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The New Future of Work

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By Brent Hecht , Abigail Sellen , Sonia Jaffe , Steven Derhammer, Sean Rintel , John Tang, Kori Inkpen , Nancy Baym , and Longqi Yang

Hybrid work “ is the future ” for Microsoft and many of our customers. Hybrid work also presents new challenges not present in remote work. Fortunately, we can draw on pre-pandemic research on hybrid work, extrapolation from our research on all-remote work, and evidence from some sites that are already experiencing the early phases of post-COVID hybrid work.

This hybrid work guidance is based on the existing research, with the understanding that there is still much to learn and that recommendations may change as new evidence comes to light. This document focuses on general guidance for hybrid workplaces. We also have a guide for hybrid meetings specifically.

A good summary of this general guidance comes from one of the best literature reviews of all the research on remote and hybrid work that had been written prior to 2015:

“ Similar to the general notion regarding the appropriate dosage for medication, finding the right amount of time to telecommute may be the key to producing desired outcomes, because too little or too much might not have the intended effect .” – Allen et al. 2015

How much time should I spend in the office?

Assuming you have a good (i.e., ergonomic and focus-friendly) workspace at home, the best data available suggests that  you should spend approximately half of your time in the office . Here are some reasons why:

• Some research has found that  co-worker relationships are not seriously affected by low-intensity remote work , but are affected when remote work is more than ~2.5 days a week.
• Too much time spent working remote  undermines both knowledge sharing and innovation within teams .
• One of the foremost academics on the topic of hybrid work, Dr. Nick Bloom (Stanford GSB), advocates for three days a week in the office .
• There is some research that suggests that the job satisfaction benefits of WFH max out at  about 15 hours per week .

If you do not have a good setup at home, you should probably spend more time in the office (and in fact this was the  top reason that employees in Microsoft’s China offices went back to work in summer 2020 ).

What types of work should we do in the office and what types of work should we do at home?

The research suggests that the following types of activities benefit from being in-office:.

• Work that requires  brainstorming or idea generation .
• Work with high “ task   interdependence ” (e.g., you’d be chatting back and forth with colleagues on Teams quite often).
• New workstreams : spinning up new projects and setting the strategic direction for a team are easier in face-to-face meetings.
• Work that seeks to  strengthen and build new relationships . Reduced interaction on WFH days can be balanced with increased interaction on days at office.
• Work with colleagues that are new to the group or organization.
• Work that requires tools or hardware that can only be used in the office (e.g., specialized tools that are too large, confidential, or expensive to be used at home).
• Serendipitous and spontaneous  encounters that benefit long-term success of many different workstreams. ​​​​​​​

And the following types of activities are best suited for work at home:

• Work with  low task interdependence .
• Work on projects that are mostly in a  distributed, execution-focused phase .
• Work that requires significant uninterrupted focus (for people who  do have  an environment at home that is suitable for focus). ​​​​​​​

Should my team be in the office on the same days or different days?

Since many of the benefits of in-office work listed above come from co-location, you should seek to be in the office for at least some of the same days as the people you work with closely. In addition to more routine kinds of collaborative activities, in-office days are the time for special events such as customer meetings, brainstorming sessions, strategic planning, and team bonding.

How should the in-office time be distributed? Fixed days of the week? Fixed weeks of the month? On demand?

This is a critical question for which there is unfortunately little research. Most of the research that informs the above best-practices used a fixed- or flexible-days-of-the-week model, in which people came into the office for a certain amount of time each week.

Early data from our China offices found that the majority of employees were given the freedom to choose their own arrangements.  The result was that about half went into the office on a fixed schedule, and half on demand. Fixed days may make it easier to coordinate with close collaborators, but make serendipitous encounters with other colleagues less likely. We do not yet know whether one system – or a combination – works better.

People with disabilities may especially appreciate scheduling flexibility that allows them to work at the times when they can be most productive.

How should we think about changing our office workspaces?

Team work and socializing.

Given the importance of spending time at the office for creative collaboration, interdependent teamwork, and serendipitous social encounters, spaces should be optimized to support:

• Brainstorming and idea generation:  spaces that teams can “own” for some period of time, with plenty of display space (both physical and digital) and where teams can have extended discussions when they are together.
• Team integration : Spaces where teams who are working together in tightly integrated teams can be aware of and available to each other, sitting nearby, but with other places they can retreat to for focused work.
• Informal interactions : places where people can informally meet each other, such as communal seating areas, places for food and drink, and spaces designed for social activities.

Individual work

There are two important dimensions to consider for individual workspaces:  dedicated space  and  private vs. open space.

Dedicated space: It might be tempting to assume that because people will spend less time in the office, they will no longer need dedicated workspaces. For employees that do almost all their focus work at home, that may be true. However, for more hybrid employees, ‘hotdesking’, where employees either share a desk with others or are not assigned a permanent desk, may present challenges.  Pre-pandemic research  shows that hotdesking can lead to increased demands arising from distractions, a rise in uncooperative behaviours amongst colleagues, more distrust, and a perception of less supervisor support. Additionally, research has also shown the  importance of at least two screens  to  support of knowledge work , which is possible, but less common with hotdesking.  Specialized ergonomic equipment can also be challenging with hotdesking.

Private vs Open space: Research suggests open office spaces with dedicated desks can serve similar needs to traditional full offices when  properly designed  and even promote positive productivity when held to  wellness certification standards . Alternatively “activity based” workspaces are another approach, where the workplace provides a range of different spaces for different activities and employees work flexibly across them as needed.

However, hybrid work means more video calls to remote colleagues, with more potential to disrupt others in an open office space. While “phone booths” that provide some audio privacy may help mitigate this issue, moving to a phone booth often leaves behind the work spread across screens in the workspace that is needed for a meeting.

How can we have better hybrid meetings?

See our Guide for Hybrid Meetings

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Microsoft and LinkedIn release the 2024 Work Trend Index on the state of AI at work

May 8, 2024 | Jared Spataro - CVP, AI at Work

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One year ago, generative AI burst onto the scene and for the first time since the smartphone, people began to change the way they interact with technology. People are bringing AI to work at an unexpected scale — and now the big question is, how’s it going?

As AI becomes ubiquitous in the workplace, employees and businesses alike are under extreme pressure. The pace and intensity of work, which accelerated during the pandemic, has not eased, so employees are bringing their own AI to work. Leaders agree AI is a business imperative — and feel the pressure to show immediate ROI — but many lack a plan and vision to go from individual impact to applying AI to drive the bottom line.

At the same time, the labor market is set to shift and there’s a new AI economy. While some professionals worry AI will replace their job, the data tells a more nuanced story — of a hidden talent shortage, more employees eyeing a career change, and a massive opportunity for those willing to skill up.

“AI is democratizing expertise across the workforce,” said Satya Nadella, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft. “Our latest research highlights the opportunity for every organization to apply this technology to drive better decision-making, collaboration — and ultimately business outcomes.”

For our fourth annual Work Trend Index, out today, we partnered with LinkedIn for the first time on a joint report so we could provide a comprehensive view of how AI is not only reshaping work, but the labor market more broadly. We surveyed 31,000 people across 31 countries, identified labor and hiring trends from LinkedIn, analyzed trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals and conducted research with Fortune 500 customers. The data points to insights every leader and professional needs to know — and actions they can take — when it comes to AI’s implications for work.

1. Employees want AI at work — and won’t wait for companies to catch up.

Three in four knowledge workers (75%) now use AI at work. Employees, overwhelmed and under duress, say AI saves time, boosts creativity and allows them to focus on their most important work. While 79% of leaders agree AI adoption is critical to remain competitive, 59% worry about quantifying the productivity gains of AI and 60% worry their company lacks a vision and plan to implement it. While leaders feel the pressure to turn individual productivity gains into organizational impact, employees aren’t waiting to reap the benefits: 78% of AI users are bringing their own AI tools to work. The opportunity for every leader is to channel this momentum into ROI.

2. For employees, AI raises the bar and breaks the career ceiling .

We also see AI beginning to impact the job market. While AI and job loss are top of mind for some, our data shows more people are eyeing a career change, there are jobs available, and employees with AI skills will get first pick. The majority of leaders (55%) say they’re worried about having enough talent to fill open roles this year, with leaders in cybersecurity, engineering, and creative design feeling the pinch most.

And professionals are looking. Forty-six percent across the globe are considering quitting in the year ahead — an all-time high since the Great Reshuffle of 2021 — a separate LinkedIn study found U.S. numbers to be even higher with 85% eyeing career moves. While two-thirds of leaders wouldn’t hire someone without AI skills, only 39% of users have received AI training from their company. So, professionals are skilling up on their own. As of late last year, we’ve seen a 142x increase in LinkedIn members adding AI skills like Copilot and ChatGPT to their profiles and a 160% increase in non-technical professionals using LinkedIn Learning courses to build their AI aptitude.

In a world where AI mentions in LinkedIn job posts drive a 17% bump in application growth, it’s a two-way street: Organizations that empower employees with AI tools and training will attract the best talent, and professionals who skill up will have the edge.

3. The rise of the AI power user — and what they reveal about the future.

In the research, four types of AI users emerged on a spectrum — from skeptics who rarely use AI to power users who use it extensively. Compared to skeptics, AI power users have reoriented their workdays in fundamental ways, reimagining business processes and saving over 30 minutes per day. Over 90% of power users say AI makes their overwhelming workload more manageable and their work more enjoyable, but they aren’t doing it on their own.

Power users work for a different kind of company. They are 61% more likely to have heard from their CEO on the importance of using generative AI at work, 53% more likely to receive encouragement from leadership to consider how AI can transform their function and 35% more likely to receive tailored AI training for their specific role or function.

“AI is redefining work and it’s clear we need new playbooks,” said Ryan Roslansky, CEO of LinkedIn. “It’s the leaders who build for agility instead of stability and invest in skill building internally that will give their organizations a competitive advantage and create more efficient, engaged and equitable teams.”

The prompt box is the new blank page

We hear one consistent piece of feedback from our customers: talking to AI is harder than it seems. We’ve all learned how to use a search engine, identifying the right few words to get the best results. AI requires more context — just like when you delegate work to a direct report or colleague. But for many, staring down that empty prompt box feels like facing a blank page: Where should I even start?

Today, we’re announcing Copilot for Microsoft 365 innovations to help our customers answer that question.

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• Catch Up, a new chat interface that surfaces personal insights based on your recent activity, provides responsive recommendations , like “You have a meeting with the sales VP on Thursday. Let’s get you prepared — click here to get detailed notes.”

These features will be available in the coming months, and in the future, we’ll take it a step further, with Copilot asking you questions to get to your best work yet.

LinkedIn has also made free over 50 learning courses to empower professionals at all levels to advance their AI aptitude.

Head to WorkLab for the full Work Trend Index Report , and head to LinkedIn to hear more from LinkedIn’s Chief Economist, Karin Kimbrough, on how AI is reshaping the labor market.

And for all the blogs, videos and assets related to today’s announcements, please visit our  microsite .

Tags: AI , LinkedIn , Microsoft Copilot , Work Trend Index

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Rebuilding Relationships Across Teams in a Hybrid Workplace

• Ron Carucci

Three strategies to help restore the ties that frayed during the pandemic.

The coming year of inventing our way toward whatever our workplaces will look like offers a marvelous opportunity to refresh and reinvent cross-functional relationships. Working to rebuild these bonds is especially important because most people won’t be returning to work as the same people they were before the pandemic; the last 18 months have changed all of us in some way. Organizational fragmentation isn’t a byproduct of remote work. It results from a lack of intentional bridge-building to link discrete groups and regions. Silos were certainly prevalent before the pandemic — hybrid work has simply created new requirements for effectively connecting teams that must work together to achieve shared outcomes. The author offers three approaches to help leaders and their teams reestablish strong connections across organizational boundaries as they’ve shifted to hybrid work environments.

As people slowly return to some form of hybrid workplace, bonds that tie them to one another must be rebuilt. Over the past 18 months, most organizations have experienced some degree of fracturing as social connections and cultural cohesion have been strained. The challenges of remote work , dramatic uncertainty, the clumsy process of figuring out what returning to the office could look like, and the mass exodus of workers fed up with cultures that make them feel devalued have all served to threaten a sense of community. On top of all that, most of our remote work interactions have been with our immediate colleagues and focused largely on the tasks at hand — research from Microsoft suggests that cross-functional collaboration went down by 25% as interactions within groups increased during the pandemic.

• Ron Carucci is co-founder and managing partner at  Navalent , working with CEOs and executives pursuing transformational change. He is the bestselling author of eight books, including To Be Honest and Rising to Power . Connect with him on Linked In at  RonCarucci , and download his free “How Honest is My Team?” assessment.

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Microsoft announces new research and technology to make hybrid work work in Asia Pacific

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• Second annual Microsoft Work Trend Index report finds employees have a new “worth it” equation. And there’s no going back
• Report outlines five urgent trends from an external study of 31,000 people in 31 countries including 14 markets in Asia Pacific

Asia Pacific, 17 March 2022 – Microsoft Corp. has overnight released its second annual Work Trend Index report, “ Great Expectations: Making Hybrid Work Work .” The company also announced new features across Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, Surface Hub, and Microsoft Viva to empower hybrid work and address employees’ new expectations for the workplace.

After sitting on the cusp of hybrid work for more than a year, many companies are at a long-awaited inflection point: the lived experience of hybrid work.

One thing from the research is clear: We are not the same people who went home to work in early 2020. The past two years have left a lasting imprint, fundamentally changing how people define the role of work in their lives. The challenge ahead for every organization is to meet employees’ great new expectations head on while balancing business outcomes in an unpredictable economy.

To help leaders navigate the shift, the 2022 Work Trend Index outlines five urgent trends from an external study of 31,000 people in 31 countries (including 14 markets in Asia Pacific) along with an analysis of trillions of productivity signals in Microsoft 365 and labor trends on LinkedIn:

• Employees have a new “worth it” equation. 57% of employees in Asia and 48% of employees in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) say they’re more likely to prioritize their health and wellbeing over work than before the pandemic. And the Great Reshuffle isn’t over: 55% of Gen Z and Millennials in Asia and 56% of Gen Z and Millennials in ANZ are likely to consider changing employers in the year ahead
• Managers feel wedged between leadership and employee expectations. 58% of leaders in Asia and 40% of leaders in ANZ say their company is planning a return to full-time in-person work in the year ahead. 57% of managers in Asia and 61% of managers in ANZ say leadership at their company is out of touch with employee expectations and 78% of managers in Asia and 73% of managers in ANZ say they don’t have the influence or resources to drive change for their team.
• Leaders need to make the office worth the commute. 41% of hybrid employees in Asia and 34% of hybrid employees in ANZ say their biggest challenge is knowing when and why to come into the office yet only 34% of leaders have created team agreements to define these new norms.
• Flexible work doesn’t have to mean “always on.” 56% of workers in Asia and 50% of workers in ANZ are open to using immersive digital spaces for meetings in the next year.
• Rebuilding social capital looks different in a hybrid world . With 61% of hybrid workers in Asia and 47% of hybrid workers in ANZ considering a shift to full-remote in the year ahead, companies cannot rely solely on the office to recoup the social capital we’ve lost the past two years. 43% of leaders in Asia and 40% of leaders in ANZ say relationship-building is the greatest challenge of having employees work hybrid or remote.

“There’s no erasing the lived experience and lasting impact of the past two years, as flexibility and well-being have become non-negotiables for employees,” said Jared Spataro, corporate vice president, Modern Work, Microsoft. “By embracing and adapting to these new expectations, organizations can set their people and their business up for long-term success.”

As the company marks five years since the launch of Teams, more than 270 million people rely on Teams for hybrid work.

Making hybrid work work for everyone will require intentional leadership around how, when and where to work — and technology has a key role to play. Today the company is introducing new product innovation designed to improve the hybrid work experience.

• Available in public preview at the end of the month, Teams Connect shared channels enable collaboration with people inside and outside the organization from a shared workspace.
• To bridge the gap between digital and physical workspaces, a new meeting layout for Teams Rooms, front row , is now available in preview.
• New touch-enabled display solutions for Teams Rooms from Neat and Yealink are in the process of being certified for Teams Rooms on Android. These devices combine audio, video, touch display and compute in a single unit — allowing easy deployment and enhanced collaboration experiences. The new AI-powered Microsoft Surface Hub 2 Smart Camera uses automatic framing technology to dynamically adjust your Teams video feed to provide remote team members with a dynamic view of in-room interactions.
• The language interpretation feature in Teams enables live interpreters to convert what the speaker says into another language in near real time. The meeting organizer can assign interpreters and select up to 16 source and target language combinations, while attendees will hear the translation.
• Microsoft Whiteboard in Teams offers a rich set of new capabilities that bring visual collaboration to life, including collaboration cursors, more than 50 new templates, contextual reactions, and the ability to open existing boards and collaborate with external colleagues in Teams meetings.
• To improve hybrid brainstorming, completion of action items and making decisions together without having to switch context or apps, Microsoft is introducing Loop components in Outlook mail . RSVPing for a meeting in Outlook now allows attendees to note whether they plan to join in person or virtually.
• Microsoft is introducing a new offering in Microsoft Teams Phone called Operator Connect Mobile , in partnership with some of the world’s largest telecom operators. This assigns a single business-provided mobile phone number for desktop and mobile devices, making it seamless to move calls across networks and devices with no interruptions.
• With vibrant and fun styling, over 1,800 new 3D fluent emojis can infuse expression and playfulness into messages. And with the skin tone selector , users have the option to pick emojis that better represents themselves.
• To support flexible work styles, two PowerPoint experiences, cameo and recording studio , are being brought together. This will make it possible for presenters to deliver presentations with PowerPoint Live in Teams, whether or not they attend the meeting.
• A new feature called the Inspiration library is coming to Microsoft Viva in public preview as part of the Viva Insights app in Teams. The library is designed to give employees, managers and leaders easy access to thought leadership and best practices from top sources such as “Harvard Business Review” and “Thrive.”

To learn more, visit the  Official Microsoft Blog ,  Microsoft 365 Blog  and the new  Work Trend Index  report.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

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Note to editors:  For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at  http://news.microsoft.com . Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at  https://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts .

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Microsoft and LinkedIn release the 2024 Work Trend Index on the State of AI at Work in Asia Pacific

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Microsoft’s hybrid return-to-work plan for the ‘biggest shift to how we work in our generation’.

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella outlines plans for his company's hybrid return to work model

In a LinkedIn post, Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, wrote, “ Hybrid work represents the biggest shift to how we work in our generation .” 

The “vast majority of employees say they want more flexible remote work options,” Nadella says based upon his research . At the same time, people state that “they want more in-person collaboration, post-pandemic.” Therein lies the hybrid-work paradox. 

 “Over the past year, no area has undergone more rapid transformation than the way we work. Employee expectations are changing.” We will need to to be much more “inclusive of collaboration, learning and well-being to drive career advancement for every worker.” This needs to be accomplished with “flexibility in when, where and how people work,” he said.

To help both employees and managers, the company published a playbook “sharing some of what we’ve learned to date, including data, research and best practices designed to help organizations navigate these evolving work norms.” In a separate blog post, Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365 said about the company’s 1600,000 global workforce, “ Any employee can work remotely up to 50% of the time. ”

The new hybrid work strategy is broken down into three parts:

Trump signals he may skip abc news debate after bashing network, real madrid coach ancelotti fires warning to vinicius jr., 1 dead, 3 injured in landslide in alaska’s ketchikan, social capital .

Microsoft envisions for every business unit to remain “world class.” They should include both “synchronous and asynchronous communications.” To keep the corporate culture, “Employees now expect all meeting information—whether that’s recordings, transcripts or highlights—to be available on demand, and on double speed, at a time that works for them.”

It's important that “everyday connections between employees, as well as between employees [and] their managers” are maintained. Nadella put in a plug for using one of the company’s products,   Microsoft Viva , for “bringing together one-to-one and one-to-many communications to keep everyone engaged and informed and maintain that connection between employees and the company and its mission.”

Spataro said, “To help people thrive in a more flexible work world, we need to rethink the entire employee experience—from creating culture to attracting and retaining talent and building listening systems.” He added, “Every organization needs a plan and policies that put us on the path to extreme flexibility and help us build digital empathy into every aspect of our culture.” 

Knowledge Capital

It's a big challenge to keep knowledge, the critical ingredient of success, flowing in a dispersed setting. “We’re working to help employees pick up knowledge and credentials so that others can find them and build upon their expertise. It’s why we’re providing personalized training content to employees and also centralizing companywide training, all within the flow of work.”

Human Capital

Nadella says, “Managers now need to think about the wellness of the people they work with as a first-class priority, and then do everything they can to think about productivity in a broad sense instead of just as short-term output.”

Like many companies during the pandemic, Microsoft understands the importance of mental and emotional health. To help its employees, Microsoft is “taking a data-driven approach.” For instance, based on research , “Back-to-back meetings challenge our well-being—and short breaks could be a remedy.” The company decided to add “new settings in Outlook that can automatically carve out short breaks between meetings.”  The software giant also uses “analytics to help employees improve work habits and help managers proactively engage teams at risk of burnout.”

The company won’t only rely upon physical locations to collaborate.  Spaces will need to be reimagined. To level the playing field, everyone should have a “common view of meeting participants and be able to connect with them.” Employees will also have the same access to information regardless if they are remote or in-office workers.  

Microsoft wants “equitable, inclusive experiences” that begins with keeping those who won’t be in the physical room in mind. This entails using “Microsoft Teams Rooms with high-quality audio and video to ensure everyone can be seen, be heard and participate as if they were there in person.” Meeting rooms will install “cameras at eye level for participants to maintain eye contact.” The goal is to offer remote workers a “first-class” experience, along with people working at the office.

A product that Nadella’s excited about is virtual reality meetings, which “transcend space and distance to collaborate virtually in new ways.” Microsoft and AltspaceVR devised a concept called  the “ Nth Floor .” It offers a unique virtual reality experience, enabling people to interact with each other, regardless of geographic location.

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New Microsoft Study of 60,000 Employees: Remote Work Threatens Long-Term Innovation

The new study confirms what microsoft ceo satya nadella calls the hybrid work paradox..

Whatever managers previous fears about remote work , the pandemic has proved that most knowledge workers can get their daily tasks done just as well from their living rooms as from the office. Study after study confirms most people's personal experience that, at least for those without child care, health, or other challenges, productivity has actually inched up with the advent of widespread remote work. 

Which means working from anywhere is a great thing, and companies don't need to worry about its impacts on performance, right? 

Not so fast, suggests a massive new peer-reviewed study from Microsoft that found that, while remote work is fine for plowing through day-to-day work, it has the potential to put a serious damper on collaboration and innovation long-term. 

Short-term productivity goes up, long-term creativity goes down.

The study, which was just published in Nature Human Behavior , analyzed data on the communications of approximately 61,000 Microsoft employees in the U.S. gathered between December 2019 and June 2020. Crunching the numbers revealed that while hours worked went up slightly when employees shifted to working from home, communication, particularly real-time conversations, fell significantly. 

Switching from a corridor chat to an exchange of emails isn't a one-to-one substitution, and the researchers worry about the knock-on effects of changes to the way office workers collaborate. 

"Without intervention, the effects we discovered have the potential to impact workers' ability to acquire and share new information across groups, and as a result, affect productivity and innovation,"  they write . "Based on previous research, we believe that the shift to less 'rich' communication media may have made it more difficult for workers to convey and process complex information."

Balancing the pros and cons of remote work 

This probably doesn't come as a huge shock to anyone who has been working remotely this past year and half. Just using my own family as an example, when schools were open, the pandemic posed no problems to my productivity. As a writer, I've long found it's easier to pound out articles without colleagues popping in to chat about last night's must-watch TV or where to find that document from three weeks ago. If you're working on a defined task and doing so in a reasonably distraction-free space, remote work is ideal. 

On the other hand, take the case of my screenwriter husband. A large part of his job is generating fresh ideas with collaborators and talking a group around to something resembling alignment to execute on them. Remote work for him has translated to sky-high stress and reduced productivity. I can't count how many times he's emerged Zoom-addled from his office to lament how much easier life would be if he could just get on a plane and talk to someone. When I read that Netflix is desperate to get people back into the office , I wasn't at all surprised. 

Most of us don't sit in writers' rooms for a living, of course, but every business requires some degree of team-based innovation. Microsoft's study confirms my husband's rants that this kind of collaborative creative thinking is hard to do remotely. 

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calls this ability of remote work to simultaneously improve heads-down productivity and harm creativity the hybrid work paradox. And as a Microsoft blog post accompanying the new study notes, "Solving the Hybrid Work Paradox will be the challenge of the decade. ... As Satya has said: 'Our new data shows there is no one-size-fits-all approach.'"

Maybe a hybrid model will work for you. Maybe offsites will get the job done. Maybe you'll need to change policies depending on what projects you have on your plate. But if you want to both keep your people happy and keep your organization's creative juices flowing, you're going to need to wrestle with both the upsides and downsides of remote work . 

A refreshed look at leadership from the desk of CEO and chief content officer Stephanie Mehta

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Microsoft: Build your hybrid work policy around ‘moments that matter’

The vendor giant’s latest research suggests 73% of staff need a better reason to go to the office than just company expectations.

News In Brief

Hybrid is the future of work for most organizations.

Here's how to do it right, according to Microsoft.

Hint, it is not the number of days you are in that matters!

Hybrid work is the dominant future of work model; even Zoom, who’s business has boomed as a result of pandemic-forced remote work, is embracing a hybrid approach.

The reason, according to new data from Microsoft , is that hybrid is coming out ahead of fully in-person and fully remote work because it does a better job at balancing flexibility with in-person connection.

Microsoft’s research suggests that when organizations are deciding on the specifics of their hybrid working policy, they should focus less on the number of days people are in the office, and instead get more intentional about having people working in-person in the “moments that matter”.

The report stated: “As organizations embrace this transformative model, they unlock their capacity to increase productivity, enhance employee satisfaction, and create a more inclusive workforce.

“Remote work has benefits, and in-person time does too.

“Every team is different, but one thing is clear: finding this balance must be approached with intentionality.

“Rather than considering the office as a one-size-fits-all solution, teams should consider the type of work they do and determine key points in time or reasons to gather in person.”

The “moments that matter” at Microsoft

Based on data from its own internal engagement surveys, Microsoft’s report noted three examples of in-person “moments that matter”: building relationships within (and outside) your team, onboarding of talent into a new role or a new team, and kicking off a project.

While 92% of Microsoft employees believe that their company values flexibility and trusts them to work where is best for them, and 93% are confident in their ability to work as a team regardless of location, they still crave social connection.

And when asked what types of team activities they’d like, 37% said they wanted social and team building activities – that was the number one theme in the engagement survey.

The report found that Microsoft employees who spent six or more days per month in the office with their team had a slightly higher engagement score than those who did not spend any time in the office.

In-person connection was particularly good for their alignment on team goals, as well as wellbeing and productivity .

These findings were mirrored by Microsoft’s latest Work Trends Index , which surveyed 20,000 people globally.

73% said they needed a better reason to go into the office than just company expectations, 84% would be motivated by the promise of socializing, and 85% wanted to rebuild team bonds.

73% said they would be more likely to go to the office if they knew their direct team were there – this rose slightly to 74% for work friends.

Ultimately, it is clear that social connection is worth the commute for employees – and this is particularly key when they are new in the organization (or have recently changed teams), and when teams are kicking off a new project.

Those who met their managers within their first 90 days in the organization (or that team), were more likely to seek feedback and build stronger relationships with their colleagues.

The report stated: “The quicker that new hires develop trust with their managers and teammates, the quicker they can become productive contributors and collaborators with the team and the company.”

Kicking off a project also benefitted from in-person collaboration – it helped generative 14% more ideas, and 18% more creativity, than virtual work.

That’s what works for Microsoft, but, in the report, the tech giant’s head of people analytics Dawn Klinghoffer recommended that every employer asks their workers what moments matter to them, and lean into that when thinking about the hybrid current and of work.

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What executives are saying about the future of hybrid work

In the postpandemic future of work, nine out of ten organizations will be combining remote and on-site working, according to a new McKinsey survey of 100 executives across industries and geographies. 1 From December 2020 through January 2021, McKinsey surveyed and analyzed responses from 100 respondents at the C-suite, vice-president, and director level, evenly split among organizations based in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States, and among a variety of industries. Company revenues ranged, on average, from $5.1 billion to $11.0 billion per year. The survey confirms that productivity and customer satisfaction have increased during the pandemic.

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A McKinsey Live event on ‘Getting hybrid work right: What employees are saying’

The following charts, drawn from our survey, offer insights for executives who are sorting out the particulars of the hybrid approach. A notable finding is that organizations with the biggest productivity increases during the pandemic have supported and encouraged “small moments of engagement” among their employees, moments in which coaching, mentorship, idea sharing, and coworking take place. These organizations are preparing for hybrid working by training managers for remote leadership, by reimagining processes, and by rethinking how to help employees thrive in their roles.

The future will be more hybrid. Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, the majority of organizations required employees to spend most of their time on-site. But as the pandemic eases, executives say that the hybrid model—in which employees work both remotely and in the office—will become far more common. The majority of executives expect that (for all roles that aren’t essential to perform on-site) employees will be on-site between 21 and 80 percent of the time, or one to four days per week.

Future vision. Although nine out of ten executives envision a hybrid model going forward, most have at best a high-level plan for how to carry it out—and nearly a third of them say that their organizations lack alignment on a high-level vision among the top team. Although another third of organizations have a more detailed vision in place, only one in ten organizations have begun communicating and piloting that vision.

Productive nonetheless. The survey also confirms that during the pandemic most organizations have seen rises in individual and team productivity and employee engagement, and, perhaps as a result of this increased focus and energy, a rise in the satisfaction of their customers as well.

But not every organization has experienced the same improvement. Take individual productivity. Some 58 percent of executives report improvements in individual productivity, but an additional third say that productivity has not changed. Lagging companies, which make up 10 percent of respondents, relate that individual productivity has declined during the pandemic. It’s important to note the high correlation between individual and team productivity: C-suite executives who say that individual productivity has improved are five times more likely to report that team productivity has risen too.

Making the small connections count. Why have some companies enjoyed higher productivity during the pandemic? According to our survey, they’re the ones supporting small connections between colleagues—opportunities to discuss projects, share ideas, network, mentor, and coach, for example. Two-thirds of productivity leaders report that these kinds of “microtransactions” have increased, compared with just 9 percent of productivity laggards. As executives look to sustain pandemic-style productivity gains with a hybrid model, they will need to design and develop the right spaces for these small interactions to take place.

Managing differently. Supporting small moments of connection requires subtle shifts in how managers work. Nearly all executives surveyed recognize that managing remotely differs from when all employees are on-site, but other subtleties may not be as apparent. Nuances can be seen in the more than half of productivity leaders that have trained their managers on how to lead teams more effectively. Only a third of productivity laggards have done the same. The emphasis on small connections suggests that organizations could better support managers  by, among other things, educating them about the positive and negative impact they have on the people who report to them, and by training managers on soft skills , such as providing and receiving feedback. Organizations can also explore novel ways to address the loss of empathy  that often accompanies gains in authority.

Experiment and iterate. Across organizations, executives already recognize the need to redesign processes to better support a remote workforce—with the majority having at least identified the processes that will require rethinking. But productivity leaders are more likely to continually iterate and tweak their processes as the context shifts. As organizations look to codify the hybrid model, there is evidence that the test-and-learn approach to process redesign will be an important enabler.

Reimagine hiring. Hiring is among the most crucial processes to reconsider in the hybrid world. Should organizations continue to hire within specific geographies, or should they open up their talent aperture beyond traditional recruiting locations, for instance? Should they conduct more remote interviews? During the pandemic, nearly two-thirds of organizations have moved in-person recruiting events and activities to remote settings, but only one in three have reimagined hiring from the ground up. Forty percent of productivity leaders, by contrast, have holistically redesigned their entire hiring process.

Rethink talent allocation. During the pandemic, nearly two-thirds of organizations have reassessed the number of people in each role and in each function in the company. But productivity leaders are more likely than middle performers and laggards to fall into this category. A select few leading companies have taken it even further and have gone beyond reassessing to actually implementing changes. As organizations redesign their hybrid future, matching the workforce with the right priorities could help spur productivity improvements.

Andrea Alexander is an associate partner in McKinsey’s Houston office, where Mihir Mysore is a partner; Rich Cracknell is a solution leader in the Silicon Valley office; Aaron De Smet is a senior partner in the New Jersey office; and Meredith Langstaff is an associate partner in the Washington, DC, office, where Dan Ravid is a research and knowledge fellow.

This article was edited by Lang Davison, an executive editor in the Seattle office.

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