A day in the life of a human resources manager using Microsoft 365


7:30 am

Drinking coffee at home, Jose reads a newspaper article about the number of companies investing in diversity programs to promote inclusive hiring. He wants to share the article’s stats with his peers, so he opens Microsoft Excel on his iPhone and uses the Insert Data from Picture feature to capture a table.

8:30 am

At work, Jose and his peers use coauthoring to assemble the “Diversity and Inclusion Onboarding Handbook” in Microsoft Word. With real-time collaboration in Word, Jose can see the presence indicators and the changes his peers are making as they occur. He inserts the Excel table from the newspaper article.

9:30 am

Jose joins a video conference using Microsoft Teams, where his manager, Ana, shares the Handbook on her desktop so they can finalize the latest updates as a group. As they make changes, the draft is automatically saved in Teams eliminating the need to email around documents for reviews and the risk of version control problems.

9:55 am

At the end of the meeting, Ana uses Microsoft Planner, which is integrated into Teams, to assign Jose two tasks: summarize the handbook in a format that’s easy to share in an email; and, ensure the handbook is accessible to current and future employees who may have disabilities.

10:30 am

Back at his desk, Jose decides to create the summary in Microsoft Sway. Sway automatically converts the Word document into a dynamic website that HR can easily share, making the reading material more engaging for employees. Sway’s visually striking online canvas can be viewed from any screen. Plus, Jose can easily insert the CEO’s announcement video in the Sway.

11:30 am

Jose checks off the handbook summary task in Planner and shares the Sway URL with his group in Teams so they can give him feedback. He joins his peers for lunch.

12:30 pm

Back from lunch, Jose plans to spend the entire afternoon ensuring the handbook is accessible, which will be the first time he’s done something like this. Instead, he knocks it out within the hour because he finds the Accessibility Checker on the Review tab in Word, which guides him step by step how to make a Word doc accessible.

1:45 pm

With his extra time, Jose decides to gain deeper insights. He uses Microsoft Forms to create a quick survey to ask hiring managers what they already know about diversity hiring practices. Minutes later, the survey is done, and he shares the survey URL in the managers’ Teams channel. He can track responses in Forms and export the results to Excel to share with his peers.