to set a Q&A panel for the session participants to leave their questions during the session.

Mural, Miro or Klaxoon as a collaborative whiteboard (specially having in mind that you can't use the Microsoft Teams whiteboard with external users)

And adding them to your meeting is very easy. If you are the meeting organizer or someone else from your organization has scheduled the meeting, you can add apps on the fly, by clicking on the three dots and then on "Add an App". And you can also add it anytime before the meeting, from the Teams calendar event.

Here you can read more on how to add an app in Microsoft Teams.

Power Skills for Managers

Join Nomadic’s senior facilitator and psychologist Mara Garofalo in the free session ‘Power skills for managers’ on Friday 29 April at 15.00 CET.

We all know by now that managing remotely is different than what we were used pre-pandemic. Now, we are slowing going back to the office, with special arrangements, and we call it the hybrid mode.

Again, it is not what we were used to. What are the skills and competences that managers need to acquire and hone in this new work environment? What is the implication for leadership? And for team dynamics?

Join us on 29 April for an interactive workshop to reflect on these challenges and opportunities.