Rolling out Copilot is the easy part. Getting staff to actually use it is the hard part.
How a UK university took over 100 staff from aware to confident, on their own work, inside their own Microsoft 365.
Licenses are simple to buy. Changing how people actually work is not. This is what it looks like when a Working Session turns a Copilot rollout into staff who use it every day.
Working Session
A UK university
"Just brilliant once you know how."
"Gave me confidence. I'm excited to use it."
"I know I will start using this on a daily basis."
Staff Trained
100+
Sessions
By role
Environment
M365
Environment
Their own Microsoft 365
Sound familiar?
Access isn't adoption
The university had done the groundwork. Microsoft 365 Copilot was rolled out across staff, and entry-level training had been run. People knew it was there.
But most were still using it for the basics, if at all. It's the familiar pattern: open it once, get a generic answer, go back to the old way of working. Having the license is not the same as the habit.
They wanted staff genuinely working better with Copilot, not just aware it existed.
Before
Microsoft 365 Copilot rollout
CompleteDaily use across staff
Stalled"I opened it once, it gave me something generic, and I went back to how I normally do it."
The most common reason Copilot adoption stalls
After the Working Session
Clearing inboxes in minutes, replies drafted
Meetings written up automatically, actions listed
Answers and charts from spreadsheets, no formulas
Reports and decks built from their own material
What we did
Real sessions, on their real work
We ran the sessions inside their own Microsoft 365 environment, grouped by role, so academics and professional services teams each worked on what actually fills their day.
More than 100 staff took part. The focus throughout was secure, confident use on the emails, documents, and meetings they handle every day, not a tour of features on sample data.
Sessions grouped by role
Academic teams
- Research documents and literature summaries
- Student feedback and module reports
- Meeting notes and action planning
Professional services teams
- Inbox management and correspondence
- Data, reporting, and spreadsheets
- Agendas, minutes, and action tracking
By the end of the session
What staff could do by the end
Not "they saw a demo." They left able to:
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Get through a full inbox in minutes, with long threads summarised, key points pulled out, and replies drafted
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Pull answers and charts out of a spreadsheet without writing a single formula
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Leave every meeting with the notes written and the follow-up actions already listed
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Build a document or a slide deck from material they already had, formatted and ready
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Combine sources, an email and a dataset, into a ready-to-run agenda with everything referenced
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Get a usable result first time, using the prompt structure that turns "it gave me something generic" into something they can actually use
And they left knowing what's safe: how Copilot keeps university data private inside their own environment, and the difference between work and web use.
100+
staff trained
By role
academic and professional services teams
Their own M365
real environment, real tasks
Staff training participants, UK university
"Just brilliant once you know how."
"Gave me confidence. I'm excited to use it."
"I know I will start using this on a daily basis."
The difference
Why it sticks
Most Copilot training is generic and off-site: a fixed agenda that has nothing to do with how your team actually works, forgotten by the following week. This was different:
On their real tasks
So what they practised is what they did the next day, not something they had to translate back to their actual work.
Grouped by role
So it was relevant, not one-size-fits-all. Academics and professional services teams each worked on what their day actually looks like.
Responsible use built in
Not bolted on at the end. Staff left knowing how Copilot keeps their data inside the organisation and the difference between work and web use.
The prompting skill that fixes the drop-off
The exact reason people give up is getting a generic first answer. This is the skill that turns that into a result they can actually use.
Is this for you?
This is for you if
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You've rolled Copilot out and uptake has stalled
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You're paying for licenses and want them turning into real, daily use
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You want staff trained on their real work, not generic demos
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You'd rather your team leave already using it, with the confidence to keep going
Not sure where to start? The free 7-minute assessment points you to the right first step.
The Working Session
See it run for your team
This was a Working Session: half a day inside your own environment, on your real work, with everything included. Your team leaves doing something they weren't doing before.
Half a day inside your own Microsoft 365. Your team leaves with Copilot already doing part of the job.