Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Working from homeHybrid workingLatest NewsCareer developmentLearning & development

Managers distrust employees who work from home, reveals Microsoft

by Jo Faragher 23 Sep 2022
by Jo Faragher 23 Sep 2022 Managers have 'productivity paranoia', assuming employees are doing less, Microsoft's research found
Shutterstock
Managers have 'productivity paranoia', assuming employees are doing less, Microsoft's research found
Shutterstock

Bosses worry that employees working from home aren’t being as productive as they could be, while workers believe the opposite, according to new research from Microsoft.

The software giant surveyed 20,000 employees across 11 countries. Although 87% of staff felt they worked as, or more, efficiently at home than they did in the office, 85% of leaders said they were not confident their teams were being as productive.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has called this rift “productivity paranoia” and urges organisations to work on bridging the disconnect.

The survey also revealed that 73% of employees need a better reason to go into the office other than company expectations. The chance to socialise with colleagues or rebuild team bonds ranked highly, however, among 84% and 85% of employees respectively.

Statistics from its own platform Teams show that the number of meetings per week has grown by 153% globally for the average user, while the number of overlapping meetings increased by 46% per person in the last year.

Home working & hybrid

Hybrid and remote working has reduced toxic behaviours, research finds 

Working remotely: Gemma Dale talks to Oven-Ready HR 

Managing hybrid/flexible workers

Workers are also being bombarded by requests for meetings, with the number of declines and “tentative” RSVPs to meetings soaring by 84% and 216% respectively.

Both managers and employees are feeling burnt out, according to the company’s research. Forty-eight percent of employees and 53% of managers feel this way.

Despite the value of gauging employees’ expectations and experiences of hybrid work arrangements, over half of organisations (57%) rarely or never collect employee feedback, Microsoft found.

The survey also found that more than half of employees believe they need to leave their current employer to build new skills, with 55% believing this to be the case. Sixty-eight percent said they would stay longer at a company if it was easier to change jobs internally, while 76% said they would stay longer if they could access more learning and development support.

Ryan Roslansky, chief executive of Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, said the number of fully remote jobs being advertised on its site had peaked, however. In recent months, the proportion of jobs advertised as fully remote has dropped from 20% to 15%, he told the BBC.

Microsoft urged organisations to “re-recruit” employees in a bid to retain them. “Rather than ignore or fight these trends, the best leaders will prioritise learning and development to help both people and the business grow,” the research advised.

This is especially urgent with younger workers – Microsoft found that 76% of Gen Z or millennial workers aspired to be their own boss, versus 63% of those from Gen X or older.

It has launched a number of enhancements to its Viva platform to address some of the challenges in retaining and upskilling employees.

This includes a new app called Pulse that will allow managers to seek regular and confidential feedback on how employees are feeling, and Answers, which uses artificial intelligence to match employee questions with answers from experts across the organisation.

Change management opportunities on Personnel Today


Browse more Change management jobs

Jo Faragher
Jo Faragher

Jo Faragher has been an employment and business journalist for 20 years. She regularly contributes to Personnel Today and writes features for a number of national business and membership magazines. Jo is also the author of 'Good Work, Great Technology', published in 2022 by Clink Street Publishing, charting the relationship between effective workplace technology and productive and happy employees. She won the Willis Towers Watson HR journalist of the year award in 2015 and has been highly commended twice.

previous post
Employers sought for wearables-based Covid research
next post
Mini-Budget: Chancellor cuts taxes and lifts bankers’ bonus cap

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

You may also like

Managing the risks of ‘working from anywhere’ requests...

22 Sep 2023

Lloyds of London boss urges greater return to...

7 Sep 2023

Amazon joins Google in demanding more office attendance

11 Aug 2023

Designing working-from-home policies for overseas assignments

4 Aug 2023

Global home working statistics: How much do people...

19 Jul 2023

Hybrid working: why presence bias is still an...

5 Jun 2023

Hybrid working: Combatting loneliness and enabling inclusion

31 May 2023

Chancellor: office working should be the default

18 May 2023

JPMorgan Chase tells leaders to spend more time...

13 Apr 2023

Ramadan in the workplace: top tips for employers

21 Mar 2023

  • Discover the value of CIPD accreditation PROMOTED | See how the CIPD can increase your earning potential...Read more
  • What does it mean to be an HR professional in 2024? (survey) PROMOTED | The world of HR is changing rapidly...Read more
  • The Contractor Management Mastery Pack: Everything you need to manage and pay global contractors PROMOTED | Answers to cross-border...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2023

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2023 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+