As the coronavirus pandemic outbreak has changed the world of work, nearly 2,000 Microsoft retail employees have virtually trained 65,000 people in government, health care, education and finance on using Microsoft Teams.

The Microsoft physical stores were shut down last month — along with every other Microsoft Store location in the world about 2,000 Store associates were quickly pivoted to remote work. A few short weeks later, much of the Store team shifted into serving customers remotely.

The store employees have transitioned to serving people remotely as part of the company's Emergency Remote Operations plan.

"Nearly 80 per cent chose to work from home in a new Emergency Remote Operations model covering five areas: serving small and medium-sized businesses and education customers; training enterprise customers; selling Surface, Cloud and Microsoft 365; supporting customers of all types; and delivering virtual community workshops," Microsoft said in a blog post on Friday.

Demand for the programme, named 'Customer Success Trainings', has increased among customers wanting to transform their remote work environments with the collaboration tool, including Cleveland Clinic, Ernst & Young and transportation and CN (Canadian National Railway).

"From training thousands of customers to work productively in a remote setting with Microsoft Teams, to helping school systems get up and running on Microsoft 365, to getting small businesses the devices they need to successfully operate remotely, our team is offering their expertise," stated Microsoft corporate vice president of stores, David Porter, in another LinkedIn post.

The transition to work-from-home culture has been a logistical challenge for many businesses including Microsoft Store, which reaches more than 2 billion customers from 190 global locations via its physical locations and online stores.

"The global disruption has led to a broader platform to live out that mission in the face of a crisis. We've got energetic, excited folks with expertise helping businesses and organizations work remotely and transform quickly," said Scott Pearson, enterprise business development manager for Microsoft Store.