by Tom Walsh In March of 2020, life took a drastic turn for all of us.  At Cornerstone, almost overnight, we became work from home employees.  While we already had a few remote workers, we needed to scale up the systems we had in place and our culture underwent a dramatic shift.  Like everyone else, we were forced to find new ways to communicate and operate.  Our IT team led the way to tackle these very unique challenges. Two of the tools we found most valuable have been RingCentral and Microsoft Teams. Ring Central A few years ago, we converted our traditional phone system to an internet-based structure powered by RingCentral.  The Voice Over IP (VOIP) system allowed our staff the convenience of access via cell phone, computer, or traditional handset, while still allowing things like texting and faxing. RingCentral provided us with enormous flexibility when our users began working from home full time.  They could communicate using their cell phone, their computer, and, in some cases, associates were able to take their desk phone home and plug it into their internet connection, giving them all the functionality of an office phone system at home. Microsoft Teams Before March 15^th, we had dabbled with the Microsoft Teams platform.  Today, Teams has become one of our main communications channels. Our organization had tried a few different chat platforms in the past, including Chatter, Yammer, and Slack, but none seemed to take hold.  With everyone working from home, the Microsoft Teams chat functionality has taken over much of our day-to-day communications, surpassing even emails.  Now, when we can’t get up and walk over to someone’s cubicle to ask a question, instead of sending an email, it is easy to send a Microsoft Teams chat message. Not only do we use Teams for one-on-one communication, but also for things like company-wide, department, and small group meetings. Interestingly, participation and engagement in our quarterly, all-company meetings has increased when done through Teams. Teams for Client Support As a result of the popularity of Teams, our use of it even has branched out to interactions with customers.  If an external customer has Teams, we can use the platform to chat, have a call, host a meeting, and even collaborate on documents. This has opened up a world of possibilities on how we can provide better service to our customers. Although there have been challenges over the past few months, with the right tools and the willingness of our associates to adapt, Cornerstone has been able to provide our customers with the same high-level of service that they have come to expect from us. Teams as an Interoffice Relationship Builder After a few months of not being in the office together, our company leadership felt that associates might be losing touch with coworkers they didn’t interact with on a daily basis.  Enter “Coffee and Conversation” via Teams.  Each week, leadership sends out a list of individuals who are responsible for reaching out to someone else in the organization for a short conversation.  Preferably, the talk centers around nonwork-related activities.  These interactions usually take place over Teams unless the two workers happen to be in the office at the same time that week.  Coffee and Conversation allows team members across departments to interact and foster a company-wide team spirit.   We also use Teams as a virtual water cooler.  Our Fun Committee set up a team actually called “The Water Cooler”.  The interoffice chat room fosters communication much like a bulletin board or water cooler would in the physical office space, where associates can post questions or comments about things like current events, activities, or maybe even tell a joke. What we learned As an organization, the speed with which our staff adapted to the new tools of our remote work environment gave me even more confidence in Cornerstone’s ability to make good use of new, innovative technologies that may come in the future.  My IT team is constantly looking for the next technology revolution and we are looking forward to seeing how we can take our outstanding customer service and collaborative interactions to the next level.