Levifi is an IT services and workplace technology company with 80+ employees working across 9 offices in three states. We are serving businesses, local government agencies and non-profit organizations in the Carolinas and Georgia. Levifi follows a hybrid workplace policy and encourages virtual collaboration where it aligns with our white glove service philosophy. About 80% of Levifi’s team works remotely which makes seamless communication critical. Levifi grew from 30 to 80 people in the last five years and internal e-mails have become a communication bottleneck.
Reduce e-mail clutter
Five years ago, thousands of internal e-mails clogged the inboxes of Levifi’s employees and made it difficult to collaborate effectively. An internal audit revealed that 80%+ emails were unnecessary and caused by copying in team members that were not directly involved in the content. However, the e-mails were still sent for reference purposes only. It was extremely difficult to maintain a manageable inbox, even when using e-mail productivity hacks such as setting topic-based folders and creating rules and alerts to automatically move certain e-mails to these folders.
28% of an average office worker’s time is spent on reading and replying to e-mails while only 14% is spent on communicating and collaborating with their team.[1] E-Mail overload was a major factor for some team members to feel overwhelmed and stressed out. Enough was enough, so we went on a mission to change that imbalance.
Microsoft Teams Implementation
Since Levifi recently converted to Microsoft 365, we decided to implement Microsoft Teams as our communication platform and took the radical step of banning the use of internal e-mails. The first step in the implementation was to assess our needs by drilling into the communication and collaboration needs and wants of Levifi. The next step was to set individual goals of how we can best reduce e-mail clutter and optimize collaboration. The last step in the planning and preparation phase was to map out the structure and communication workflows needed by the Levifi team.
We needed to decide how to organize teams and channels based on departments, projects and core functions of the Levifi team. To align the Teams structure with Levifi’s organizational chart, we created teams accordingly (i.e. operations, management, sales, managed IT, Imaging service). Within each team, channels were established based on function (i.e. accounting, marketing, service, hr). To integrate Teams with other tools, we added tabs for apps like OneNote, Motivosity, Bookings, Polls etc.)
Once the assessment was completed and the framework done, it took us a few weeks to create the teams and channels, configure privacy, permissions and notifications settings and train our staff.
Real-Time Collaboration
One of the main benefits of using the Teams platform is the real-time communication it allows through video calls, instant messaging and virtual meetings. Private and group chats are used for quick and often informal communications, just like an in-person chat in an office or on a worksite. With the @mentions function, other users can be pinged and notified of a conversation. We use screen-sharing in one-on-one video calls as well as in group meetings. Notifications can be customized to ensure the right people receive the necessary information, avoiding the overuse of ‘copy-all’ emails.
Our goal was to create a communication platform that makes virtual collaboration easier than in-person meetings. This approach has opened the door for bringing talented team members from outside our geographical area to the team. It has also helped us balance the workload across our nine branches as the location is no roadblock for effective collaboration anymore.
Less communication clutter
In Microsoft Teams, users communicate through channels and topic specific chats. This greatly reduces the e-mail clutter as the conversations are organized around specific topics or projects instead of the often-confusing back-and forth of e-mail threads.
One key difference between e-mail and Microsoft Teams is that Teams allows members to choose and manage access to specific channels. Notifications and alerts are customizable, which enables important communication with core team members to be prioritized. Less urgent items are still accessible, but they no longer clog the inbox as in the past. Key team members, chats and channels can be pinned and moved to favorites for easy access.
Once the structure and workflows were created, the project team trained all team members on how to use Teams effectively.
Seamless integration
One critical area was how to integrate outside e-mails from customers and vendors that needed to be shared and collaborated with. In Microsoft Teams, e-mails can be easily shared and imported into a Teams channel or chat. This allows us to collaborate on outside e-mails in Teams without having to leave the Teams platform and resort back to Outlook/e-mail.
In addition to the Outlook/e-mail integration, Microsoft Teams seamlessly integrates with many of the Microsoft and third-party tools we use every day. We use Microsoft OneNote to keep track of some of our key projects (we call them “Rocks”). We can add a new or existing OneNote notebook to a Teams channel and browse through existing notebooks as well.
Shared access
Authorized team members can review and edit shared notebooks, spreadsheets and documents. This can be done in real-time and enables seamless collaboration. We use SharePoint to manage our site and file sharing policies, permissions, sharing links, access requests and guest sharing settings. Site access restrictions are in place to provide conditional access for sites, files and documents based on the sensitivity of the content shared.
Gaining Traction
Levifi follows Gino Wickman’s Entrepreneurial Operating System model (EOS)[2]. The use of Microsoft Teams has streamlined many of our workflows. I.e., all our weekly L10 meetings (EOS lingo for structured and agenda driven meeting format) are hosted through Teams. Meeting notes taken in teams are inserted directly into OneNote from Teams and shared with all participants. Enhanced features, such as Mode Switcher allows to toggle between editing and viewing modes to prevent accidental changes. Rich content found in spreadsheet tables and lists can be copied and pasted while maintaining the formatting. Key documents, such as the Vision/Traction Organizer[3], are accessible to the team as well as our accountability chart, scorecard and rocks (EOS lingo for larger projects).
Culture and Cohesion
Many companies have or are planning to scale back remote work and are bringing remote workers back to the office[4]. Some are adopting hybrid workplaces where their staff comes to the office on a specific day. Most executives list reduced productivity, lacking collaboration and the declining company culture as their driving reasons to ask their employees to return to the office.
At Levifi, remote work and collaboration is closely aligned to our company culture. We see the work/life benefits of a hybrid workplace can provide significant advantages over the on-site only workplace. For us, the key to a successful remote workplace is to recruit and develop team members that strive in this environment. Our team is motivated and able to collaborate through the electronic communication channels we have established as easily as through in-person meetings and discussions.
AI Generated Notes
In its latest release, Microsoft Teams added several AI driven features to the platform. Teams can now generate notes and summaries of key issues, decisions, questions, action items discussed in chats and meetings. AI notes are added automatically during the chat. Another improvement are AI-powered summaries from VoIP calls to faster catch up on missed calls. Automatic camera switching helps meeting participants to see who is speaking, which is especially helpful in larger meetings where not all participants fit on one screen.
Staying Secure and Compliant
Successful collaboration also requires secure collaboration. Access and permission controls are in place to grant access and edit rights to authorized users while giving temporary and limited access to guest users. Among other third-party compliance measures, we utilize the built-in compliance tools to keep our data secure and regulatory compliant.[5]
Results and Adoption
It took about three months for the team to fully adopt to a “internal e-mail free” work environment. Breaking the habit of forwarding emails instead of sharing them in Teams and collaborating in a channel or chat has been particularly challenging. Repeated, and consistent training and staying on course with the internal e-mail free communication path has yielded priceless results. We would not function effectively today if we still relied on internal e-mails as our main mode of communication.
The implementation of Microsoft Teams as our communications platform has reduced daily time spent on e-mails by more than 20%. The improvement of collaboration and information sharing saves around 4 hours per week per knowledge worker. In addition, efficiency gains led to another hour per week saved by reducing the need to switch between applications. With our team of 80 people, we were able to reduce 20,000 hours of ineffective work per year and improve the quality of collaboration.
About the author: Thomas Fimian is the founder/CEO of Levifi (www.levifi.com), a workplace technology provider headquartered in Charleston, SC, offering IT services, IT consulting and office technology such as copiers, printers and VoIP phone systems.