The Independent Living Housing Society of Greater Victoria (ILHS) is an organization that “provides housing and care for adults with diverse abilities,” says Manager of Finance, Lorinda Staples. The organization is a non-profit society, that has been offering inclusive housing options within Greater Victoria for over forty years. Their motto, “good living starts with home,” operates as a mantra for the helpful, and often crucial, work they do.
Challenge
ILHS switched to Microsoft 365 at the end of 2017. As per Government funding regulations, ILHS must store all company data on servers within Canada. Their previous cloud-based file system did not offer Canadian-based storage. Regroove set up their data on SharePoint and OneDrive for cloud-based file storage and sharing. ILHS kept in touch with Regroove for assistance with questions and introductions to new features in the Microsoft 365 toolkit.
In January of 2020, ILHS requested Regroove’s support to implement Microsoft Teams. They noted that the organization could benefit from the communication and collaboration features that Microsoft Teams offers.
Solution
Regroove started by setting up the ILHS’ management group with a team workspace so that they could communicate effectively. A few months later when the pandemic began with full force, ILHS’ management knew that Microsoft Teams could help with communication between all facets of the organization. They asked Regroove to setup team workspaces for the organization’s Board of Directors as well as each of the independent living houses that the ILHS operates. Microsoft Teams provided a great platform for the individuals they support and their employee teams to stay connected within the organization.
“[Microsoft Teams] has been a real godsend since the pandemic. We’re able to communicate easily with employees and the people they support”
Lorinda Staples, Manager of Finance, ILHS
Outcome and Benefits
ILHS was grateful for the assistance Regroove was able to provide in helping them move their data into reliable cloud-based technology that could be accessed anywhere with an internet connection.
This has become especially pertinent for the organization since the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020. Flexibility of work and communication has become increasingly more important for their work. Moving communications to Teams, Lorinda notes, has made an exceptional impact on their day-to-day work.
“The ability to work anywhere as long as there’s internet connection has been instrumental especially since the onset of the pandemic.” said Lorinda. “We haven’t had to deal with any network issues and we know that our data is secure.”
“Regroove are experts. [They have] seen so many different organizations, and they know what the best practices are. I can’t imagine trying to set up everything myself. They removed a lot of the headache and false starts with [Microsoft] Teams and SharePoint”
Lorinda Staples, Manager of Finance, ILHS
This sentiment was echoed by Kayla Whitesel, the project manager for ILHS’s initial setup with Microsoft. “We really enjoyed working with them and were encouraged by how well they took to working in the cloud, and with Microsoft Teams” said Kayla. Lorinda commented to Kayla that using Microsoft Teams and SharePoint lessened the effect the pandemic had on their organization.
Conclusion
By helping integrate Microsoft Teams, the ILHS were empowered to work remotely and stay connected. Managers can be efficient with fewer limitations to where and how they work.
This solution was built using:
- SharePoint
- Microsoft Teams
- Regroove’s Coaching and Project Management