Organisations are experiencing monumental shifts in the ways they work. Microsoft’s annual Work Trend Index survey, carried out among its 180,000 employees around the world, exposed what the company calls the hybrid paradox: People want the flexibility to work from anywhere, but they also want more in-person connection.
Sending everyone home to work in March 2020 was a catalyst for people to re-examine their relationship with work, resulting in deep, structural changes to employee expectations. As employees learned to work differently over the past 18 months, they are rethinking not only how, when and where they work, but why.
From October 22nd, the Government’s mandated requirement to work from home will be removed and all employees will be allowed to return to workplaces on a phased basis. This will present organisations with an opportunity to adopt hybrid working to ensure employees can benefit from that in-person connection and maintain a productive work-life balance that working from home offers.
The Microsoft Work Trend Index shows that feelings of inclusion and manager support are at all-time highs, while self-reported productivity levels remain consistent. At the same time, some employees cite work-life balance, focus time and meetings as reasons to go into the office. Others see them as reasons to stay home.
“The data we’ve gathered through our Work Trend Index report is helping guide us through these new complexities and we hope it can help other organisations as well,” says Joanne Morrissey, HR director, Microsoft Ireland.
“The views of our employees have helped us understand more fully the opportunities and challenges presented by remote working. They’ve also helped us appreciate people’s different working styles and how there can be a gap between employee and manager expectation. To bridge this gap, we’ve recognised that one-on-one conversations can create trust and give people the confidence to embrace their version of flexible hybrid work.”
Of course, she adds, “we are having to make long-term decisions based on data collected in a very short timeframe, but we have identified some very useful tactics that may help organisations develop successful hybrid working models.”
Overall, 90 per cent of Microsoft employees say they feel included in their work, a record for the company. According to Morrissey, it is understandable for employees to have a strong sense of inclusion when facing a shared challenge like the global Covid-19 emergency.
“This has created very strong bonds between people who have a shared sense of purpose despite working apart from each other. However, with organisations now moving to a hybrid model where people split their time between the office and remote work, that shared sense of purpose will require a lot of effort and creativity to maintain.”
While many feel included and productive, most also feel the strain of isolation associated with remote work
That means going the extra mile to ensure that no matter where employees work, they feel like they belong, that they’re being included in conversations, and that managers support their varying needs and working styles.
On the other hand, while many Microsoft employees say they feel included and productive, a majority also feel the strain of the isolation and challenges to wellbeing associated with remote work. This manifested itself in the numbers reporting feeling “satisfied with the quality of connection with their co-workers”, which fell from 86 percent in June 2020 to 79 percent in June 2021.
Microsoft’s research also shows that remote work caused its employees’ networks to become more siloed and static.
On a more positive note, employees’ satisfaction with the “balance between work and personal life” improved since the height of the pandemic, jumping nine percentage points between November 2020 and June 2021. Still, achieving that balance continues to be an effort for many.
“Remote work has clearly had both positive and negative impacts,” says Morrissey, “and we are now focusing on how organisations can build on the positives by continuing to support flexibility at the same time as strengthening the connections between people and promoting their wellbeing.”
That will require a nuanced approach which recognises that people have different preferences and different needs.
Topping the list of reasons to work in the office was collaboration with coworkers (70 percent) and social interaction (61 percent). The preferred reasons to work from home were avoiding commutes (61 percent) and maintaining a healthier work-life balance (59 percent).
There are gaps in expectation and work style between employees and managers, which can create friction
Those answers demonstrate the hybrid paradox in action. Employees say they’ve missed one another and what they can accomplish together in person, but they also want to hold on to what they perceive as the wellbeing benefits of working from home.
And the paradox deepens when the data is investigated further. Some Microsoft employees (12 per cent) cite work-life balance as a reason to come into the office, while others identify this as a reason to stay home (59 per cent). Some (23 per cent) say the ability to conduct online meetings makes working from home a desirable option, while others believe team collaboration is a reason to be together in person (70 per cent).
Among those employees who say they plan to spend the highest share of their working time at the office, 58 percent cite “focused work” as a top reason. At the same time, the same percentage who say they plan to spend a similar share of their time working at home also cited “focused work” as the main reason.
There are gaps in expectation and work style between employees and managers, which have the potential to create friction, but the survey data points to a simple solution: communication. Ninety-seven percent of Microsoft employees who’ve had a discussion with their manager about how they work best say managers support their desired work style, seven percentage points higher than among employees who have not yet had this conversation. It is clear that direct conversations create trust and allow people to embrace their own versions of flexible, hybrid work.
To encourage these conversations, Microsoft has introduced new features in Microsoft Teams designed to enable inclusive hybrid meetings with visual collaboration, whether or not people are physically in the room together. A new category of AI-powered cameras can detect who in the room is speaking and zoom in for a closer perspective. In addition, users of mobile devices now have quick access to engagement features such as chat, live reactions and Microsoft Whiteboard.
The hybrid paradox is going to redefine work as we know it. It is challenging, but it also creates new opportunities
New features to be added to Outlook early next year will capture details of when and where team-mates are working and let people specify whether they will attend a meeting in person or online. In addition, Microsoft Viva, which launched last year, is a tool that brings communication, knowledge, insights, learning and task updates into the flow of work. It helps employees stay informed about company news and resources directly from Teams. In the upcoming weeks, Viva Connections mobile app will be available in preview.
“The hybrid paradox is going to redefine work as we know it,” Morrissey concludes. “It is certainly challenging, but it also creates new opportunities for organisations to develop new ways of working that not only benefit employees but deliver better business outcomes.
“We are in uncharted territory here; no one has all the answers and we’re not sure yet about the ones we have. But we hope that by sharing what we’ve learned from our employees and their experiences during the pandemic other organisations will be able to adopt approaches and strategies that make the hybrid model really work for them and their employees.”