The world suddenly switched to telecommuting last year, so many were able to spend more time with their families, deciding whether to commute and, if so, when to do so. However, now that we are opening up to long-term hybrid work, not only opportunities but also new challenges await us, Microsoft warns in a recent study. In a year and a half of online collaboration, networks have loosened, teams have become more isolated and digital exhaustion threatens.
Employees want the best of everything. While more than 70 per cent continue to insist on the possibility of teleworking, which gives flexibility, 65 per cent would also meet their colleagues more often in person in the future, Microsoft found in its research (2021 Work Trend Index). The software company analyzed responses from more than 30,000 employees in 31 countries, as well as anonymized data collected on Microsoft 365 and LinkedIn user activity, to assess past experience of the rapid transformation of work and to advise on further model changes.
Extreme flexibility and a hybrid model of working will determine the post-epidemic workplace, meaning that some employees will return to the office while others will continue to work from home – the results of the global survey clearly show. 66% of corporate decision-makers are considering redesigning the physical office environment accordingly, which is encouraging, but it has also been shown that it is by no means certain that all the conditions for hybrid work will be taken into account when planning investments.
It would be very good and if managers approached the solution of the problem thoughtfully and methodically. This is because more than 40% of workers do not rule out the possibility of changing jobs later this year, and effective support for hybrid work will undoubtedly be a key factor in retaining – and gaining – a skilled, talented, experienced workforce.
Leaders in parallel reality
In the long months spent working remotely, the cohesion and team experience of the employees has largely strengthened. They all found themselves in the same virtual space, but in the hybrid model, this close, comrade bond will loosen up, Microsoft pointed out. It will therefore be important for employees to be able to choose the place and time of work flexibly, as well as to have the means to do full-time work anytime, anywhere. However, for the time being, business leaders seem to have a rather limited interpretation of support for hybrid work. Although they have been working from home for more than a year, 42 percent of workers complain that they lack basic office equipment and none of the ten respondents even have a proper internet connection. In addition, 46 percent of those surveyed said their employer does not help cover the cost of telework at all. It should be noted here that Google recently came straight to the news that in the hybrid model, it offered pay cuts to its employees who chose to work long-term telecommuting.
for he believes that his company has really flourished in the context of teleworking – which is 23 percentage points higher than the figure measured outside the decision-making circle. The much more favorable experience of managers working online is illustrated by the fact that they said they also built stronger relationships with their colleagues and bosses during this period (11 and 19 percentage points respectively), earned more (plus 17 percentage points in their favor) and spent more days off. (plus 12 percentage points difference) than before
The authors of the study add that the business leaders interviewed were more likely to meet Millennium and Generation X representatives, men, information workers and people in their careers. . The experiences of the generation, women, frontline workers and new entrants, on the other hand, are mixed, and they are more characterized by having struggled in their workplace over the past year. Globally, 37 percent of employees said their company demands too much from them in the current situation.
Although many employees believe that they have maintained or increased their performance in teleworking, it comes at a price. According to one in five respondents to the survey, your employer is not at all interested in work-life balance. Forty-five percent of respondents feel overworked and 39 percent feel exhausted
Analyzing the trillions of operations performed in Microsoft 365, this digital exhaustion can also be quantified. Trends in collaboration in February, for example, indicate that the time spent at a Teams meeting has doubled and halved compared to the same period last year, while the average duration of discussions has increased by 10 minutes, rising from 35 to 45 minutes. Teams users sent 45 percent more messages per week in February this year than last year, and their chances of chatting increased by 42 percent in the after-hours hours. In the private sector and education, e-mail traffic in February increased by 40.6 billion letters year-on-year, and the number of users working in document editing grew by 66 percent.
In addition, this communication burden is largely unplanned as 62% of calls and discussions, for example, do not take place on a pre-scheduled basis but on an ad hoc basis. Employees can still feel expected to remain unchanged. For example, 50 per cent of users responded to Teams messages within five minutes in February this year, as fast as last year, which is a good indication of the significant increase in the intensity of working days in teleworking.
Credibility efficiency and innovation
A survey by Microsoft found that members of Generation Z were particularly worn out by telecommuting, with 60 percent of respondents aged 18-25 just surviving or struggling in the current situation. Their difficulties can be attributed to the fact that most of them are new and unique, so they feel the effects of isolation better and find it harder to find motivation, and often do not have the money to create suitable working conditions for themselves at home. Companies need to find a solution to this problem because the contribution of young people is critical as it helps the business to find new perspectives, to question existing conditions, i.e. to innovate. Most of the members of the generation started their careers in telecommuting, so their employee experience, experience and expectations provide particularly important insights into the proper shaping of the hybrid work environment, the study points out.
is. Trends in Outlook correspondence and Microsoft Teams discussions, revealed by analyzing anonymized data, have shown that interactions between close associates in the epidemic initially became more frequent, but over time they also began to become rarer and more distant relationships immediately faded into the background. In other words, teams are gradually organized into silos, companies become more fragmented, and this is not good for their power of innovation. Microsoft therefore advises organizations to take great care in the hybrid model to develop community capital, foster team collaboration and spontaneous brainstorming to maintain their innovative capacity in the long run.
The last year and a half is another valuable year. experience that in the home office, along with all the stressful effects of telecommuting, the workplace has become more humane. One in five respondents reported meeting virtually with colleagues ’family members and pets, and 17 percent of those surveyed also admitted to crying with a colleague online – in the sectors hardest hit by the epidemic, education, tourism and and in health, the rate was even higher, at 20 to 23 per cent. Forty-three percent of respondents said it is now much more common to give themselves a completely authentic self while working, and 31 percent are less embarrassed if their colleagues gain insight into their home lives during an online discussion. In addition, respondents who kept in touch with their colleagues more intensively during telecommuting reported not only greater efficiency but also better well-being overall. However, Microsoft adds that the experience of acceptance varies from one group of employees to another, so companies need to make sure that the hybrid model encourages credibility in all groups as well. and one of the benefits of teleworking is that it expands this market. In the epidemic, the number of telecommuting job postings posted on LinkedIn has increased fivefold, and this has also been noticed by job seekers. In the survey, 46 percent of teleworkers surveyed said they would move out later this year because they wanted to reap all the benefits of telecommuting. People no longer have to get up from their desks, leave their homes or commute daily to run a career, which Microsoft says will have a profound impact on the job market, redrawing the talent map.
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