Just a few years ago, remote work in companies was a privilege granted to a handful of employees. Today, it has become the new norm. Organizations around the world have had to revisit their remote work policies and rapidly adapt their collaboration practices to support a dispersed workforce.
What we’ve learned is that—with the right tools, structure, and strategy—teams can be highly productive and collaborative even when working miles apart. One of the key enablers of this shift has been Microsoft Teams, whose usage doubled in just a few weeks during the transition.
At Tryane, we’ve observed this shift firsthand through data collected on our analytics platform, Communication Insights. Our tool helps internal communication professionals connect all their internal channels (Teams, SharePoint, Viva Engage, newsletters) and get a unified view of their KPIs, engagement, and content performance.
What we’re seeing from Communication Insights users
Here are four major trends observed among our customers as remote work becomes standard:
1. Massive growth in Microsoft Teams usage
Among our customers, we’ve seen a 61% increase in the number of Teams created. One organization alone added over 1,000 new teams since the start of the year—almost 200 per week!
Teams has become a core platform for remote collaboration. From the beginning of the year, we’ve observed a 3x increase in active users, and an even greater 5x increase in user activity.
2. The right kind of engagement is growing fastest
Collaborating on documents in real time is a strong indicator of meaningful teamwork. We’re seeing that this specific behavior is growing faster than others:
- Document collaboration up 25x
- Team channel conversations up 12x
- Chat messages up 50x
Microsoft Teams enables seamless co-authoring, real-time editing, and transparent communication—all essential for effective remote work in companies.
3. External guest access is rising—but so are security concerns
There’s been a 61% increase in guest access to Teams environments, as client meetings and external collaborations have moved online. However, 55% of those guests remain inactive after three months.
While this growth shows the strength of external collaboration, unmanaged guest access can pose a major internal security risk. With Communication Insights, organizations can easily identify inactive guest users and automatically revoke access based on inactivity filters, ensuring secure and clean collaboration spaces.
Remote work in companies: from temporary trend to long-term strategy
Teams is no longer a “nice-to-have”
When everyone is working from home, Teams is no longer just an optional tool—it’s the main workplace hub.
Based on what we see, many companies will struggle to reintroduce strict in-office policies. The reality is clear: with the right tools and analytics, employees can be just as productive remotely—if not more.
Beyond productivity, platforms like Microsoft Teams also help maintain social connections and collaborative dynamics that used to rely on physical office presence.
The rush to implement brings risks
Many companies fast-tracked their Microsoft Teams rollout, moving up deployments by months to respond to the remote work surge. While this agile approach helped preserve business continuity, it often lacked strategic planning.
Without governance and clear usage policies, teams are being created for one-off meetings or projects—cluttering the digital environment. This leads to a chaotic experience and degrades the user journey.
With Communication Insights, internal communication managers can track inactive teams, flag governance issues, and make data-driven decisions to clean up and optimize their collaboration space.
Inactivity and clutter impact productivity and security
An unmanaged Teams environment creates noise, slows down access to relevant information, and adds risk. Inactive teams and idle external guests can compromise internal security and slow workflows.
Using Communication Insights, you can detect these inefficiencies, identify what content is being accessed, and who your most active users are—sorted by department, country, or job role. This is invaluable when navigating the long-term challenges of remote work in companies.
Why Communication Insights is essential for remote work success
Internal communications are more critical than ever. In a hybrid or fully remote environment, knowing whether your messages are received, understood, and acted upon is vital.
That’s where Communication Insights shines:
- Connect all internal channels (Teams, SharePoint, Viva Engage, newsletters…)
- Measure campaign performance across platforms
- Understand which content resonates with each audience
- Track KPIs by department, country, role
- Determine the best times to post to reach the right people
- Automatically generate reports for stakeholders with export-ready PowerPoint slides
- Spot inactive pages and users, and identify your most engaged communities
Think of Communication Insights as a smart layer on top of your collaboration tools. It centralizes your data, gives you actionable insights, and helps you optimize remote communication with clarity and precision.
Conclusion
Remote work in companies is here to stay. As businesses adapt to this new reality, the need for strong internal communication, secure digital workplaces, and smart data becomes non-negotiable.
With tools like Communication Insights, organizations can take control of their communication strategy, understand employee behavior across platforms, and continuously improve how they inform, engage, and empower their workforce—wherever they are.