A world top ten university, with an international reputation for excellence in teaching and research, Imperial College London now uses Microsoft Teams to teach and connect in a time of COVID-19. In this video, see how the college is now relying on Teams for the delivery of its lectures and its remote labs, as well as a “virtual common room” where students and faculty can interact. Staff now have the fluid integration of shared files, scheduled events, and the students’ use of the virtual learning environment, providing opportunities to respond to students in a way never done before.

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Have you attended a meeting lately? How was it? In a commissioned report, Microsoft learned about employee challenges with meetings. The findings? Meeting stressors: longer than planned; attendees multi-tasking, late or unprepared; difficult to schedule everyone; and too many meetings. Additionally, 50% of meetings are status or collaborative, and participants need multiple tools. The bottom line is that meeting attendees need better tools that satisfy the needs and address the challenges of today’s modern meetings. Microsoft Teams fits the bill.

View: Modern meetings need modern tools

For the New South Wales Department of Education, getting students excited about technology started with ease of use. Students were empowered through using technology they were originally unfamiliar with and over time creating professional quality work. Teachers saw increased confidence levels as well as authentic interest from students wanting to learn more.

We want devices and technology that are easy to use, whether it be students in an educational environment or employees in the modern workplace. Ease of use must be a priority, and Microsoft Teams was built for this. View this video for a quick glimpse of this.

Digital communication permeates every aspect of the modern workplace, from emails to texting to messaging to the chat feature in Microsoft Teams. Unfortunately, “people think others understand their messages 90 percent of the time, but the actual statistic is only 50 percent,” according to Nick Morgan, author of “Can You Hear Me? How to Connect with People in a Virtual World.”

How do we make sure our messages aren’t misunderstood half the time? In his article, “50 Percent of Emails and Texts are Misunderstood, But There’s an Easy Way to Change That,” Ryan Jenkins states there’s a simple solution: use emojis.

Not only is emoji acceptance in the workplace growing (61% of emoji users use them at work), but research demonstrates that the same part of the brain that processes human faces also processes emojis. “When an emoji conveys a human emotion, it can be transferred in a text. Therefore, emojis help communicators manage the emotional tone of digital messages. And emojis help recipients interpret the tone of digital message,” writes Jenkins.

The modern workplace includes increased digital communication as well as increased emoji use—read this article in its entirety to understand the benefits of using emojis at work 😊

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