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From 12 Hours to 2: How a Workforce Agency Transformed Monthly Reporting for 50+ Employees with Microsoft Copilot Agents 

We recently interviewed our client, Dena Dove, Learning and Development Specialist at EmployU. 

Here’s what Dena had to say about the challenges that caused her team to pursue Microsoft 365 Consulting, our approach, and the results. 

The Challenge: Inefficient Workflows 

EmployU is a nonprofit workforce development agency. We run both adult and youth programs, helping people with disabilities achieve long-term employment and access work-based learning opportunities.  

Having previously worked as a field agent in our organization, I had my finger on the pulse of a few areas where we could make our field agents’ lives easier. Before working with CTC Productivity, several of our workflows felt redundant and time-consuming, and we knew that adopting AI would solve that. 

At the time of this case study, we are working on our 8th and 9th Copilot agents with CTC Productivity. They have all been very successful for us, but for the purpose of brevity, we’ll focus on one specific agent in this case study. 

This is where we got started: 

Our field staff—employment specialists, youth employment specialists, and job coaches— keep detailed case notes and progress documentation for every client. Each month, we compile those notes into comprehensive Monthly Progress Reports (MPRs) for our vocational rehabilitation partners. 

Before Copilot, that meant that each of our field staff had to manually review a month’s worth of notes and turn them into structured summaries—work that took between 5–12 hours per person per month (depending on caseload). That administrative load pulled time away from direct client services, face-to-face coaching, and job development—all of which are the heart of our mission. 

We needed a practical way to reduce that time waste without sacrificing the quality of our MPRs. That’s when we contacted CTC Productivity about their Microsoft 365 Consulting service.

BEFORE: Monthly Administrative Time Investment 

The Solution: Custom Copilot Agents 

CTC Productivity worked closely with us to build custom Copilot agents to fit our workflows. Our goal was to simplify and automate as much as possible without completely disrupting the processes our field agents were already familiar with. The goal was to save time with minimal confusion or adoption fatigue. 

The flagship tool CTC Productivity built for us is our monthly summary agent. It compiles our field agents’ case notes and produces thorough and well-structured summaries that we can present to our vocational rehabilitation partners. Incredibly, what used to take our field agents between 5-12 hours a month, Copilot can do in a matter of minutes. And it does it well!  

This new process allows our field agents to simply process the AI-created summaries appropriately and move on to the work they are most passionate about. Instead of spending hours at a computer sifting through a month’s worth of notes and compiling summaries, our field agents have the time back in their day to engage in meaningful, client-centered work—the work they came here to do.

CTC Productivity also used Power Automate to publish all of our Copilot agents into our SharePoint environment, so everyone has a single, familiar place to access them. This helps with consistent availability, licensing management, and troubleshooting when something comes up. It’s been a gamechanger. 

Time Savings and ROI 

Our team felt the positive impact from this Copilot agent almost immediately.  

• For our staff with larger caseloads, the monthly summary work dropped from 10–12 hours to under 2 hours (an 83–92% reduction).

• For our staff with average caseloads, we saw the process move from 5–7 hours down to 1–2 hours per month (a 71–86% reduction).

We have roughly 50–60 staff members across our organization who are using this Copilot agent. That means that, depending on caseload, we have saved between 240 – 600 hours every month with the help of this Copilot agent alone. 

AFTER: Time Savings by Staff Caseload 

The time we have saved has certainly added up to real value for our team. It means less time spent on paperwork and more time spent directly helping our clients in a way that speaks to our core mission as an organization.  

And honestly, the time savings aren’t the only benefit we’ve seen. The Copilot agent also makes the work feel easier and less overwhelming day to day for our team members, which is directly affecting overall job satisfaction.  

Admittedly, some of our field agents were hesitant about AI at first—especially those who prefer the pen-and-paper approach. But once they saw the positive results their peers were achieving, they got excited about the possibilities and dove in.

In addition to the time savings, our team members have also shared that the Copilot agent improves the quality of their MRPs. One person said the agent makes their writing “sound smart,” because it helps polish their writing and keep the tone professional. The agent also does a great job pulling the right details from case notes—like the challenges a client faced and the specific ways our job coaches helped address them.

Key Takeaways 

The CTC Productivity team brought a deep knowledge of Microsoft 365. Copilot adoption has worked for us because CTC Productivity helped us focus on genuine pain points and deliver an agent that felt like the right solution for us. 

As mentioned above, we’ve seen such positive results from this Copilot agent that we are currently working on our 8th and 9th Copilot agent with CTC Productivity. We’re excited to expand our continuous improvement efforts and look forward to many more wins with Copilot in the future! We have appreciated CTC Productivity’s responsiveness, technical expertise, and willingness to tackle every challenge head-on, and we look forward to what’s to come. 

ROI Summary

Time Savings:  

240 – 600 hours of staff hours per month 

(50-60 employees each save 4-10 hours per month depending on case load) 

Job Satisfaction:  

Employees are reporting increased job satisfaction due to: 

• Time saved 

• Quality of Copilot’s reporting 

• Ability to focus on the work they were hired for 

Ongoing Costs: 

$0 (Excluding Microsoft 365 Copilot license) 

Links: 

Share this Case Study: https://ctcproductivity.com/microsoft-copilot-cuts-reporting-time

More Case Studies: https://ctcproductivity.com/success-stories

Coaching Auto Industry Controller to Achieve 25% Boost in Productivity Through Improved Confidence in Leadership Skills and Delegation

We recently interviewed our client, Kristi Wallace, Corporate Controller at Jim Taylor Auto Group.  

Here’s what Kristi had to say about the challenges that caused her to pursue coaching, Jan’s approach to helping her address those issues, and the results. 

Challenges: 

As a 30-year Auto Industry professional, my workload had been growing steadily throughout my career. I was also struggling with significant eye fatigue from screen time—it was beginning to impact my job performance and my sleep. I was at a breaking point mentally and physically.  

I had never had coaching before, so when I started my sessions with Jan, I didn’t have any specific expectations—only the hope that we could make some adjustments to lessen the impact of my eye strain and my heavy workload in order to boost my productivity.  

During my first coaching session with Jan, she helped me realize that my struggles were actually just a symptom of a larger problem. The root cause of my challenges was that I wasn’t delegating any of the work I was taking on. My leadership style was getting in the way, and I needed to make some adjustments to it.  

While I may have occasionally reassigned tasks to someone else, I often found myself double-checking all of their work. This habit was not only adding to my physical discomfort, but on a much larger scale, it was also sending the wrong message to my team and creating additional work for me. This became a primary focus of our coaching sessions.  

Solutions: 

First, Jan addressed the physical symptom of my massive workload—my eye strain. She provided tailored, practical strategies to help me address my discomfort. Her suggestions (e.g. using dark mode on all of my devices) immediately improved my comfort and productivity.  

Next, Jan examined my workload. She helped me realize that there were huge opportunities to increase not only my own job satisfaction, but my team’s as well.  

Upon hearing that I often double-checked my team’s work, Jan pushed me to do some self-reflection about why that was. When I dug deep, I realized that I didn’t lack confidence in my team—I lacked confidence in my own leadership skills, and it was getting in the way of me utilizing my team to their full potential.  

Jan showed me that my habit of delegating and double-checking—rather than leaning fully into the expertise of my team—was:  

• unnecessarily adding to my workload  

• sending my team the message that I didn’t trust them to do their jobs 

• keeping me from focusing my attention on my most important work 

Over the course of our work together, Jan helped me to grow my confidence in my own leadership skills and start truly delegating some of my responsibilities. The more I delegated (and fully let go of) the tasks on my plate, the more I saw my team’s confidence grow. I also saw huge benefits in my own workload, productivity, stress level, sleep, and more.  

Results: 

• Over 60% Decrease in Stress: Over the course of 3-4 months, I was able to delegate so many tasks to my team members that I saved about 20-25% of my time. This has made me significantly more productive and has resulted in an increase in job satisfaction of over 80%. 

• Increased Confidence: I have greater confidence in my leadership abilities now. This shift has allowed me to delegate tasks more effectively, significantly reducing my workload.  

• Positive Impact on Team: My team members have all benefited from my coaching.  Most notably, my assistant has enjoyed receiving increased learning opportunities as she grows in her position in an industry that’s relatively new to her. This has positively impacted her job satisfaction.  

I was thrilled with how immediate the changes were, how Jan pushed me to reflect on my habits, and how steadfast she was in her determination to identify the root causes of my challenges and help me solve them. I also appreciated that Jan provided additional resources for me to access between sessions. She regularly recommended books, podcast episodes, etc. that augmented what we discussed in our sessions. 

I’m so grateful to have more time in my day and to be experiencing less stress, less physical discomfort, and even better sleep from the changes we made. I’m a healthier person because of these sessions. 

On average, our coaching clients see a 10% boost in productivity—that’s like getting more than a month of your year back! 

Coaching is a powerful investment you can make in yourself and your team members. And it’s an investment with real results.  

Interested in coaching for yourself or someone on your team? Book a conversation.  

Let us help you create a culture where productivity fuels happiness. 

DOWNLOAD PDF
 

We recently interviewed our client, Lori Hart, Customer Experience Manager at Bulmann Dock & Lift. 

Here’s what Lori had to say about her company’s challenge, the CTC solution, and the results: 

Challenge: 

A large part of our business involves removing docks and equipment prior to the icing over of the lakes in Northern Michigan, and then reinstalling that equipment the following Spring.  

Like many companies, our processes evolved over time until we had five or six different applications that we would use for scheduling, work orders, communication with customers, location information, etc.  

We were struggling to find an application that contained all the various tools we needed to consolidate our processes to one platform. There are a lot of great applications out there, but none we could find that were specific to our business. I had been using an Excel spreadsheet to track all of our pertinent customer data, which was incredibly time-consuming, inefficient, and ultimately left us vulnerable to human error.  

In the past, when I created the schedule, I would have to pull a variety of client information from several different places to ensure that the right people, equipment, etc. were assigned to each job. For example, let’s say Mr. Smith needed a barge and special equipment to get his lift out because it’s muddy at his location. That information is incredibly important for scheduling the right teams with the right equipment, but that information was only helpful if I remembered to collect it and put it in the spreadsheet for the crew that was going to do the job. I had to try to find all of this information and make sure it was in the spreadsheet every year in order for the service team out in the field to be successful in getting the job done. 

Here’s what our work orders looked like originally (our clients’ info has been redacted for their privacy): 

And this is what our scheduler looked like previously:  

Both of these systems were completely manual. I had to create the work orders manually with any information I could remember the client telling me, and then I would have to manually enter all of their crucial and relevant job information into the scheduler for our service teams.  

Solution: 

When we learned that CTC helps companies leverage Microsoft 365 (a tool we were already paying for) to meet unique business needs, we reached out to them for a customized solution. We specifically wanted a solution that worked with our current processes, but simplified the steps involved. CTC’s consultants built-out a custom SharePoint solution for us that accomplished four big goals:  

• I now have a dashboard for scheduling that cherry-picks relevant information and keeps the most important information in front of me. 

• The Crew Leaders out in the field can now see their schedules and complete their work order information using their iPads and smartphones. 

• The list now stores our customers’ histories – such as travel time to their location, how many hours it takes for removal and installation, etc. 

• And we now have a “barriers” list where our crew leaders can document every failure, error, and roadblock they encounter out in the field. This allows our manager to review this list, assign action items to correct the issues if possible, and – in general – improve our operations. 

Our new solution is built so that each customer’s contact information, location, history, and specific job requirements are easily accessible within their file in SharePoint, and that information is there forever – I no longer have to add the information manually every year. In fact, everything we ever do with each customer is saved forever. This has made my job significantly easier (as well as the Service crew’s) because we all have access to everything we might ever need to know about the client. 

Before we made the switch to our new system, I would have to create every work order with everything I could remember about the customer after they call, email, text, or stop in to tell me when they were ready for services. Now, with our new system, the client fills out a form which generates the work order for me, then I just assign a date to it. That’s it! All of the client’s information and preferences carry over with the work order that they create themselves. It’s brilliant! 

Additionally, our Service teams can update their work order information in the field while it’s fresh in their minds, which is not something we had the ability to do before. This is another way we’ve saved time and reduced the opportunity for errors to occur. CTC also built us a “Barriers” list that allows our crews to make note of any issues they run into so that management can address those issues and hone our processes further to help our operations constantly improve. 

When the team at CTC first told us what their plan was using SharePoint, we had some reservations. It felt a bit overwhelming to imagine how the application would function and be able to do everything we needed it to. We had a hard time trusting that we’d see real benefits from making the change, but they asked us to trust the process, so we did.  

Once I was able to start testing the new system myself, I realized how easy the solution really was. I was no longer afraid of making mistakes because you can easily fix any errors that you make. If you accidentally uncheck a box, it doesn’t destroy a week’s worth of work–you simply recheck that box and it’s fixed. 

The more I explored our new SharePoint solution, the more I was able to see just how many possibilities there are with it. Additionally, the Service crews know that the new system can be molded into whatever we need, so they’ve been coming to me with new ideas every day for how we can use it.  We are all excited about the possibilities that we have with the new system, and we’re thrilled with the solution CTC has built for us.  

Here is a screenshot of our new automated work order:  

And here is what our new client info tracker looks like (our clients’ info has been redacted for their privacy): 

And finally, this is a screenshot of our new scheduler (our clients’ names have been redacted for their privacy):

Results: 

Before working with CTC, my role was an 80-hour per week job and we only had one person to do the work, so we knew we needed to cut that time in half. With CTC’s help, we managed to do exactly that.  

The entire service department has also seen a big increase in productivity. Now that all the information we could possibly need is stored in each customer’s file, the Service crews can see exactly what equipment they need before they leave for the job. There’s far less time spent running back and forth to swap out equipment because they’re no longer hitting roadblocks in the field. Our crews are experiencing fewer unpleasant surprises and much less frustration when they’re on a job.  

There has also been a big decrease in stress and increase in job satisfaction for me and for the entire team in the Service department. Things are running smoother, everyone has the information they need to do their job right the first time, and we all know now how easy it will be to make additional adjustments to the system over time if we think of new ways we can use it.  

We’ve worked with technology consultants before who moved through the process very quickly and dumped the final solution on us with very little to no follow up. We’ve had the opposite experience with CTC. We love that CTC has been there every single step of the way. We have bi-weekly calls to talk about how things are going, ask questions, get additional training or support. CTC has been there for every question, ensuring that we know exactly what we’re doing. We are absolutely thrilled with this partnership and hope to work with CTC forever! 

ROI: 

Initial Investment: ~$12,000 

Ongoing Costs: $0  

ROI:  

• Reduced Management’s work time by 50% 

• Notable decrease in stress and increase in job satisfaction among management & crew members