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Work Trend Index Special Report


HYBRID WORK IS JUST WORK. ARE WE DOING IT WRONG?

In choppy economic waters, new data points to three urgent pivots for leaders to
help employees and organizations thrive

September 22, 2022

Illustration by Vanessa Branchi

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Months into hybrid work, not everyone agrees on how it’s going. onths into
hybrid work, not everyone agrees on how it’s going. Employees and employers are
divided. Employees have embraced flexible work and its benefits and are
rejecting a return to hustle culture.

Download the full report



Hybrid Work Is Just Work. Are We Doing It Wrong?

At the same time, many leaders yearn for the office life of 2019—hallways abuzz
with chatter, coffee overflowing. Add to that what can only be described as one
of the strangest recessions the world has ever seen: business leaders must
contend with rising inflation, shrinking budgets, and, paradoxically, a talent
marketplace that remains incredibly tight.

Now more than ever, it’s the job of every leader to balance employee interests
with the success of the organization, aligning everyone around the most
impactful work. One thing is clear: “Thriving employees are what will give
organizations a competitive advantage in today’s dynamic economic environment,”
according to Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft. And, creating a culture
and employee experience to meet the needs of today’s digitally connected,
distributed workforce requires a new approach.


To help, we surveyed 20,000 people in 11 countries and analyzed trillions of
Microsoft 365 productivity signals, along with LinkedIn labor trends and Glint
People Science findings. The data points to three urgent pivots for leaders to
drive alignment and empower people for the new ways we work. Because when
employees thrive, organizations flourish.


Key Findings

The three pivots leaders need to make:

 1. End productivity paranoia 

 2. Embrace the fact that people come in for each other 

 3. Re-recruit your employees 


1.

End productivity paranoia



People are working more than ever, while leaders—already worried by signals of
macroeconomic decline—are questioning if their employees are being productive.
The majority of employees (87%) report that they are productive at work, and
productivity signals across Microsoft 365 continue to climb. This spring, we
found that the number of meetings per week had increased by 153% globally for
the average Microsoft Teams user since the start of the pandemic, and there is
still no indication that this trend has reversed, suggesting this peak could
become the new baseline. On top of an already high meeting load, overlapping
meetings (being double-booked) increased by 46% per person in the past year. And
users are flooded with meeting invites—even as the overall meeting acceptance
rate has remained fairly steady (growing by only 3%), declines and tentative
RSVPs have soared in the past two years (84% and 216% growth, respectively). The
strain is clear: in an average week, 42% of participants multitask during
meetings by actively sending an email or ping—and that doesn’t include practices
like reading incoming emails and pings, working in non-meeting files, or web
activity.

At the same time, 85% of leaders say that the shift to hybrid work has made it
challenging to have confidence that employees are being productive. And as some
organizations use technology to track activity rather than impact, employees
lack context on how and why they’re being tracked, which can undermine trust and
lead to “productivity theater.” This has led to productivity paranoia: where
leaders fear that lost productivity is due to employees not working, even though
hours worked, number of meetings, and other activity metrics have increased.

85%

of leaders say the shift to hybrid work has made it challenging to have
confidence that employees are being productive.

Many leaders and managers are missing the old visual cues of what it means to be
productive because they can’t “see” who is hard at work by walking down the hall
or past the conference room. Indeed, compared to in-person managers, hybrid
managers are more likely to say they struggle to trust their employees to do
their best work (49% vs. 36%) and report that they have less visibility into the
work their employees do (54% vs. 38%). And as employees feel the pressure to
“prove” they’re working, digital overwhelm is soaring.

Productivity paranoia risks making hybrid work unsustainable. Leaders need to
pivot from worrying about whether their people are working enough to helping
them focus on the work that’s most important. 81% of employees say it’s
important that their managers help them prioritize their workload, but less than
a third (31%) say their managers have ever given clear guidance during
one-on-ones. Solving this issue needs to start at the top: 74% of people
managers say more guidance on prioritizing their own work would help their
performance, and 80% say they’d personally benefit from more clarity from senior
leadership on impactful priorities.


CLARITY IS KEY

Employees who report having clarity about their work priorities are:

3.95x

as likely to say they plan to stay at the company for at least two years

7.1x

as likely to say they rarely think about looking for a new job

4.5x

as likely to say they’re happy at their current company

Source: Glint, 2022

48% of employees and 53% of managers report that they’re already burned out at
work, so prioritization must go beyond simply reordering an overflowing to-do
list. Leaders need to create clarity and purpose for their people, aligning work
with the company mission and team goals. And defining what work doesn’t matter
is just as important as defining what does—in a world where everything is
important, nothing is. We’ve reached a point of diminishing returns due to
overwork and overwhelm—if leaders don’t intervene, they put productivity in
jeopardy.

Showing employees that you care requires creating a continuous feedback
loop—listening and taking action consistently. Only 43% of employees can
confidently say their company solicits employee feedback at least once a
year—meaning over half of companies (57%) may rarely, if ever, ask and hear
about their employees’ experience at work. And even if their company is
collecting feedback, 75% of employees (and 80% of managers) think it’s not often
enough, and 75% of business decision makers say it’s not actionable enough. In
an era of ongoing volatility, timely, actionable employee insights are critical
to gaining and maintaining a competitive edge. To ensure that decisions are
driven by the most up-to-date information, leaders need to consistently take a
pulse on how their employees are doing.

Productivity Paranoia

There is a stark disconnect between the portion of leaders who say they have
full 
confidence their team is productive (12%) and the portion of employees who

report they are productive at work (87%).

Survey respondents were asked, “On a typical day, how much do you agree or
disagree with the following? ‘I feel productive when I work’” Survey respondents
in a leadership role were asked, “How much of a challenge is the following when
thinking about new changes brought about by the shift to hybrid work? ‘Having
confidence that my employees are being productive’”

Illustration by Valerio Pellegrini

Closing the feedback loop is key to retaining talent. Employees who feel their
companies use employee feedback to drive change are more satisfied (90% vs. 69%)
and engaged (89% vs. 73%) compared to those who believe their companies don’t
drive change. And the employees who don’t think their companies drive change
based on feedback? They’re more than twice as likely to consider leaving in the
next year (16% vs. 7%) compared to those who do. And it’s not a one-way street.
To build trust and participation in feedback systems, leaders should regularly
share what they’re hearing, how they’re responding, and why.

Take action:

 * Set goals like OKRs to ensure that employee work aligns with company goals.
   Also, establish NO-KRs, or what employees should not do in order to get the
   most critical work done.

 * Create and reinforce a culture that rewards employees’ impact, not just
   activity, or risk people LARP-ing their jobs.

 * Collect employee feedback regularly at organizational, departmental, and team
   levels to keep a pulse on your people—and empower managers and leaders to
   actively listen, coach, and make better decisions to improve the overall
   performance and wellbeing of their teams.

2.

Embrace the fact that people come in for each other



The return to the office has been a struggle at many organizations—with some
employers rolling back plans after one-size-fits-all policies failed to generate
a great return. So how can leaders inspire people to prioritize in-person time
together? The data shows that people come in for each other to recapture what
they miss: the social connection of being with other people. In other words:
rebuilding social capital can be a powerful lever for bringing people back to
the office.

While 82% of business decision makers say getting employees back to the office
in person is a concern in the coming year, the fact is that people now expect
flexibility and autonomy around how, when, and where they work. Policy alone
will not reverse this reality: 73% of employees and 78% of business decision
makers say they need a better reason to go in than just company expectations.
While a less certain job market may motivate some employees to spend more time
in the office, a more lasting, effective approach requires concerted efforts to
rebuild social capital. Organizations that fail to use in-person time to rebuild
and strengthen team bonds may risk losing out on attracting and retaining top
talent.

73%

of employees say they need a better reason to go into the office than just
company expectations.

The data reveals a better way to bring people back together to engage and
energize them. Connecting with colleagues is a key motivation for working in
person. 84% of employees would be motivated by the promise of socializing with
co-workers, while 85% would be motivated by rebuilding team bonds. Employees
also report that they would go to the office more frequently if they knew their
direct team members would be there (73%) or if their work friends were there
(74%).

Younger people are especially keen to use the office to establish themselves as
part of their workplace community and feel more connected to their co-workers:
younger generations are particularly looking to connect with senior leadership
(78% of Gen Z and Millennials vs. 72% Gen X and older) and their direct managers
in person (80% Gen Z and Millennials vs. 76% Gen X and older). Gen Z is also
particularly motivated by working in person to see their work friends (79% vs.
68% of Gen X and older).


SOCIAL CONNECTION IS WORTH THE COMMUTE

Workers say they are even more interested in going into the office for their
friends 
and peers than for managers and leadership.

Gen ZMillennialsGen XBoomers213040506020%40%60%80%100%my 'work friends' would be
theremembers of my direct team would be theremy immediate manager would be
theremy senior leadership would be thereI would go into the office more
frequently if I knew...

Survey respondents were asked, “As an employee who is working in a hybrid
environment, how much do you agree or disagree with each of the following
statements?”

Authenticity Matters

We asked employees about how an authentic—open, honest, empathetic—manager
impacted them. Here’s what they said:

 * Employees with an authentic manager are:
    * more inclined to go into the office for 1:1s with them (82%, or +25ppts)
    * slightly more open to working in person (1.80 days vs. 1.66 days on
      average)
    * more likely to meet at least weekly (60%, or +16ppts)
    * more likely to discuss their wellbeing/mental health in their 1:1s (32%,
      or +14ppts)
   
   
   
   Employees without an authentic manager are:
    * less motivated to go into the office
    * more likely to disagree they're given flexibility (44% disagree, or
      +32ppts)
    * more likely to agree that they face challenges to learning and
      development, especially that it’s not a priority for their manager (65%,
      or +19ppts) and senior leadership (63%, or +16ppts)

The desire among employees to reconnect with co-workers dovetails nicely with a
powerful organizational need: to rebuild social capital. 68% of business
decision makers say that ensuring cohesion and social connections within teams
has been a moderate/major challenge due to the shift to hybrid work. Employees
are feeling this acutely, with roughly half saying their relationships outside
their immediate work group have weakened (51%) and that they feel disconnected
from their company as a whole (43%).

The office can’t be the only answer—technology plays a critical role in creating
connection wherever, whenever, and however people work. And communication is
crucial to keeping everyone engaged and informed: according to nearly all
business decision makers (96%) and employees (95%), effective communication is
among the most critical skills they’ll need in the year ahead. And communication
will need to be authentic, not just informative. Employees list authenticity as
the #1 quality a manager can have in supporting them to do their best work
(85%), and 83% of business decision makers say it’s important for their senior
leadership to show up authentically.

Take action:

 * Use in-person time to help employees rebuild team bonds and networks.

 * Build a digital employee experience to help employees stay connected to each
   other, to leadership, and to the company culture no matter where they’re
   working.

 * Create a digital community with modern communication tools to fuel
   conversation, empower people to express themselves, and connect leadership
   and employees.

3.

Re-recruit your employees



Amid macroeconomic headwinds, now is the time for every organization to
re-recruit, re-onboard, and re-energize employees. And the data shows if people
can’t learn and grow, they’ll leave. As employees embrace a new “worth-it”
equation, they’re increasingly turning to job-hopping, the creator economy, side
hustles, and entrepreneurship to achieve their career goals. And in a
still-tight labor market, leaders who were hoping for the tide to turn have so
far been disappointed. Rather than ignore or fight these trends, the best
leaders will prioritize learning and development to help both people and the
business grow.

Younger generations are the most likely to aspire to be their own boss, with 76%
of Gen Z and Millennials saying that this is a goal, versus 63% of those who are
Gen X and older. These younger generations are also more likely to say that
they’d stay at their current company longer if the company gave them the
flexibility to pursue side projects or businesses for additional income (77% vs.
66%). And this spring, 52% of Gen Z and Millennials reported they were likely to
consider changing jobs within the next year. Employers can’t ignore this next
wave of the workforce: in the US alone, Gen Z employees are projected to make up
approximately 30% of the workforce by 2030. And on LinkedIn, Gen Z employees are
transitioning jobs at a faster pace than other generations, up 22% in the past
year (far exceeding Millennials, whose job transition rate dropped by 1% in the
same timeframe).

76%

of employees say they’d stay at their company longer if they could benefit more
from learning and development support


Across the workforce, employees are hungry for growth opportunities: 56% of
employees and 68% of business decision makers say there are not enough growth
opportunities in their company to make them want to stay long term. And many
employees believe that learning requires leaving: 55% say the best way for them
to develop their skills is to change companies. That sentiment increases as
people rise through the ranks at their company, climbing from 51% among lower-
and entry-level workers to 66% among upper- and mid-level managers, and 69%
among executives. Making it easier for employees to find their next growth
opportunity inside the company seems obvious, but the data shows organizations
aren’t prioritizing internal mobility enough.

If People Can’t Learn, They’ll Leave

Many workers feel that they need to leave a company to develop their skills.



Survey respondents were asked: “How much do you agree or disagree with the
following when you think about your future career? ‘The best way for me to
develop my skills is by changing companies’”

Illustration by Valerio Pellegrini


2 out of 3 employees say they would stay longer at their company if it were
easier to change jobs internally (68% overall, 73% Gen Z, 73% Millennials, 65%
Gen X). That rises to 3 in 4 for people managers (75%) and business decision
makers (77%), revealing a powerful retention tool for your leadership layer.
This focus on long-term growth and skill development may explain why 68% of
employees and 77% of business decision makers say they would rather make a
lateral move that offers new skills than a vertical move that is more senior but
has fewer learning and growth opportunities.

The connection between learning and retention is clear: 76% of employees say
they’d stay at their company longer if they could benefit more from learning and
development support. The numbers rise even higher for business decision makers
(+7). In fact, employees consider opportunities to learn and grow as the #1
driver of great work culture, a jump from 2019 when it was ranked #9. So taken
as a whole, prioritizing employee learning and growth presents a winning
retention formula for organizations—or, alternately, if neglected, could pose an
existential threat.

The skills gap puts daily work at risk

According to LinkedIn, the skill sets for jobs have changed by approximately 25%
since 2015. And by 2027, this number is expected to double. But many employees
don’t have the current skills they need, let alone ones for the future.

 *  * For some roles, the skills transformation is even more dramatic: the top
      10 skills for project managers, engineers, and IT professionals have
      changed by 70% since 2015.
    * Yet nearly half of employees say they feel that neither their immediate
      manager (48%) nor their senior leadership (49%) prioritize learning and
      development. Nearly two-thirds of business decision makers say the same
      (63%).
    * Roughly 8 in 10 employees say they need additional skills to do their
      day-to-day work, including facing new business challenges or taking on new
      responsibilities from co-workers who have quit.
      

Take action:

 * Make learning and growth core to the employee experience—that means bringing
   the right resources and learning experiences into the flow of work to close
   the skills gap.

 * Recognize that people want opportunities not just for promotion but to
   broaden their skills. Organizations need to make internal mobility a key
   priority and help employees view their career as a climbing wall or
   playground, rather than a ladder.

 * Shift your mindset to create an internal talent marketplace where people can
   grow their skills, build their careers, and find purpose while helping the
   organization thrive.

The Way Forward



The changes that have swept the work world over the past few years are not
temporary. Flexibility is a feature, not a fad. And 2019 leadership practices
simply won’t meet the moment for a digitally connected, distributed workforce.
Leaders who look to data—not just instinct—and focus on clarity, social capital,
and career growth can realize both the promise of hybrid work and the full
potential of their greatest asset: their people. Now more than ever, positive
business outcomes depend on positive people outcomes.

Download the full report



Hybrid Work Is Just Work. Are We Doing It Wrong?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Learn how new enhancements to Microsoft Viva help empower and energize employees
so organizations can thrive.



Download the full report

Methodology and Audience Definitions:

The survey was conducted by an independent research firm, Edelman Data &
Intelligence, among 20,006 full-time employed or self-employed knowledge workers
across 11 countries* between July 7, 2022, and August 2, 2022. This survey was
20 minutes in length and conducted online, in either the English language or
translated into a local language across markets. At least 2,000 full-time
workers were surveyed in each market, and global results have been aggregated
across all responses to provide an average.

Each market was sampled to be representative of the full-time workforce across
age, gender, and region; each sample included a mix of work environments
(in-person, remote vs. non-remote; office settings vs. non-office settings,
etc.), industries, company sizes, tenures, and job levels. The survey had broad
representation across several different industries, including: automotive,
construction, consumer packaged goods, education, energy, entertainment,
fashion, financial services, food and beverage, government (state, local, or
national), healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, media and press, non-profit,
professional services, retail, technology, telecommunications, transportation,
and travel and tourism.

Markets surveyed include:
Australia and New Zealand (ANZ): Australia, New Zealand; Asia-Pacific (APAC):
China, India, Japan; Europe: France, Germany, United Kingdom; Latin America
(LATAM): Brazil; North America: Canada, United States. *Australia and New
Zealand were analyzed as one market.
Audiences mentioned in the report are defined as follows:
 * Leaders/Business Decision Makers: those in mid to upper job levels (i.e.,
   SVP, VP, Sr. Director, General Manager, EVP, C-Suite, President, etc.) and
   have at least some influence on decision-making related to hiring, budgeting,
   employee benefits, internal communications, operations, etc.
 * Employees: those who are not in mid to upper job levels or have no influence
   on decision-making related to hiring, budgeting, employee benefits, internal
   communications, operations, etc.
 * Managers: those who manage at least one employee as a direct report. Managers
   can be business decision makers or non-business decision makers.
 * Hybrid Managers: self-selected at time of survey fielding as currently
   working a mix of in-person and remote in a typical month, and currently
   managing at least one employee as a direct report.
 * In-person Managers: self-selected at time of survey fielding as currently
   working exclusively in person, and currently managing at least one employee
   as a direct report.



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