As collaboration time increased, well-being decreased. Overall, we discovered that over-collaborating, lack of uninterrupted focus, and skipping time off were major drivers of the decreased work-life balance we were investigating. To answer these questions, we studied the aggregate and de-identified collaboration activity and survey data of thousands of Microsoft employees over the course of many months - the majority of whom were working from home due to the pandemic. We asked ourselves, what can we learn from our employees’ activity patterns, vacation time taken, and surveys? And what can managers do to create a culture where work-life balance exists and employees thrive? One where finishing your to-do list or avoiding after hours work doesn’t require superhuman effort and unrealistic self-discipline? The Virtual Work Practices that Affect Employee Well-Being So, my team and I set out to uncover the reasons behind the drop and identify data-based actions managers and employees could take to turn the numbers around in this hybrid work environment. Other newsletters or opt out at any time by managing your Between April and November 2020, employees’ satisfaction with work-life balance dropped by 13 percentage points. While initially this seemed like the best way for teams to stay connected, we’ve since realized that these non-stop video calls, emails, and chats have turned into digital overload, and we see the well-being impacts in our Microsoft employee surveys. When my colleagues studied the anonymous productivity trends of millions of Microsoft customers around the world, they saw that one year into the pandemic, weekly time spent in Teams meetings more than doubled and the average person sent 42% more chats after hours. As the head of Microsoft’s people analytics function, I spend a lot of time exploring this problem by looking at the data. People are also searching for an answer to this digital exhaustion - including me. If there was a word that has defined the year 2021, it would be “overwhelmed.” After a year and a half into the pandemic, with overflowing inboxes and back-to-back meetings, people are tired.
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