The Benefits of SharePoint & Flexible Working

I spent many years immersed in the investment banking world. It’s a competitive culture but this doesn’t mean team work isn’t valued. In fact I always formed strong relationships with my team members and we focused on getting the job done. Yes, the hours were gruelling and even though your phone was always in your hand after hours. There was a sense that you couldn’t really contribute if you were out of the office.

Fast forward a few years and I am now co-founder fast growing Training & Consulting business. I have 3 kids and work flexibility has taken on a whole new level of importance. I have learnt SharePoint and flexible working go hand in hand.

I struggled initially with adjusting to working from home.

Being away from the office made me feel like I wasn't a real member of the team. Office 365 and SharePoint have been a game changer.

Our project groups have a dedicated online space to share ideas, documents and post quick questions and updates. We can collaborate on documents at the same time and its clear what the latest version of any given document or spreadsheet is.  I often work out of normal office hours so having a centralised current platform where I can grab information from and later post to is really useful.

SharePoint discussion boards have also been invaluable for sharing trouble shooting tips, the fact that the discussion is there for others team members to read later avoids double handling and has allowed others to find solutions quickly.  They are also a great way to bounce ideas of each other.

I have synced team calendars from SharePoint sites to my outlook calendar and downloaded the SharePoint and OneDrive apps to my phone, so I really can be anywhere and still be able to tap into whatever information I need. Using SharePoint smartly means I no longer feel that I need to be sitting at my city desk to be an effective member of the team.