There’s SO MUCH going on in Microsoft Teams as a product, how do you even start to talk about it?! In this blog series I’m going to attempt to work my way through the letters of the alphabet, talking about as many features as I can think of in turn.

If you’re new to Teams, hopefully this helps you find your way around. If you’re not new to Teams, maybe you’ll still get some new ideas. Here we go…

G is for … GIFs.

Let’s talk about Gifs (baby) – if a picture says a thousand words then a Gif is practically a novel.

If they are enabled in your organisation (more on that in a minute) you can add them to Teams chat and channel messages, by clicking on this symbol here:

You can use search terms to help you find the perfect gif:

Sometimes the perfect Gif can be hard to find, so a word of warning that gif-scrolling can suck the productivity right out of your day.

I on the other hand have never lost precious time to finding the perfect gif…

Is it ok to send Gifs though?

This is what I really wanted to talk about in this post. Given that Teams is a platform primarily for working in, should we be sending Gifs in there at all?

I think there’s definitely a case to be made for trying to make work more ‘fun’ and in my experience gifs have certainly helped build up banter in team chats. Sometimes when work gets intense it’s great to have a bit of light relief. We spend so much time at work wouldn’t it be lovely if we actually enjoyed it? I think a well-placed Gif can help that. BUT – not all Gifs are created equal and arguably not all of them are appropriate!

To Gif or not to Gif – that is the question

You may not know this but Gifs need to be enabled by IT admins – Microsoft explains how here:

Manage messaging policies in Teams – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

So if you can’t send Gifs in Teams, that means your IT admin has decided against enabling them.

The Gifs in Microsoft Teams come from a third party called Giphy, where people can use and share Gifs. You could make and share one yourself!

Having Gifs available to send at work is potentially very tricky ground in my opinion, so I can understand the temptation to turn them off. A gif that might make one person laugh could be highly insulting/upsetting/triggering for another. Giphy itself clearly realises the stakes and has some detailed community guidelines that cover off all the usual content restrictions you’d expect to see here: GIPHY Community Guidelines – GIPHY but subjects like inclusivity are evolving rapidly, and how quickly can Giphy keep up?

I’m not sure that turning Gifs off completely is the right answer either; it smacks of an organisation not trusting employees to behave, which isn’t a culture I think I’d like to be a part of.

Perhaps something like those Giphy guidelines are what’s needed within organisations to help make sure that Gifs are used positively and prevent people from getting into hot water with them.

I don’t have the answer – I’d be interested to know what you think; Gifs on? Gifs off? Something in between? Let me know in the comments.

If you liked this blog and want to catch up on the rest of the A-Z series so far, you can find posts A-F here:  

https://lyndsay.blog/2023/03/01/lyndsays-a-z-of-microsoft-teams-a-is-for/

https://lyndsay.blog/2023/03/07/lyndsays-a-z-of-microsoft-teams/

https://lyndsay.blog/2023/03/16/lyndsays-a-z-of-microsoft-teams-b-is-for/

https://lyndsay.blog/2023/03/22/lyndsays-a-z-of-microsoft-teams-c-is-for-part-1/

Lyndsay’s A-Z of Microsoft Teams – C is for… (Part 2) – Lyndsay Ansell’s Blog

Lyndsay’s A-Z of Microsoft Teams – C is for… (Part 3) – Lyndsay Ansell’s Blog

Lyndsay’s A-Z of Microsoft Teams – C is for (part 4!!!) – Lyndsay Ansell’s Blog

Lyndsay’s A-Z of Microsoft Teams – D is for… – Lyndsay Ansell’s Blog

Lyndsay’s A-Z of Microsoft Teams – E is for… – Lyndsay Ansell’s Blog

Lyndsay’s A-Z of Microsoft Teams – F is for… – Lyndsay Ansell’s Blog

Happy Teamsing!