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. People are also searching for an answer to this digital exhaustion — including me. As the head of Microsoft’s people analytics function, I spend a lot of time exploring this problem by looking at the data.
Hybrid Tanked Work-Life Balance. Here’s How Microsoft Is Trying to Fix It.
Strategies to help employees set — and stick to — healthy boundaries.
December 08, 2021
Justin Paget/Getty Images
Summary.
After Microsoft employees went virtual during the Covid-19 pandemic, company research found that employees’ satisfaction with work-life balance dropped by 13 percentage points. Why? Unsustainable work practices that kept them tethered to technology. To improve well-being, the company uncovered the root causes — always-on collaboration, a lack of focus time, and unused vacation and time away — and set about remedying them. Their actions — prioritizing work, setting boundaries, and reevaluating meetings — can be implemented by other companies facing similar workforce challenges.