Elly Yates-Roberts |
With the recent outbreak of Covid-19, many businesses are encouraging their staff to work from home where possible, to reduce the spread of the virus. Microsoft is facilitating this by offering free Microsoft Teams deployment.
“At Microsoft, our top priority is the health and safety of employees, customers, partners, and communities,” wrote Jared Spataro, corporate vice president of Microsoft 365, in a recent blog post. “By making Teams available to as many people as possible, we aim to support public health and safety by keeping teams connected while they work apart.”
Organisations which are licensed for Office 365 have access to Teams already. Organisations that aren’t currently licensed can access a free trial of Office 365 E1 for six months. For those in education, there is also a free version of Office 365 A1 which is available to all educational institutions.
A recent survey by Mercer called Business Responses to the COVID-19 Outbreak has found that many employees still rely on their employers to monitor and assess the situation and share key findings with them.
“It is important to not only gather information from the World Health Organisation and government entities, but to evolve business continuity plans and communications to reflect the latest developments,” said Ralph Haupter, president of Microsoft Asia, in a news story. “While our technology has a vital role to play in supporting people and organisations, it is our individual actions in: staying focused on personal and public health as the priority, helping individuals to adjust and ensuring we are integrating the latest and most relevant guidance into our business continuity plans – that will allow us to overcome this very unique operating environment.
“I am inspired daily by the stories I hear of companies addressing these challenges – and wish all of us the very best in continuing to do so.”