Viva Insights Inspiration Library Articles articles

6 Principles for Hybrid Work Wellbeing

lilyolason — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 23:50:03 GMT

Illustration by Kyle Bean

Over the last 12 months, we’ve learned a lot about working remotely. One of the things that I didn’t expect at the outset of the pandemic was how much of a challenge employee wellbeing would be.

Just six months into the pandemic, 30 percent of frontline and information workers were already reporting that they felt increased burnout at work. And data from Microsoft Teams users around the world signaled that many of us were working harder and longer: We saw a 48 percent increase in Teams chats per person overall and a 69 percent increase in Teams chats per person after-hours. Now, as hybrid work takes hold, norms are shifting again. But one thing shouldn’t change: making employee wellbeing a priority.

My leadership team and I are closely studying how work is changing, and we recently used that research, along with input from the team, to come up with six wellbeing principles to help guide us as we navigate a hybrid work future. While they’re not the definitive word on employee wellbeing, I wanted to share them in hopes that they’ll be helpful to others.

In many ways, what mattered the most to my folks wasn’t so much what I said but the fact that I said anything at all. People heard that their wellbeing was important. That they can and should say “no.” And that they should protect the boundaries between work and the rest of their lives. These common-sense principles set a tone that I believe is not only more constructive for everyone on the team but will ultimately lead to greater success. Because our data shows that happier, healthier people also have greater impact.

“Our data shows that happier, healthier people also have greater impact.”

1. Make OKRs your friend

Wellbeing means all of us prioritizing our time and managing our energy, whether we're working remotely or in-person. But it's tougher to read the expectations of our colleagues and communicate our own priorities when we're apart, which can lead to the habit of responding to every interruption as if it's the most urgent need.

By embracing a framework that ties together clear objectives and key results (OKRs), you're creating a personal framework that makes clear to yourself and others which work is most important. With this framework in place, you have a filter that empowers you to say “no” more often (which can also mean “not right now”). You also have a tool to help you achieve balance. If you add a new KR mid-quarter, you can shift out another to ensure you're maintaining equilibrium.

2. Get comfortable with imperfection

In the fast-paced, highly uncertain environment of our current moment, we need to balance striving for perfection with speed and agility. Sometimes “good enough” is, well, good enough. And sometimes it’s not.

To be crystal clear, this is not about lowering the quality threshold for customers. It's about managing priorities, energy, and expectations for each step along the path toward an outcome. Ask yourself, “Does this need to be good, better, or best?” And encourage your team to discuss it. Champion marathoners don't sprint at their top speed for 26.2 miles. They manage their pace strategically along the way.

3. Own your boundaries

Wellbeing is both an individual and a team sport. Everyone’s individual circumstances are unique—from caring for a sick parent to juggling the demands of remote learning to struggling with racial injustice. Each of us needs to define our boundaries based on what we can and can’t do—and own them.

In practice, this means deciding what time you start work, deciding what time you finish work, and sticking to those commitments while communicating them to your team, whether you’re working remotely or in person. Technology can be your friend here. For example, set your status message in Teams to indicate when you're prioritizing family time. When we all own and respect boundaries, we create a culture of mutual support that promotes everyone’s wellbeing.

“Culture starts at the top, and leaders must be exemplary practitioners of empathy.”

4. Plan meetings with purpose

Meeting bloat is one of remote work’s most counterproductive trends, though the reasons for it aren’t hard to understand. Without well-defined ways to indicate progress and participation, showing up to a meeting has become the signal of doing work. It’s the 21st-century version of punching the clock. This helps neither employees nor employers.

Organizations can undercut this expectation—and the drain on wellbeing that comes from too many meetings—by fostering a meeting culture centered on preparation and purpose. First ask the most basic question: “Do you have to have this meeting? No, really, do you have to?”

If the answer is yes, determine whether the meeting is to disclose, discuss, or decide. Invite only the people who truly need to be there, share the agenda in advance, and prevent FOMO among those not invited by implementing a robust practice of note-taking and note-publishing. Encourage people to review the meeting recording and transcript when they need to catch up. Help people feel that the best meeting out there is the one they didn’t have to attend.

5. Follow the science

As the inaugural members of the world’s first truly digital workforce, we are all creating the future of work together. We are defining norms, habits, and best practices. This privilege carries a responsibility and presents an opportunity: Rather than defaulting to assumptions grounded in conventional wisdom, let’s use this moment to let science guide us.

For instance, science tells us what the world’s best athletes have known for years: Peak performance requires cycles of rest and recovery. More and longer hours don’t equal higher impact. Create a culture where taking breaks is a mark of intelligence, not of laziness. Embrace time outside to help rejuvenate. Wellbeing isn’t a set of slogans. It’s best practices informed by evidence.

6. Lead with empathy

We are all of us. Culture starts at the top, and leaders must be exemplary practitioners of empathy—the most vocal, visible advocates for wellbeing. This creates the permission structure for everyone in the organization to put wellbeing first.

If ever there were a time to give one other grace, it is now. Listen and lead with empathy in every interaction. Be vulnerable. Help ensure that the quietest voices are heard. Make space for fun. Make space for moments of sadness, and moments of joy. Together, we create the culture.

Subscribe to the WorkLab newsletter to get a monthly dispatch on the data, trends, and insights leaders need to thrive. For more science-based insights on how to navigate the changing world of work, visit WorkLab.

11 Tips to Help You Stay Focused During Our Return to "Normal"

lilyolason — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 23:41:15 GMT

By Marina Khidekel, Chief Content Officer at Thrive Global

After a year and a half of adjusting to the pandemic's changes and challenges, many of us are finally transitioning toward normalcy — returning to busier social calendars, in-person meetings, and new opportunities. And while we ease into a summer filled with social gatherings and get-togethers, it's only natural to find ourselves struggling to stay focused at work.

We asked our Thrive community to share with us the strategies that are helping them stay focused during our return to "normal." Which of these will you try?

Allow yourself to set boundaries

"I'm leaning into the power of saying 'no' more frequently. I'm reminding myself that I don't need to fill every minute of my schedule and it's OK to have space in the calendar. If a meeting or opportunity is presented to me that isn't going to move me closer towards my goals, I protect my time and capacity boundaries."

—Blair Kaplan Venables, social media marketing expert, Pemberton, B.C., Canada

Unplug over the weekends

"One thing that helps me stay focused is taking 48 hours offline each weekend. Taking that time to shut off my emails and stay off social media allows me to recharge fully and come back energized and restored. Periods of psychological detachment from work are incredibly effective for boosting our concentration levels and preventing burnout."

—Charlotte Swire, yoga teacher and burnout expert, Manchester, U.K.

Try compartmentalizing your tasks

"My go-to tip for focusing right now is compartmentalizing. That's the only way I can get everything done. I allocate the first hour of every day to the health and well-being of myself and my foster cat. On Sundays, I write a broad strokes to-do list for the week. For example, Wednesdays and Thursdays are client clinic days. From Monday to Sunday, I write down my priorities for the day, plot any big writing courses for the mornings, and the afternoons are for catching up and planning. And connection with loved ones occurs every day, through phone calls, Zooms, or walks outside. It's key for my sanity, sense of gratitude, and well-being."

—Georgina Cannon Author, instructor, regression therapist, and teacher, Toronto, CA

Check in on what you need each day

"My best advice is to listen in on what you need every day to gradually allow yourself to return to normal. Meditation has been helping me a lot when it comes to listening in. I plan a weekly to-do list without filling my agenda completely with daily tasks. Don't forget to play sports, breathe, and spend time with yourself."

—Claudia Caldara, digital merchandiser, Italy

Shift your expectations

"I'm reminding myself that we are not returning to 'normal,' but rather we are creating a new adaptable and flexible normal. We are stepping into a new way of living. Through this experience across the globe, our experience and perception of life has shifted. Many are still grieving a life previously lived. For others, this time is about adapting to new boundaries and limitations. And some are searching for what this new life is, what it means, and how they can now continue living their best lives as the best versions of themselves."

—Nichol Stark, intuitive life and business coach, Sydney, Australia

Use the Pomodoro technique

"In the first lockdown, like many, I really struggled to concentrate. I'd be checking my phone for news and social media updates constantly, and was totally distracted. Over the past year I've found a handful of techniques that have really helped but the one thing that has been a game changer for me is deep work through the Pomodoro Technique. I use a 25-minute countdown for deep work, then a five-minute break, then I repeat it another three times before a longer 25-minute break. When tasks or projects feel overwhelming, I just tell myself I only have to do one pomodoro on it. When the world feels out of control, focusing on one thing for short sharp increments has changed my working world."

—Rachael Bull, corporate wellbeing and resilience partner, Leicestershire, U.K.

Pick one top priority every morning

"Returning back to 'normal' is the closest we can come to calling the transition to post-pandemic living. Yet the shift from then to now is anything but normal. The pace of change has accelerated in healthcare with no sign of slowing down. I focus by picking one thing to accomplish each day. Just one thing. I end up getting many things done, but focusing on one thing helps me avoid getting overwhelmed. For highly motivated people, the key to doing more is sometimes focusing on less.

—Kim Regis, nurse executive, Columbus, OH

Don't completely eliminate your alone time

"Going back to normal is just another transition period and we still have to adjust ourselves to a new reality with new routines. Opportunities for socialization are wonderful, but perhaps we still need to take some time to ourselves to kind of compensate. Our body has to adjust to a more intense physical activity. It's natural to feel tired, and want to focus on some alone time. And that's OK. Be patient with yourself and ride it at your own pace.

—Sara Midões, positive psychology practitioner, Lisbon, Portugal

Stay active

"Staying active has helped me stay focused during our return to normal. Working out, taking morning walks, seeing friends and family members that I haven't been able to see during the harshest part of the pandemic. Human beings are active beings, and there's nothing more 'normal' than staying active. And while staying active, our body and mind is more at ease, and more likely to focus. To me, that's the best way of regaining focus as we return to normal."

—Sentari Minor, social impact advocate, Phoenix, AZ

Use a "success board" to list your tasks

"This is a particularly tough time to stay focused on both professional and personal goals. What has helped me is working with a live 'success board.' I have a visual magnetic canvas I made where I put up images, quotes and affirmations. I also have a whiteboard where I list my top goals for the year as the header and then each task I need to accomplish to get me there. As I accomplish each task, I move it to the 'completed' column. I am a visual person, so by seeing that column fill up, I'm motivated to keep going."

—Catherine McCourt, transformational life and business coach, Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Take time to recharge

"So many of us have been looking forward in anticipation for so long that we forget how to stop and look around. The only way we can refocus is to recapture meaningful, obligation-free moments and make space for simple, restorative pleasure. I planned a girls' trip with my daughters to celebrate my eldest's high school graduation. Moments spent together, away from it all, can be incredibly powerful. So my tip is to block the time. Book the ticket. Do it with the ones you hold most dear. You'll never look back and say. 'I wish I would have banged out a few more emails.' The deadlines, goals and to-do lists will be there when we get back."

—Tricia Sciortino, CEO, Charlotte, N.C.

For more actionable tips and inspiration on strengthening resilience and improving well-being at work and beyond, visit ThriveGlobal.com

Marina Khidekel, Chief Content Officer at Thrive Global

Marina leads strategy, ideation and execution of Thrive Global content company-wide, including cross-platform brand partnership campaigns, editorial tentpoles and partnerships, and the voice of the Thrive app. In her role, she helps people tell their personal stories of going from surviving to thriving, brings Thrive's audience actionable, science-backed tips for reducing stress and improving their physical and mental well-being, and shares those insights on panels, at conferences, and in national outlets like NBC's TODAY.

Previously, Marina held senior editorial roles at Women's Health, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour, where she edited award-winning health and mental health features and spearheaded the campaigns and partnerships around them.

Uncovering resilience: Measuring organizational networks during crisis

lilyolason — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 23:34:43 GMT

Jonathan Larson, Neha Shah, Kevin Sherman, and Natalie Singer-Velush

Editor’s Note: COVID-19 has impacted people around the world, challenging us to adapt to travel restrictions, school closures, and the removal of barriers between work and life—all at once. So, what does a cross-functional team of engineers, data scientists, analysts, and marketers that lives in the space between workplace culture and data do when presented with the world’s largest work-from-home shift? It, well, does its homework. In this blog series, we’ll share real-time learnings as we measure the impact of this unprecedented shift on how one group of employees works, connects, and balances our lives. We hope these insights will teach us something about how work is changing and help us all get through this, together.

Resilient organizations not only weather crises: they emerge stronger. So there’s good reason, the word “resilience” is trending today. But can organizations measure resiliency and actively manage it, all while in the midst of disruption? In our current situation, when leaders must focus on immediate tactical responses and also think ahead about re-defining the future of work, that question felt worth a very deep dive.

What follows is the first in a multi-part look into how we can gain actionable insights to strengthen resilience through Organizational Network Analysis (“ONA”). ONA concentrates on the pattern of connections—the organizational networks—formed when employees collaborate through meetings, emails, instant messages, and calls. Traditional measures of organizational resilience such as financials and employee retention emphasize outcomes and cannot be managed in real time. Conversely, ONA makes behaviors associated with resilience immediately and dynamically visible across an organization. It gives us data-driven information about how to course-correct even in the midst of crisis and prepare for future shocks.

Here, we focused on the concept of “adaptivity,” a key trait of resilient organizations. We partnered with a specialized team in Microsoft Research that merges artificial intelligence with business intelligence to create an organizational network from the 1.87 million person-to-person connections shared by over 90,000 de-identified Microsoft employees. We examined if, and how, relationships changed, to understand the ways employees adapted their organizational networks in response to working remotely. We then contextualized the changes we saw with anonymous survey responses to see what some of our colleagues were experiencing. We did this analysis to gain visibility into the different strategies employees use when faced with crisis, and to learn how these adaptive strategies might nurture organizational resilience.

Stability after shock?

One way to assess networks is by looking at churn—the amount of relationships lost from one month to the next. We know threats tend to draw those within a group closer together and compel people to rely on their established relationships. But could we effectively maintain our connections in a world where so much, including how and where we communicate and collaborate, has changed?

Finding: Networks remained stable after the shift.

Despite an unprecedented shift in the way we work, employees actually experienced less churn in our networks than in normal months. In other words, a great proportion of the specific connections we had before the shift (62 percent) remained intact after the switch to remote work. This reflects more network stability than in the month prior to the current situation.

The power of ONA lies in its ability to quantify and make visible changes in an organization that are otherwise hard to see. The figure below illustrates the organizational network of Microsoft’s US-based employees. Each dot represents a single employee, and clumps represent groups that collaborate frequently. In this story we’re focused on the color—employees represented by blue dots experienced less churn in their networks than in normal months. This wide swath of limited churn indicates a strong sense of stability in the organization at large.

Overcoming crisis situations is impossible if the organization is instable or rigid. Resilient organizations must be able to withstand shocks, and flexible enough to navigate through. In Microsoft, we kept business moving forward by maintaining stability at levels consistent with ‘normal’ times —our first indicator of resilience in the face of crisis.

Leaning on technology

We were pleasantly surprised by these results. Considering the many reasons staying connected could have proved more difficult—less time, more distractions, mismatched schedules—experiencing more stability than in normal times surprised us. But how were we able to maintain relationships when we lost so many traditional ways of collaborating? We found our answer in the new ways we’re using technology.

By looking at how different groups use digital collaboration (e.g. email, meetings, instant messaging, and calls) before vs. after the shift, we can differentiate groups of employees whose collaboration modes remained largely stable from those who adopted new ways of staying connected. The figure below provides that summary.

Finding: Employees whose networks were most at risk from the loss of physical workspace adapted their modes of collaboration to maintain connections.

The yellow-orange portion of the chart represents employees whose collaboration modes changed the most. Employees in the green-blue portion didn’t exhibit much change in how they collaborated. Interestingly, employee function aligned almost perfectly to the same axis. Sales and Consulting roles are almost all in the green-blue section, whereas all other roles are in the yellow-orange section.

Since we know Sales and Consulting roles were largely working remotely before the shift, we have strong evidence that employees who were most at risk of a shock to their networks—those who lost the physical contact with colleagues they were used to working near—adapted their methods of collaboration to retain network stability. In other words, they exhibited flexibility in how they worked, which is another critical component of resiliency.

I have replaced my weekly networking and coffee catch-ups on campus with virtual catch-ups, mostly 1:1. I seek to stay in touch, check-in on how people are doing, exchange experiences. I like to relate on a human level and seek to truly connect beyond work itself.

I found that there were a couple of people with whom I interacted face-to-face extensively, and so I had to reach out to them.

When instability indicates organizational resilience

Thus far we have concentrated on the groups whose members retained their existing connections. But we were curious about the orange island in the middle of Figure 1. Employees in this island displayed a connectivity profile that seemed nearly opposite to the rest of the organization; their networks experienced significant churn.

Finding: Employees focused on Microsoft’s crisis response exhibited drastically different network responses than their peers.

Deeper analysis revealed that these were the only working groups in which employees collaborated with fewer people during the remote-work disruption than before it. They did so principally by maintaining fewer of their existing connections (a drop of 12 percent), with most lost connections coming from inside their own working group. They did add some new connections, 42 percent of which were from other working groups.

What happened here? This group includes members of Microsoft’s Strategy and Operations organization. These are the people managing the organization’s “control center” through the crisis. Members of this critical group nimbly adapted their networks to current needs by paring down connections, likely to only those most acutely relevant to regaining stability for the organization and its employees.

As we mentioned earlier, for resilient organizations, navigating through crises requires flexibility We see this flexibility demonstrated most by the group charged with steering the organization through the current crisis. Were this group to remain rigidly focused on the same ways of working prior to the shift or to be slow in their reaction to it, the organization would be weakened and less able to continue to weather changes. Its adaptivity offers a positive indicator of resilience.

Seeking new connections

We started by sharing findings about network churn, highlighting the fact that employees were remarkably adept at maintaining their pre-crisis relationships. The story gets more interesting.

Finding: Overall, networks grew and diversified.

In addition to retaining their existing ties, Microsoft employees increased the total number of people in their networks—by nearly 14 percent. In other words, they didn’t lose as many connections as we’d expect, and added a lot of new ones at the same time. Furthermore, of all new connections, an average of 30 percent were to employees in other working groups.

This was surprising. That members of most groups formed so many new connections, and that many of those new connections reached beyond normal working groups, runs opposite to expectations. Our response system often leads us to freeze when faced with “threats.” In the realm of networks, we would expect employees to focus on what they’ve always done and connect mainly with those they find familiar.

The cliques of physical cohorts are easier to collaborate with and people are more accessible when everyone works remote. My network has grown implicitly.

[I’m] trying to maintain some of my less strong network ties, with people I’d normally see during [my] quarterly visits to [headquarters].

We believe this cross-group connectivity enables information-sharing, which is essential for organizational resilience. Even while company leaders share information with the workforce frequently, there remains great uncertainty in this unknown situation. To gain a sense of control, people are reaching out to access “new” information. Finally, through connections that cross working groups, employees can learn how others view the organization, ultimately leading to a broader shared understanding of the company.

Measuring and nurturing organizational resilience as change continues

Like all other organizations, Microsoft faces a long, unchartered path forward. We moved first toward continuity to maintain stability and now toward rebuilding, all the while fortifying for long-term resilience. Our post here describes just the initial shift from the ‘old normal’ to the ‘new normal,’ through the lens of organizational network analysis. While it’s an early look into how the organization changed, we learned that most employees matured their networks by retaining existing connections while adding new ones that spanned working-group boundaries. We learned that technology-enabled behavioral change played an important role in maintaining networks. And we found our ‘control center’ quickly pivoted its networks to address current needs.

These patterns suggest that groups respond differently to crises and should receive differential support from organizations over time. Control tower groups (strategy and operations, primarily) face critical impacts of business disruption on operations. They must manage novel problems requiring cross-disciplinary input, including the transition to remote work, while the importance of their work requires putting aside all non-essential communication. In other words, adaptivity doesn’t mean just changing behaviors in a single direction; it means the ability to pivot to meet new demands.

Overall, for organizations to be resilient, they need not predict or swerve to avoid the next crisis. They must have the flexibility, through capacity, empowered employees, and connectivity, to adapt and emerge stronger from it.

Jonathan Larson

Jonathan Larson is a Principal Data Architect at Microsoft working on Special Projects. His applied research work focuses on petabyte-scale data infrastructure, data science applications, network analytics, and information visualization. He has applied experience in cyber-security, anti-human trafficking, fraud analytics, mobile device analytics, media management, retail analytics, organizational analytics, and real estate.

Neah Shah

Neha Shah is a Director of Solution Design in Microsoft's Workplace Intelligence organization. Before joining Microsoft, she was a management professor at Rutgers Business School. Her expertise focuses on social networks in the workplace, particularly on linking network science with organizational and management behavior. Prior to her academic work, Neha was a strategy consultant. She has a PhD in organizational behavior from UCLA and is based in New York.

Kevin Sherman

Kevin Sherman is a Director on the Workplace Analytics team at Microsoft. He leads a team of experts in storytelling, behavioral science, and corporate strategy who apply these skill sets to product strategy and customer delivery. He's also been leading Microsoft's own use of Workplace Analytics since its acquisition of VoloMetrix in 2015.

Natalie Singer-Velush

Natalie Singer-Velush is a Marketing Communications Manager and the Editor of Microsoft Workplace Insights. She creates thought leadership about people analytics, behavioral science, the future of work, and the power of data to help organizations and people innovate, evolve, and succeed. As a former journalist and an MFA in a sea of MBAs, she thrives on bringing data to life through powerful storytelling.

A Harvard Professor Says Not to Follow This Leadership Advice

lilyolason — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 23:09:12 GMT

By Jessica Hicks, Managing Editor at Thrive Global

When stepping into a new role, especially if you'll be managing others, it's normal to feel a little unsure of yourself or what to expect. That's why new leaders are often told that their first leadership stint should focus primarily on listening to others rather than speaking their own voices. And if so many of us hear this advice, then it must have some validity — right?

Not according to Sarah Lewis, Ph.D., a Harvard professor and the founder of the Vision & Justice Project. Lewis appeared on Brené Brown's podcast, "Dare to Lead," and when asked about leadership advice, Lewis had an interesting take on this frequently shared insight:

Brené Brown: What is one piece of leadership advice that you've been given that is so remarkable that you need to share it with us, or so crappy that you need to warn us?

Sarah Lewis: One crappy piece of advice I'd say I received was to spend the first 90 days listening in the context of leadership in entering a new environment. And I would reframe it to say, spend those 90 days listening to your inner compass and your inner voice to determine why you got there in the first place — don't silence yourself in that sense. I'd reframe that often given advice.

You can take Lewis's advice to heart today by practicing one of these Microsteps. They'll help you balance your voice with the ideas and perspectives of your team, and find compassion for yourself and others when stepping into a new leadership role.

Right now, identify one part of your organization that you can help change for the better.

As a leader, you have an influence over many parts of the employee experience, from hiring to onboarding to daily meetings. Choose one area that you think you can improve and make as inclusive as possible.

Swap a suggestion for a question.

While as leaders we often feel like we need to have all the answers, asking a question is a simple, powerful way to help others share their experiences and stories.

Each day, find one small way to give that draws on your own talents.

Many of us hold back our natural gifts, thinking they don't apply to work. Think about a skill you have and find a way to share it with someone else.

For more actionable tips and inspiration on strengthening resilience and improving well-being at work and beyond, visit ThriveGlobal.com

Jessica Hicks, Managing Editor at Thrive Global

Jessica Hicks is a managing editor at Thrive Global. She graduated from Lehigh University with a degree in journalism, sociology, and anthropology, and is passionate about using storytelling to ignite positive change in the lives of others.

Small Ways to Make Your Team's Virtual Meetings More Productive

lilyolason — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 22:59:23 GMT

By Marina Khidekel, Chief Content Officer at Thrive Global

The pandemic has radically transformed the workplace, and for many of us, remote work has become a long-term new normal. But even with technology to keep us connected and productive, collaborating with teammates over instant messenger and keeping meetings focused over video conferences can be challenging.

We asked our Thrive community to share the small techniques they are using to keep their meetings efficient and productive as we continue to work from home. Which of these will you try?

Give yourself permission to decline

"As an account director at an advertising agency, I have a lot of meetings each day, both internally with my team and externally with clients. It can become a hectic task to keep up with all Zoom meetings, so I do my best to only attend events that will need my direct input during them. Otherwise, I ask to be briefed on the meeting output in an email afterwards."

—Nesma Naad, account director, Cairo, Egypt

Carve out five minutes of intro time

"I plan about five minutes for socializing in the beginning and sorting out any technical issues. This helps to ensure everyone gets to connect with one another before starting, and no one misses out on the meeting if they have to do a quick computer update."

—Rianna M. Hill, digital marketer, Bremerton, WA

Do a team exercise before diving in

"To create a fun atmosphere in our weekly team Zoom meeting, each team member puts on a virtual background of their choice and the rest of the team must guess where the picture was taken. We share brief personal stories about our pictures, which helps us connect and feel closer before we dive into the meeting agenda."

—Isabelle Bart, marketing director, Orange County, CA

Nominate a timekeeper

"Nominating a timekeeper who lets everyone know when we have five minutes left helps to keep everyone on track, especially during a busy day of back-to-back meetings. I find that setting up 15-minute or 45-minute meetings tends to be more optimal than the classic half hour or hour time slot, allowing for a buffer in case the meeting runs over. "

—Marta Chavent, change and management consultant, France

Be mindful of your background

"I've found it helpful to adjust my setup before starting a meeting. I adjust the camera to sit at eye level, and then I adjust the distance I am sitting from the laptop so I'm truly comfortable."

—Marta Chavent, change and management consultant, France

Set a focused agenda

"I find that it's important to set a structure beforehand, where you identify a consistent list of focused topics to cover during each meeting. For example, your check-in agenda might cover important project updates, schedules and events, obstacles and opportunities, professional development, and action items. Instead of spending time going over everyday tasks, send an email for anything that doesn't require discussion."

—Armida Markarova, professional coach and conflict resolution mediator, Chicago, IL

Have everyone turn their cameras on

"I've found the best way to conduct a virtual meeting is to have everyone with their camera on, but on mute when they are not talking. This eliminates distractions and helps facilitate the person to person connection."

—Rianna M. Hill, digital marketer, Bremerton, WA

Stick to a 30-minute cap

"To keep our meetings productive, we are keeping them short. 30 minutes seems to be the maximum tolerance anyone has to stay focused. There are so many distractions competing for people's attention and screen fatigue is real."

—Julie Morgenstern, productivity expert, New York, N.Y.

Share your screen for visuals

"I've found it helpful to make the screen sharing feature your friend. Any time you're discussing action items or shifting project activities, you'll want to use a shared screen. I do this with my corporate innovation clients. It's important to track what we're deciding or aligning on. Utilizing screen share mimics being in the same room and promotes interactivity. When I start with a shared screen, everybody's focused because we have to be present to contribute. You'll also have more opportunities to be clear about action items and exactly who's doing what."

—Whitney A. White, entrepreneur and business coach, Washington, D.C.

Ask specific questions

"As I adjust to remote working in a pandemic, I am focused on keeping my productivity and engagement up in all of my meetings. One way I do this is by inviting everyone to contribute in each meeting. As the meeting facilitator, I ask specific questions, and actively coach to ensure no one is using too much airtime. I also encourage everyone to use the chatbox to avoid interrupting the person who's speaking."

—Mita Mallick, head of diversity, Jersey City, N.J.

Send out an email before and after

"When you work with content creators and clients in marketing, it's easy to lose focus in meetings, as everyone generally has ideas to share. I usually send out an email the day prior to the call, highlighting the main topics split in bullet points in order of priority, so if we run out of time and can't get to the last bullet points of the list, it won't be a big issue. I keep it to a maximum of five bullet points, trying to be mindful of people who are joining from different time zones as well. I also share a short summary of any call right after it ends in order to make it easy for anyone to refer to it whenever they need to."

—Marcio Delgado, content producer and influencer marketing campaign manager, London, U.K.

Use the last few minutes for questions

"There are lots of ways to run Q&A for online meetings. The text function is a great way to gather ongoing questions throughout the call, and then you can answer them at the end of the session. I recommend keeping the last five or ten minutes reserved to answer those questions."

—Jennifer Zar, marketing strategist, New York, N.Y.

Marina Khidekel, Chief Content Officer at Thrive Global

What We’ve Lost … And What We’ve Gained

lilyolason — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:38:43 GMT

Even before the pandemic, researchers long wondered what it would mean if going to work didn’t mean going to work. How might our jobs, offices, and workdays change if modern technology allowed us to disconnect from physical locations? What would be the real benefits? What would be the hindrances? Then COVID-19 hit. From a business perspective, everything became upended and uncertain—but from a researcher perspective, it created a tremendous opportunity. If social scientists ever wanted to engineer a massive study on the effects of an all-digital workforce, this was their chance.

At Microsoft, scientists began considering the research possibilities in early March, a day or so after the directive came down for all employees at their Redmond, Washington headquarters to stay home. Brent Hecht, a director of applied science in Microsoft’s Experiences and Devices division, and Jaime Teevan, chief scientist for Microsoft’s Experiences and Devices, gathered virtually with a half dozen colleagues to consider what had just happened, what was about to happen, and what it all might mean. “One of the strengths of Microsoft,” Hecht says, “is that the people here are really curious.”

Within weeks, the Future of Remote Work Initiative was born. Its members—which today include computer scientists and economists, anthropologists and AI whizzes—began to examine and synthesize studies on the impact of WFH, as well as launch studies of their own. Research ranged from analyses of the importance of ergonomics in home offices (according to one study, 22 percent of employees had no dedicated workspace at home at all) to deep dives into why videoconferences are so draining. Many of the studies broke down into an accounting of losses and gains. Researchers wondered what we had given up in this accelerated rush to remote work, brought on so suddenly and unexpectedly by the pandemic. They also pondered the possible gains and how we might keep some of those as we consider a longer-term evolution of work. “ I would say Microsoft views its role in the larger ecosystem of productivity,” says Teevan. “We’re good at getting things done, but it’s also important to think about what we’re helping people get done and how we’re helping them.”

Communication Breakdown

How going all digital, all the time has changed the ways we meet and talk.

Table taken from the study " 'How Was Your Weekend?' Software Development Teams Working From Home During COVID-19"

Infographic by Valerio Pellegrini

Of course, the tally of losses and gains was hardly clear-cut. A plus for some was a big minus for others. For some jobs, work from home, away from office distractions, had been a blessing; for managers and workers in more collaborative fields, trying to replicate the free-for-all creativity of brainstorming sessions had been brutal. Nearly every positive (no commute!) had its accompanying negative (no binge listening to podcasts as a way to decompress after a long day). Nevertheless, a look at the data so far provides useful insights that can not only help us steer through current challenges, but also inform how we might think about changing things for good once we’re allowed back into our offices.

What We’ve Lost

Social capital

Feelings of social isolation have increased during the pandemic, with internal surveys reporting that employees’ needs for “informal contact” and “spontaneous interaction” are not being met in a strictly work-from-home environment. Microsoft’s research found that nearly 60 percent of employees reported feeling less connected than before COVID-19 struck (up to 70 percent in China); 32 percent felt they had fewer opportunities to collaborate. Managers worry that the loss of casual meetups will affect how workers move up company ladders, or don’t. “That’s a classic weak tie situation,” says Hecht. “Weak ties are most famous for job opportunities. Functionally speaking, in an office, you’re able to meet someone in your hallway who could be your future boss.” The research shows the lack of weak ties is also especially treacherous for new employees. “We are seeing onboarding become a major challenge,” says Hecht. For new hires to be successful, managers and fellow employees must be extremely vigilant in checking in and making them part of the culture.

Some companies are finding innovative ways to address this problem. “We have a watercooler bot that runs in Teams, and it introduces you to someone you wouldn’t normally meet,” says Peter Dew, chief digital officer at Netherlands-based DSM, a global nutrition, health, and sustainable-living company. “I’ve been chatting to somebody in Brazil the last few days.” Diara Lo, a community developer and children’s rights activist at Tony’s Chocolonely, uses a less technical approach. “We have these daily check-ins where we see each other between 15 to 20 minutes,” she says. We see each other’s children, houses. It’s really nice. It also gives people more freedom to build their lives the way they want.”

Creative capital

Some of the world’s most creative ideas come from spitballing. But the move to remote work has eroded “creative capital,” the energy, innovation, and free flow of ideas that happen when teams assemble in a single collective space to throw out ideas. “Innovation as a team is very difficult remotely,” says Abigail Sellen, a cognitive scientist and deputy director of Microsoft Research Cambridge, who has been studying remote work since the late 1980s. “There’s the stripping away of the energy and the ambience that you get when you’re together. All of that makes it very difficult to do things like brainstorming and idea generation.”

The ever-important whiteboard is getting a WFH makeover, as researchers work on virtual versions. Virtual whiteboards in Teams allows you to collaborate in a shared space and attach images and sticky notes. But this is an ongoing area of intense development—which has already led to things like Together mode in Teams. “Collaboration tools are not just about transactional conversations,” says Microsoft’s Jeff Teper, who oversees Teams. “They are about engagement, about connections, about feelings of belonging.”

Nearly 60 percent of employees reported feeling less connected than before COVID.

Control of our calendar

Virtual meetings are hard. And “too many meetings” has become an all-too-common complaint among remote workers, as the cognitive strain of interaction during virtual meetings (Whom do I look at? Is it my turn to talk?) takes its toll. In a survey of 435 workers conducted by Jenna Butler, a senior software engineer at Microsoft, “too many meetings” consistently topped all of the study’s other work challenges, which included everything from workspace issues to distractions from the kids. In fact, 57 percent of workers said their meeting load had increased—a stat echoed by Teams users who are experiencing a 55 percent increase in Teams meetings per week.

In response to the findings of this survey and others, some groups at Microsoft experimented with “No Meeting Fridays” and requests to have meetings begin 10 minutes after the hour, so that workers won’t be staring down the barrel of a three-hour continuous block (research also shows that 50 minutes is about as long as you can expect to hold someone’s productive attention anyway). The survey was a win-win: Workers got the emotional release of venting (always a plus) and fewer meetings. “I’d like to hope that that’s why we do most of our studies, so we could have this sort of impact,” Butler says. “We weren’t going to just say, ‘OK, thanks for sharing all your problems! Back to work!’”

One other practical result: The data has made the company hypervigilant about meeting creep. Already inline suggestions in Outlook make it seamless to protect time for focused work before someone’s calendar fills up. Inline suggestions can also prompt meeting organizers to trim an hour-long meeting down to 45 minutes. Some groups are further making it a practice to ask, “Is this meeting really necessary at all?” and to find ways to go without. “The true measure of collaboration has to take into account the way people and teams actually work, which is both synchronous and asynchronous. Sometimes it’s in virtual meetings, yes. But sometimes it’s in collaborative documents and messages,” says Modern Work VP Jared Spataro. “Often the best ‘meeting’ is the one that didn’t have to happen.”

A normal workday

Nine to five? Not anymore. If the transition to WFH has allowed for more flexible schedules, it’s also extended working hours and blurred boundaries between office and home. We can do laundry and watch the kids while we’re working, but then we’re doing laundry and watching the kids while we’re working. Where does work end and fun begin when there’s no office to go to, but you’re always “at work,” sort of? According to one internal study, the workweeks of 7 out of 10 employees had lengthened by at least three hours. In external surveys, work was extending into the weekends more (in some cases, weekend work had tripled), with information workers reporting that it was more difficult to stop working at the end of the day—one Microsoft study showed that messaging traffic in Microsoft Teams between 5 p.m. and midnight had increased by 69 percent.

For many, work is harder when your bed and TV are right there, mere steps away. “If you’re in the office, the boundary between you and your bed can be super helpful,” says Hecht. Experts suggest creating new structures and boundaries to replace the old ones: dressing up for work even when at home, for instance, or taking “micro mental breaks” between stacked meetings. “We’re also thinking about how Outlook defines ‘working hours,’ ” Hecht adds, “and how Outlook might allow users to designate more than one single block.”

Challenges and Gratitude

Remote work presents many challenges. Some we're getting better at. Some we continue to struggle with.

As soon as workers went remote, Microsoft researchers began conducting nightly surveys with 435 engineers to better understand what they were experiencing. As the weeks went by some things improved (remote connections, kid issues), but others (focus, challenges to physical and mental health) proved to be persistent issues.

Infographic by Valerio Pellegrini

Showing “work devotion”

Without the in-person cues that tell their boss they’re working hard—spines bent over desks, not taking lunch—workers are experiencing burnout trying to virtually signal their “work devotion”: working longer hours, sending emails late into the night. “It’s hard to show your dedication when you have less rich communication mediums with your manager,” Hecht says. Solving this problem is tricky, and more analysis needs to be done. One report did find that employees who get more support from management have a better work-life balance and “those with more 1:1 meetings with their managers tend to have seen less of an increase in hours.” This is something for managers to consider, though, of course, managers are overwhelmed, too.

What We’ve Gained

No more commute!

Workers, research shows, are not missing those long drives to work and back. In addition to savings in time and gas, we saw blue skies in formerly smog-choked cities for the first time in ages during the pandemic, a plus for all of us. In a study of software engineers by Butler and Microsoft senior research economist Sonia Jaffe, “no commute” ranked high on the list of things people were most grateful for, consistently beating out “exercise,” “focus,” and “mental health.” As with so many WFH benefits, however, there are downsides: in this case, the mental break a commute affords and how that nice long drive serves as both a physical and temporal division between work and home. A full third of workers in one study reported that a lack of separation between work and home was hurting their wellbeing. Experimenting with a bot that helped workers ramp up to and back down from the day, researchers discovered that 61 percent of workers felt they were more productive with the bot, and on average productivity increased between 12 and 15 percent. Microsoft is working on introducing a virtual commute feature in Teams to help workers transition. Perhaps eventually we will be able to keep the best of both worlds.

More time with family (...to a point)

The good news: We’re all spending a lot more time with our families. The bad news: We’re all spending a lot more time with our families.

According to internal and external surveys, workers appreciate the extra hours at home. In one study, 75 percent of workers felt that being closer to family improved feelings of wellbeing. But many have also struggled working shoulder to shoulder with their entire clan in the same cramped space.

With an uptick in non-work-related distractions (kids, laundry, TV), workers report the challenge of “carving out time to focus.” But how much of this is a problem with remote work, and how much is it a problem of remote work during a pandemic? Research economist Jaffe stresses the importance of separating the effects of remote work and the pandemic when thinking about the future. Hopefully, in a non-COVID world—when kids can go back to school and spouses can occasionally get out of the house—more time with family and friends will be a distinct positive for remote workers.

In one study, 75 percent of workers felt being closer to family improved feelings of wellbeing.

Freedom from constant office interruptions

Staying focused in the office—surrounded by friendly coworkers who just want a quick chat—isn’t always easy. For many workers, spot interruptions have decreased during WFH. In one survey, 40 percent of Microsoft workers in the U.S. reported fewer work-related distractions during the lockdown, with only 21 percent reporting they had more; in China, it was a 48.5 percent decrease. Perhaps predictably, the increased focus time was dependent on several variables, from the number of people living at home to the sort of work you do (coders seemed to have a better go of things than managers). “People appreciate the ability to focus,” says Hecht. “You don’t have people yelling at you across the hallway. But on the other side of the coin, the initiation of communication is much more expensive.” Expensive, that is, because you can’t just yell a question at a coworker down the hallway.

Flexibility

Flexibility has been a major benefit for many Microsoft workers, who have been using their time at home to create their own work schedules, cook better meals, and exercise more (“I was able to walk the dog while I had a build going,” reported one employee).

In one study, “flexibility” consistently held the top spot among things people are most grateful for during the pandemic, even as others struggle with the lack of structure. Microsoft is planning to do further research into the factors that preserve the benefits of flexibility while retaining some of the structure of a more traditional workday. Maybe the midday bike ride is here to stay.

Remote-first thinking

Why work from the suburbs when you can be in Joshua Tree? With the shift to WFH, more workers can live wherever they want, even if that means your home is eight time zones away from company headquarters. When everyone’s working remotely, the colleague across the world is just as easy to contact, via email or videoconference, as your office mate. The move to remote has also had an equalizing effect for those who have been working remotely for ages. “There are people who have always been remote: either they have disabilities or maybe it’s just their personal circumstances,” says Sellen. “And many of these people are actually gaining a lot because now, with everyone remote, it’s more of a level playing field, and they have experience and things to teach us.” One study found that 52 percent of traditionally remote workers felt more included now that everyone was in the same virtual room. This will be important to keep going as we return to offices—if we keep some of our remote process active, workers who stay permanently remote will be able to contribute more.

Work is ongoing with the Future of Remote Work Initiative, as its members synthesize data coming from hundreds of researchers (650, at last count) and scores of studies, gaining insights into how to make the office of the future more productive, accessible, and humane. Hecht hopes to look further into the problem of social isolation among remote workers, while Butler wants to do more research into how and why humans are able to pull together during moments of crisis to do extraordinary things. At not even a year old, the Initiative is just getting started, but already the name may need to be reconsidered, as people return to work in various capacities and the hybrid approach gains traction. “Yeah, it probably won’t be called the Future of Remote Work,” says Sellen. “It’ll just be the Future of Work.”

Try This Now: "Timebox" Your Tasks at Work

lilyolason — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:18:05 GMT

By Rebecca Muller, Community Editor at Thrive Global

When you're overwhelmed, your first instinct might be to jump around from task to task, trying to get it all done without any structure. After all, when your to-do list seems like it's a mile long, and your plate is overflowing, organizing your tasks into designated time blocks can seem like the last thing you want to do — but experts tell us it's exactly what you need to manage your stress, and break free of the perpetual time famine that comes from trying to do everything at once.

Research finds that "timeboxing" your workload into visual blocks can help you stay organized when you have a lot to do, and can reduce stress by helping you visualize what you need to prioritize first, and what can wait. The next time you feel overwhelmed by your to-do list, take out a fresh piece of paper, and draw a column of boxes, placing each of your tasks in its respective box, based on priority level. That way, you'll see which to-dos need to get done first, and which are less urgent. "[Timeboxing] enables the relative positioning of work," productivity expert Marc Zao-Sanders writes in Harvard Business Review. "It's visual, intuitive, and obvious."

Zao-Sanders says the exercise can help you work smarter. "Working hard and trying your best is sometimes not actually what's required," he explains. "Getting the right thing done at the right time — is a better outcome for all."

For more actionable tips and inspiration on strengthening resilience and improving well-being at work and beyond, visit ThriveGlobal.com

Rebecca Muller, Community Editor at Thrive Global

Rebecca Muller is the Community Editor at Thrive Global. Her previous work experience includes roles in editorial and digital journalism. Rebecca is a graduate of New York University, where she studied Media, Culture and Communications with a minor in Creative Writing. For her undergraduate thesis, she researched the relationship between women and fitness media consumerism.

The Resilience Quotient

lilyolason — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:12:31 GMT

Illustration by Javier Jaen

Call 2020 the year that everyone had to learn to adapt. The pandemic affected everyone differently. But the one thing we all had in common is that nothing went as planned. We had to reimagine how we worked, learned, and shopped. How we communicated. How we lived.

Through it all, confronted with so many challenges, people showed a remarkable spirit of resilience. Individuals, families, and organizations displayed an inspiring adaptability. Disruptions caused setbacks, but we responded with flexibility and ingenuity.

As valuable as resilience is in the face of adversity and uncertainty, what is it, really? Is it a display of character? A test of will? It’s easy to couch resilience in heroic tropes. But those will get you only so far, especially in business. Researchers are digging deeper into the roots of resilience—what it is and how it works. The hope is that in understanding resilience better, it will become a skill individuals and teams can consciously grow.

As remote work has become the norm for employees around the world, they’ve found themselves wrestling with overwork, videoconference fatigue, cabin fever, and uncertainty about the future. They’ve had to tap into their reserves of personal resilience. In July, leadership researcher Marcus Buckingham investigated how individuals around the world have coped with these difficulties. His findings suggest that resilience has characteristics of both a trait and a state. “A trait is something that you presuppose cannot be changed,” he says. “A state is something you can change about a person.” In other words, some aspects of resilience seem to be with you for life. But some are fluid.

In the workplace, Buckingham says that resilience isn’t just about a high tolerance for stress and uncertainty; it’s about a particular type of mental responsiveness. “A reactive frame of mind enables you to withstand challenges in life and bounce back—not just bounce back, but bounce up,” he says. “You withstand them, you sway in the face of them, and you come back stronger.”

“When we ask an interviewee, ‘Tell me about a time you were in a crisis,’ we are really asking about the components of their resilience framework. Are they intentional about figuring out the outcome of a situation?”

Identifying resilience

Whether consciously or not, managers have long sought out this quality of responsiveness in new hires, and the trait is sure to become even more prized in a future increasingly defined by disruption and uncertainty.

“When we ask an interviewee, ‘Tell me about a time you were in a crisis,’ we are really asking about the components of their resilience framework,” says Jennifer Eggers, the author of Resilience: It’s Not About Bouncing Back. “Are they intentional about figuring out the outcome of a situation?”

In the past, employers have used intelligence tests to assess employees’ strengths. More recently, “emotional intelligence” measures have shown some correlation with job performance. Could a similar methodology determine someone’s “resilience quotient”?

Researchers have used the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (2003) and the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) (2008) widely in clinical settings to gauge the psychological wellbeing of someone who’s undergone a trauma or is being treated for depression. Bruce Smith, who designed the BRS, says that the scale has been used to analyze the resilience in specific occupations. But these have largely been aggregate studies of particularly high-stress jobs, such as emergency response.

For managers across a wider range of organizations, the key consideration isn’t whether an employee comes equipped with resilience as an innate trait. It’s gaining a better understanding of resilience as a state—and helping everyone on their teams develop their own capacity for resilience to the best of their ability.

Resilience, says Eggers, reveals itself in the face of tumult and rapid change, but it’s not simply about having a tolerance for uncertainty. It’s “the power to be energized and elevated by disruption. Resilience is about intentional preparation for disruption and becoming better for it.”

“Silence matters. Silence is the space between the notes, to make the music. I want to help create a cultural norm where every knowledge worker can create this space, make it OK to block time off for deep work and for themselves.”

Cultivating resilience

At an organizational level, trust in leadership is one of the most important factors that affect resilience in the workplace, according to Buckingham’s workplace resilience study, conducted with payroll provider ADP. An element of that trust involves setting realistic goals and accounting for the unpredictable. “Employers don’t trust a leader making Everest-like pronouncements about what’s going to happen around the corner, because they know that you don’t know,” Buckingham says.

Managers should also make a point to check in with every employee individually (not in a group setting) at least once each week. And they should strive to create an environment where employees feel they can take risks without fear of punishment.

On a personal level, Kamal Janardhan, the general manager of Workplace Intelligence for Microsoft 365, says the company’s research has shown that resilience can wane as the move to work-from-home environments erodes a sense of life/work balance. Her key message on how to combat this: Make time for downtime. “Silence matters. Silence is the space between the notes, to make the music,” she says. “I want to help create a cultural norm where every knowledge worker can create this space, make it OK to block time off for deep work and for themselves.”

“We try to build advanced algorithms to intuit what people are feeling. But the biggest piece of resilience can be a moment of reflection, simply asking people how they feel.”

Janardhan says that the more a company can do to encourage—or even mandate—that employees have meaningful downtime, the more resilient that employee will become. To that end, she says the new resilience tools built into Microsoft 365 have led to millions of users booking “focus time.”

Buckingham says that personal resilience can be improved by developing three key areas of behavior. The first involves agency: Are you conscious of what you can and can’t control in your life, and have you developed strategies to determine which is which? The second is compartmentalization: If a problem happens in one facet of your life, are you able to make progress in the other facets—and can you use those stronger aspects of your life to help deal with the problem? Lastly is simply joy: The Mayo Clinic found that to effectively avoid burnout, you need to be invigorated by 20 percent of every day’s work activities. With each percentage point below that, the risk of burnout rises by 1 percent.

Insights are one thing, but using them to create actionable results are another, says Janardhan. Microsoft has been beta-testing an extension to the Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams ecosystem that gives managers aggregated and de-identified data about the resilience of teams, as well as tools to improve it. “Customers were asking for insights,” she says. “Now they want to act on these insights.”

The key is reflection. “We try to build advanced algorithms to intuit what people are feeling,” Janardhan says. “But the biggest piece of resilience can be a moment of reflection, simply asking people how they feel.”

Toward resilience: Adapting to crisis through the lens of organizational networks

lilyolason — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:00:12 GMT

Neha Shah and Jonathan Larson

Resilient organizations weather crises by adapting with flexibility, ultimately emerging stronger. That is easier said than done, of course. While many organizations may strive toward resilience, leaders have limited clarity into how to measure progress, much less manage it. The difficulty lies in resilience being an interdependent, systemic function of responses from individual employees, workgroups and the organization.

To address this complex problem, we turn to organizational network analysis (ONA), which allows us to visualize and measure the complete system, while also breaking it down to meaningful chunks. Organizational network analysis concentrates on the pattern of connections formed when employees collaborate through meetings, emails, instant messages or calls (i.e., the organization’s collaborative network). These connections provide the means through which employees and workgroups exchange information and create knowledge, both to be productive and to maintain support. Organizational network analysis provides critical insights into resilience by enabling measurement of adaptivity; we can quantify and visualize when, whether and how people change their connections in response to crises, the extent to which they maintain or add new connections, and whether these connections remain with their own workgroup or whether they span working groups.

With the belief, then, that organizational resilience can and should be intentionally created, we offer guidance rooted in organizational networks. To be sure, achieving resiliency requires a long-term view, and continued measurement. We focus here on employees’ very first adaptations to crisis in the wake of the Covid-driven shift to remote work. If leaders can understand employees’ differing adaptive strategies, they can take informed actions to encourage resilience. In a future article, we explore how ONA provides insights into the shifting organizational structure, and how leaders can course correct to sustain resilience.

Partnering with a specialized team in Microsoft Research that merges artificial intelligence with business intelligence, we created an organizational network from the 1.87 million connections shared by over 92,000 de-identified Microsoft employees. An AI algorithm sorted employees into working groups based solely on digital collaboration, agnostic of role, function, level, or other organizational attributes. Simply put, employees grouped together tend to collaborate more together. Here is a view into that network, with each dot reflecting an anonymous employee and each color reflecting a working group. The network shape results from collaboration patterns; for example, the group in teal on the left likely engages in limited collaboration with most others in the organization, while groups near to one another likely collaborate more together.

To determine which employee connections to include in our analysis, we utilized thresholds including a baseline level of activity across emails, calls, meetings, and instant messages sent by one employee to another in any given month. For example, to include a connection from Sally to Fred, Sally must have sent 10 emails to Fred or 40 instant messages, or some equivalent combination of all four over the course of the month. Furthermore, we only include focused communications with 4 or fewer recipients. These thresholds ensure we include connections that reflect more ‘meaningful’ connections. Our analyses focus on ‘outbound connections,’ which consist of sent emails and Teams instant messages, along with participation in meetings and calls. All employee results are aggreged to working group levels to maintain privacy. Here is what we learned:

Start simply—focus on continuity: Determine how much shock the organization experienced

We first wanted to understand how much shock the organization had experienced. Shocks can encourage instability, and so we measured the amount of churn in employee networks. We considered whether employees kept up with their existing connections by measuring retained connections per working group between February and March, compared to retention between January and February. The wide swath of blue in Figure 2 shows most employees did not drop their existing connections. Despite an unprecedented shift in the way we work, most employees retained more connections than in a ‘normal’ working environment—keeping 3% more of their prior connections than the previous month. This limited churn indicates a strong sense of stability in the organization at large.

We attribute this stability in part to technology adoption. Between February of this year and March, when most work from home orders went into place, we found employees differed in the way they stayed connected to colleagues. Teams located primarily in the Seattle area faced a hurdle that others, like the already remote sales organization, did not. These collocated employees were connecting via email and meetings; but they had to quickly transition from their face-to-face connections to Teams calls and chats. They had to adopt new technologies to stay connected (shown in orange and yellow in Figure 3), while those who were already working remotely could remain stable in their technology use (shown in green). This hurdle may have been eased in some cases where teams were distributed across multiple offices and so had comfort in working regularly with others across offices and time zones.

Here is a key for resilience—these employees did not withdraw from these informal connections built on hallway conversations or stop-by-the-desk chats, which research has shown are crucial for feelings of engagement and trust. Instead, these working groups shifted how they connected—and so, they stayed connected.

Overcoming crisis situations would be impossible if the organization were to become either exceedingly instable or exceedingly rigid in response to shocks. Resilient organizations must be able to withstand shocks, even while being flexible to navigate through them. Here, and above, we find the organization maintained stability at levels consistent with ‘normal’ non-crisis times—our first indicator of resilience in the face of crisis.

Identify how the organization adapted to the shock

Changes in collaboration:

In addition to keeping their existing ties, most members of the organization increased the size of their networks through the crisis by an average 13% between February and March, to 23 outgoing connections. They did so by adding connections at a rate 24% more than in the previous month. This is not inevitable behavior by any means. That members of most groups formed new connections at all runs opposite to expectations of threat rigidity. When people face threats they often ‘freeze,’ focusing on doing what they have always done and connecting with those they find familiar-thereby becoming more rigid in their behavior.

We did find some tendency toward familiarity here also, as these employees formed 70% of their new connections to people within their own working groups. These familiar connections may create a sense of shared understanding. Research shows that when groups become more densely connected, the increased interconnectivity means that people hear similar information from many others in the group. This type of echo facilitates a shared understanding and identity among group members. From a productivity standpoint, the shared understanding can help the group move efficiently toward time-sensitive goals in crisis situations.

Perhaps we could attribute some of this increase to our newfound ability to account for connections, since collocated employees may have communicated face-to-face rather than through the digital means we measure. If this were the primary explanation, then we would expect a limited change in the count of connections across working groups (where employees likely already connect through digital means). Surprisingly, we saw the formation of new connections that span outside of the working group increase by 22% over the prior month. Counter to the notion of freezing, this shift suggests that employees extend beyond their comfort zones to form new connections or perhaps reactivate old connections to help the organization guard against threats associated with this crisis. For example, employees may start cross-group virtual teams to address common problems of remote work.

This cross-group connectivity enables the broad information sharing that has been deemed essential for organizational resilience. Even while company leaders share information often, there remains great uncertainty in unknown situations. To gain a sense of control, people may reach out to access “new” information that can offer a feeling of control or empowerment. In addition, employees may synthesize this novel information to find new ways of looking at problems or contexts that they had not previously considered to pivot current offerings to meet customer needs. Some of these connections may facilitate coordination between groups. And finally, because of these many connections that cross working groups, employees learn how others view the organization’s structure, processes, and functions, and begin to assemble a shared vision of the organization.

Recognize that groups vary in shock responses—with good reason

While we have concentrated thus far on the groups in which members kept their existing connections, notice the exception in the orange island in the middle of Figure 2. These working groups displayed a connectivity profile that seemed nearly opposite from the rest of the organization. Deeper analysis revealed that these were the only working groups in which people collaborated with fewer others during this crisis than before it. Their networks shrunk by 7% in March (the rest of the organization grew by 13%, as we noted above).

They changed their networks principally by keeping fewer of their existing (pre-crisis) connections (keeping only 52% of connections, versus the rest of the organization keeping 62%), especially to others in their own working group. They added fewer new connections than others but were more likely to add connections that crossed working groups, at a rate 18% higher than the prior month. These changes led to a pared down network that became overall 22% more external leaning than in the prior month (the rest of the organization became 3% more externally leaning).

What happened here? This workgroup includes members of Microsoft’s strategy and operations organization, manning the organization’s control center through the crisis. Members of this critical group very nimbly adapted their networks to current needs. They did so by paring down connections within their own working group and keeping and forming connections across groups, likely to those only most acutely relevant to regain stability for the organization and its employees.

As we mentioned earlier, for resilient organizations, navigating through crises requires flexibility. We see this flexibility demonstrated by the organization at large, and most by the group charged with steering the organization through the current crisis. Were this group to remain rigidly focused on the same ways of working prior to the shift or to be slow in their reaction to it, the organization could be weakened and less able to continue to weather future shocks. Its adaptivity offers a positive indicator of resilience.

Toward resiliency: measuring adaptivity through employee collaborations

Like all organizations, Microsoft faces a long, unchartered path forward. We moved first toward continuity to regain stability and now toward rebuilding, all the while fortifying for long term resilience. Our post here describes just the initial shift from the ‘old normal’ to working from home. While it is an early look into how the organization changed, we learned that most employees kept existing collaborations even while adding new connections that spanned working group boundaries. We learned that organizational groups changed their behaviors to stay connected. And finally, we saw our ‘control center’ quickly pivot its networks to address current needs. We found all these changes took place within the first month of the crisis.

These differences suggest that groups respond differently to crises and should receive differential support from organizations over time. Control tower groups (strategy and operations, primarily) face critical impacts of business disruption on operations. They must manage extraordinarily novel problems requiring cross-disciplinary input, including the transition to remote work, while the sensitivity of their work requires putting aside all non-essential communication. As a result, these groups must pivot their collaborative projects and connections to adapt their network to pressing priorities. For managers in this group, burnout should be front of mind as these employees likely work at high paces with limited connectivity. The network changes of this group may play a key role in continuity, recovery and long-term resilience.

Most working groups must focus on their normal work (reflected in kept collaborative connections) and still address the novel problems or opportunities that benefit from getting more diverse input (reflected in boundary spanning connections). Without acute pressure from a single front, individuals may find it difficult to prioritize. Managers should conduct regular 1:1 meetings, and supply increased clarity on priorities when needed. In addition, managers may also need to help employees prevent collaborative overload, particularly for informal ‘experts’, who might be highly sought out for information from their colleagues.

Collocated teams may need more support versus already remote/distributed teams. As an organization, future research should address whether and how we can make the most of our training and adoption budget by focusing on groups facing the biggest transition and making sure they have access to best practices as they adapt to the new normal.

Overall, even the best prepared organizations will face crises. To be resilient, employees and their groups must have the right connections to adapt and emerge stronger from it.

Thanks to Jessalynn Uchacz, Nikolay Trandev, and Darren Edge, who contributed to this research and report. This paper is a joint project between Microsoft Research and Workplace Intelligence.

Neha Shah
Neha Shah is a Director of Solution Design in Microsoft's Workplace Intelligence organization. Before joining Microsoft, she was a management professor at Rutgers Business School. Her expertise focuses on social networks in the workplace, particularly on linking network science with organizational and management behavior. Prior to her academic work, Neha was a strategy consultant. She has a PhD in organizational behavior from UCLA and is based in New York.

Jonathan Larson
Jonathan Larson is a Principal Data Architect at Microsoft working on Special Projects. His applied research work focuses on petabyte-scale data infrastructure, data science applications, network analytics, and information visualization. He has applied experience in cyber-security, anti-human trafficking, fraud analytics, mobile device analytics, media management, retail analytics, organizational analytics, and real estate.

How to Get Ahead of Stress Before It Overwhelms You

lilyolason — Wed, 31 May 2023 23:46:50 GMT

By Marina Khidekel, Chief Content Officer at Thrive Global

There's a phrase that Thrive's founder and CEO Arianna Huffington often says: "Stress is inevitable, but cumulative stress is avoidable." And since we all have days where our to-do list is a mile long and we feel completely in over our heads, it's important to arm ourselves with tools to get ahead of the stress before it becomes cumulative and leads to burnout.

We asked our Thrive community to share with us the small ways they get ahead of stress before it overwhelms them. Which of these strategies will you try?

Plan your day the night before

"One tip that helps me is to plan my next day the evening before. Before bed, I close my eyes and visualize what I want my next day to be. I then write out a complete list of all the things I need to accomplish. The next day, I wake up open to any new ideas that I need to do that day. Doing this one exercise eliminates the feeling of, 'Oh my goodness, I forgot that I need to do this today.' Instead, it just allows me to refresh my list if necessary."

—Dr. Nadine Collins, spiritual wellness coach, speaker, and author, Atlanta, GA

Try the 3-3-5 breathing exercise

"To get ahead of stress, I implement the 3-3-5 breathing exercise in my daily life. It instantly relaxes my body and allows me to access all the ideas and tools I have to move forward and be productive. You simply breathe in through your nose for three counts, hold it in for three counts, and then release it through the mouth for five counts. It's simple, highly effective, and can be done anywhere at any time!"

—Nausheen Saumtally, empowerment speaker and trainer, Toronto, ON, Canada

Close your eyes and do a body scan

"I make an effort to close my eyes and notice my bodily sensations, especially how my gut and neck feel. I feel stress especially in my gut area and in my neck and shoulders. It can sometimes feel as though the whole world is weighing down on my shoulders. Since I had a traumatic accident happen to me and had a bad neck strain at the start of my career, I know stress lodges in my neck and gut. By scanning my body, I can take a moment to acknowledge where I'm holding tension, and then take a break when needed."

—Anitha Balaraj, executive coach, Chennai, India

Focus on the solution, not the problem

"One great way that I get ahead of my stress is to focus on the solution instead of the problem. When you start focusing on the problem, you get flooded with toxic hormones and chemical reactions. When you focus on the solution, it helps you stay present and look toward the future with hope. The small shift can make a huge difference."

—Mary, licensed mental health counselor, FL

Carve out breaks in your schedule

"When I know I have a very busy, stressful day ahead, I make sure that I leave gaps of time in my scheduled bookings so I can have a little quiet downtime. I'll make some mint tea, sit quietly and breathe, and play a mindless video game on my phone to give my brain a rest. I always feel better afterward and am able to take on the next appointment with calm and balance."

—Marci Brockmann, author, podcaster, artist, and educator, N.Y.

Write out your weekly meetings

"Each week, I sit down and write out my weekly meetings, using dotted paper and color code. I mark 'active' meetings, and 'no-action' meetings, so I know which meetings are considered priority for me to join. Rewriting my schedule on paper allows me to visually find pockets of time I can focus on projects and make time to think strategically."

—Amanda, virtual production, Memphis, TN

Take a moment to go outside

"I head to the beach before I get too stressed out. I am a writer, so I have a flexible schedule, and I live five minutes from the beach. It always helps me get ahead of stress so it doesn't overwhelm me down the line."

—Natalie Brobin, writer, Oceanside, CA

Get a haircut

"There are days when I reach the end of my rope, but my number one strategy for getting ahead of stress before it overwhelms me is this: I get a haircut. It's bizarre, I know. But most of the time, I feel stressed is because things seem overwhelming, disorganized, and out of control to me. Getting my haircut is actionable and feels like I'm getting something finished, tamed, and under control. it takes me away from the office and puts me in another chair to see the world. It also keeps me from using my cell phone, laptop, calculator, pens, or hands while in the barber's chair, and allows me to talk to an objective person — the hairstylist — outside of my ordinary world. Simply put, it feels like I'm doing something good for myself and taking care of myself."

—Kevin Ervin Kelley, AIA, architect, Los Angeles, CA

Ask yourself how you'd advise a friend

"To get ahead of stress, I ask myself, 'If I were going to troubleshoot this problem for a friend, what would I suggest?' This question always helps me reframe. Sometimes simply having a list of a few options helps me become more proactive instead of reactive. It gives me a sense of control when things seem to be sliding sideways."

—Kristin Meekhof, wellness and Resilience expert and author, Royal Oak, MI

Make time for self-care

"For me, getting ahead of stress is about the non-negotiables: those daily activities linked to self-care. They just allow me to become much more logical and calm even when a stressful time does arise. Maintaining a clear and positive mindset allows for those stressful moments to become more manageable. The main ones for me are meditating, exercise, walking the dog, and reading. All of those rituals help to keep me balanced and give me space to be able to cope better when more complex emotions are challenged."

—Amanda Edmanson, primary teacher, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Marina Khidekel, Chief Content Officer at Thrive Global

Preparing for the Turnover Crisis

lilyolason — Wed, 31 May 2023 23:48:49 GMT

Illustration by Javier Jaén

Research from Microsoft shows that huge numbers of people may leave their current jobs. As a result, businesses will have to recruit huge numbers of new employees. And they’ll have to do it amid what the Microsoft Work Trend Index calls “a disruption as great as last year’s sudden shift to remote work: the move to hybrid.”

Over the last year, workers have spent less time physically in offices than ever before—which for many has led to feelings of disconnectedness from their teams. But that is only one reason for the expected turnover. As vaccination rates increase and the pandemic eases, many people are contemplating a major life change—because they’re burned out or merely looking for new opportunities. And those opportunities may be plentiful, given that numerous companies are permanently shifting to hybrid work, which breaks down geographic barriers for job seekers.

Many employees have held on to jobs as islands of normalcy and stability amid so much upheaval. LinkedIn’s latest Workforce Confidence Index reports that no less than 74 percent of employees have stayed in their current jobs out of a need for security during the pandemic. Key factors include keeping household finances stable (59 percent), job perks and benefits (30 percent), and “having no time or energy to focus on a job switch” (14 percent).

LinkedIn senior editor-at-large George Anders says that a significant number of workers are now contemplating a new role, a new employer, or even a new career. “For millions of Americans, a successful 2021 means more than just leaving the pandemic-era difficulties behind,” he writes.

The LinkedIn index reports that 49 percent of employees in sales and HR are willing to pivot to new job functions, a number that rises to 56 percent for administrative workers. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index reaches similar conclusions, showing 41 percent of the global workforce considering a job change in the next year, with 46 percent planning to make a major career transition.

Microsoft’s Work Trend Index shows that 41 percent of the global workforce are considering a job change in the next year, with 46 percent planning to make a major career transition.

Illustration by Valerio Pellegrini

The tectonic shift to remote work makes job hopping easier for some. “Information workers are seeing lots more jobs opening up for them, because they can now work from anywhere,” says Jorie Foss, product marketing manager for Microsoft Viva, an employee-experience platform that helps organizations bring together knowledge, learning, resources, and insights.

The Work Trend Index notes that remote job postings on LinkedIn have more than quintupled during the pandemic, and plenty of workers are eager to take advantage of them; 46 percent of remote workers say they plan to relocate to a new place since they may no longer need to be physically in the office. This may seem like a boon for companies—without geographic restrictions, they’ll have bigger pools from which to recruit. But it’s a double-edged sword: They’ll also face stronger competition from faraway companies vying for those same employees.

Many employees are already on the move. A recent PwC survey found that 12 percent of office workers have moved more than 50 miles away from their company’s core office location since the pandemic began, and another 22 percent are considering following suit. Many are abandoning the coastal cities for states with cheaper housing and lower taxes, like Texas and Florida. Even as COVID-19 risk levels drop, some will simply stay put and find new jobs.

There will be those workers who just want a change after a year-plus of lockdown. “Turnover has been very low for the past year, so there’s a pent-up desire to try new things,” says Brian Houck, head of the productivity team for Microsoft Azure engineers.

The potential consequences of a surge in turnover for companies striving to get back to some sort of normalcy will be profound. What can companies do to keep employees from cutting ties permanently? How can managers help new hires feel connected to coworkers, understand company culture, and receive the training and support they need in a hybrid work situation? To slow the rate of churn, companies will need to rethink traditional approaches to retention to meet the new realities and possibilities of the hybrid era.

Holding On to Talent

The most critical enticement that will be necessary to keep existing workers happy, and to recruit new ones, will be allowing those who want to work remotely to do so, at least some of the time. Study after study shows that most employees want to continue to work remotely for at least three days a week.

“Flexibility is the number-one ask,” says Anders. “People want geographic mobility and to have control over their hours. They’re saying, ‘I want more time with my kids, and I don’t want to commute, so I want to knock off at 4. But I’m willing to give you back an hour at 9 p.m.’ ”

Most employers seem to have heard the message: A recent KayoCloud survey from March of this year found that more than 80 percent of companies are embracing a hybrid model. Brands including Twitter, Spotify, and Facebook are extending their work-from-home options for employees.

Twelve percent of office workers have moved more than 50 miles away from their company’s core office location since the pandemic began, and another 22 percent are considering following suit.

Illustration by Valerio Pellegrini

In this new work world, managers will be more important than ever. With hybrid work arrangements—where hires won’t have the same degree of informal access to peers—managers will need to support them with extra one-on-one contact. A recent Microsoft survey found that the company’s new hires are relying increasingly on managers and less on peers for help during onboarding.

Setting clear goals and priorities, and guiding new hires through the ways in which the job may have changed between when they were hired and when they started, will be vital. Managers will need to find new, creative ways to model behavior, coach existing employees to be role models, and show workers that they are cared for—all elements that Microsoft research indicates is essential to inculcating a growth mindset.

Human resources professionals will not only need to develop new skills; an August 2020 Harvard Business Review report predicts that HR departments will need to create a slew of entirely new positions as well. Companies might want to enlist a work-from-home facilitator, for example, who can help keep job responsibilities from creeping into family time and ensure that remote employees have the proper office space and tech to succeed at their jobs. At present, according to one Microsoft study, just more than one-third of remote workers have a dedicated home office. New technologies can help: Microsoft’s Viva employee experience platform (EXP), for instance, provides data-driven recommendations to workers about carving out time for breaks, focused work, and learning while also tying them closely to the knowledge resources they need to do their jobs effectively.

Equal Access

In hybrid work arrangements, it will be vital for meeting leaders to be trained to not overlook virtual employees and to establish protocols for how they can signal when they want to speak up. Tech can help, too: Microsoft’s Teams is built with features explicitly aimed at making hybrid meetings feel more inclusive. Companies that offer travel reimbursements for employees who live far from the main office to encourage them to come in for important meetings may find themselves with an edge in helping colleagues feel connected.

“We need to ensure that people working remotely are not disadvantaged in some way,” says Houck. “We need to get better at things like digital whiteboarding and making sure everyone has the right equipment and is familiar with the tools.”

Employees will also have to become familiar with radically redesigned offices. Experts predict that we’ll see far fewer permanently assigned desks and more “hot desks,” collaborative hubs, and private spaces that can be booked.

Newer hires pose more specific challenges: How do you introduce a recent addition to the team, and to company culture, when everything’s been turned upside down? Many companies are experimenting with randomly pairing employees for informal digital “water cooler chats.” Similarly, it will be important to rethink mentoring to support less-experienced workers, who, surveys reveal, are more likely to want to spend time in the office than their veteran colleagues. Assigning new hires a partner—one who doesn’t manage them—can help, says Anders.

A third of employees would give up potential salary raises in exchange for paid time off for volunteer work. “Meaning matters more than ever,” says Dan Schwabel, managing partner at Workplace Intelligence.

Illustration by Valerio Pellegrini

One of the most powerful tools to both attract and retain talent is to offer a sense of meaning. More than one-quarter of employees surveyed by the IBM Institute for Business Value earlier this year said they took new jobs in the hope of finding more purposeful and meaningful work. Another PwC survey found that a third of employees would give up potential salary raises in exchange for paid time off for volunteer work. “Meaning matters more than ever,” says Dan Schwabel, managing partner at Workplace Intelligence, a human resources consultancy.

Hiring in the Hybrid Era

For some, evaluating new hires without ever seeing them face-to-face was a rougher transition than moving to remote work. Last summer, the staffing agency Addison Group polled 500 hiring managers across the United States for a report titled “Is Remote Hiring the New Normal?” It found that more than 56 percent of managers had never hired remotely before.

In some ways, finding the right candidates has never been simpler. “It’s so easy now to talk to lots of people quickly,” says Houck. “You can interact with candidates from all over the world.” But that also means the hiring pipeline can get overwhelmed. “We used to get thousands of applications for on-site workers here in Seattle,” says Foss. “Now, for remote positions, we’re getting tens of thousands!”

Artificial intelligence systems to help vet all those applicants seem certain to continue to grow in popularity—not only algorithms to sort through résumés, but chatbots that can screen candidates, assess their personalities, and answer some of their questions. Those systems need to be used cautiously, however: Several hiring algorithms have been found to be subtly biased against some racial groups and women. They can be useful tools, but only if hiring managers are careful to ask the right questions and do not blindly accept their recommendations.

Job candidates—especially younger ones—are likely to insist on being allowed to work from anywhere as a matter of course, not just as a perk. Meeting them where they are is wise counsel. “We found, at a deep human level, that people want control over where and how they work,” says Schwabel. “Not offering the option to work remotely inhibits your ability to recruit workers.”

Every business is unique, of course. Whether because of a company’s entrenched culture or the nature of the work itself, some will still require significant on-site time from workers, while others will fully embrace remote and hybrid work and tap talent across the country and around the world. But one thing is certain: Grinding out eight hours at the same desk five days a week is gone for good.

Strategies for Onboarding in a Hybrid World

lilyolason — Tue, 23 May 2023 17:05:23 GMT

Illustration by Leonardo Betti

Like many people who changed jobs recently, Dave Nobles embarked on his new role without ceremony. Joining Microsoft was a career pivot after years in the Navy and then at a university-affiliated research center, but he woke up that first morning and sat down to work in the same home office where he’d spent the entire pandemic.

“Nothing changed except the computer I use and the sites I access,” says Nobles, who tried moving his desk to a new spot in the room when he joined Microsoft, “just to make the experience feel a little different.”

More broadly, Nobles wondered how he would adapt to his first job in the business world while being unable to connect with colleagues in person. “I was nervous as all get out,” Nobles, a director of digital advisory services, says. Would virtual onboarding help him feel a true sense of belonging to a new organization?

It’s a question that resonates with new employees across business sectors, and with employers too—and it’s still relevant as the pandemic eases. After more than a year of remote work for many employees, followed by the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, onboarding is evolving into a largely hybrid affair—sometimes virtual, sometimes in person, and often a mix of the two.

The challenge remains: acclimating new employees to a company and its culture when teams are together in person less often. Takeaways from the era of remote onboarding can help organizations recalibrate their strategies going forward.

More than 25,000 employees have joined Microsoft since the pandemic started. Like every company, Microsoft is still adjusting—and readjusting—its practices as it discovers what works best when it comes to remote and hybrid work, but Microsoft’s research has shown that a key component of success is a laser-like focus on something simple, even obvious: the day-to-day lived experiences of its employees.

Illustration by Leonardo Betti

Cultivate the most essential relationship for new hires: the one with their managers

The duty to make a remote worker feel welcome falls mostly on the new employee’s manager. During the pandemic, Microsoft found that new hires relied more heavily on managers than ever before.

Upper management responded by encouraging managers to personalize the onboarding process for each new employee, with an abundance of time devoted to individual conversations. Again, a seemingly obvious approach— and Microsoft found it to be extremely effective.

“We communicated to managers how important it is that you have one-on-ones early and often with your new hires,” says Dawn Klinghoffer, head of people analytics at Microsoft. “Managers took that really seriously, and they offered guidance in terms of aligning expectations on job priorities.”

Klinghoffer and her team have studied how remote work has affected Microsoft’s more than 150,000 employees, with new hires as one area of focus.

A key finding of their research: When managers played an active role, new employees were 3.5 times more likely to say they were satisfied with their onboarding experience. They were also 1.2 times more likely to feel that they were contributing to their teams’ success.

We communicated to managers how important it is that you have one-on-ones early and often with your new hires.

Dawn Klinghoffer, head of people analytics, Microsoft

Strengthen the “organizational muscle”

But the welcoming committee has to stretch beyond managers. New hires need to develop a strong support network among their colleagues. An onboarding buddy program like the one at Microsoft, where new hires are paired with an experienced employee to turn to for informal help, is vital.

“Every new employee should have an onboarding buddy,” says Priya Priyadarshini, general manager for employee career and development at Microsoft. “Employees who have effective onboarding buddies are more satisfied with onboarding resources, more easily find the right contact for their questions, and feel that their buddies help them expand their networks and become more productive in their new role.”

Microsoft, for example, has found that 56 percent of new hires who met with their onboarding buddy at least once in their first 90 days said their contact helped them to quickly become productive on the job. That percentage jumped to 73 percent for those who met two to three times with their buddy, 86 percent for those who spoke four to eight times, and 97 percent for those meeting more than eight times.

Siobhan O’Mahony, a professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at Boston University, says developing strong bonds among colleagues is imperative for improving “the quality of the collective mind” of an organization. It preserves transactive memory, which is “basically who does what”—a collective understanding of how an organization gets the job done.

“That’s the organizational muscle that’s probably weakening right now,” O’Mahony says, referring to the moment between working from home and returning to the office.

That essential organizational muscle withers and dies without human interaction. Microsoft has found that offering a more personal touch to its onboarding efforts helps build social capital, or the benefits that come from ties with others. The company is keeping these lessons in mind as it embraces a flexible working model; after the pandemic is no longer a significant concern, working from home at least some of the time will be standard for most roles at Microsoft.

Illustration by Leonardo Betti

Focus on employee experience—including the details

In virtual onboarding, Microsoft has paid attention to the little things as well as the big ones, like sending new remote employees their hardware well in advance of their start date, giving them ample time to set up home workstations.

From a software perspective, Microsoft Teams offers tools to help people feel more connected during virtual onboarding—and in any meeting—including chat, polling, breakout sessions, and Together mode, which creates a shared virtual space where participants are not separated by barriers.

Early in the onboarding process, Microsoft directs remote hires to a tech tool called Microsoft Viva, an employee experience platform that brings together communications, learning, resources, and insights. It includes a glossary of internal company acronyms, a handy reference for new employees.

Onboarding buddies help new hires expand their networks and become more productive in their new role.

Share your vision—and your vulnerabilities

Nobles, the new Microsoft employee, joined the company from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, a place he loved. He knew Microsoft had a strong culture, but 2021 was a tough time to change jobs, he thought. How would that culture translate to a remote environment? Could it?

But the stress passed quickly. Nobles’s laptop arrived days before he started, giving him time to explore Microsoft’s resources and use Teams to set up one-on-one meetings.

A former naval officer, Nobles is fascinated by the ways organizations build culture and inspire employees. The onboarding process emphasized Microsoft’s mission—to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more—and that resonated with him. “I was able to rattle that off on day three of being on board,” he says.

On his first Friday on the job, Nobles attended a virtual Yammer session where top executives talked about their process. One in particular affected Nobles, who was struck by her vulnerability, “letting us into her world and how she operates. You were able to really establish context.”

Nobles says he experienced small moments, time and again, that helped him feel he belonged.

“I felt really free to ask questions,” he says. “It was surprisingly personal. The connection was meaningful.”

How to Take Breaks That Help You Have the Most Productive Workday

lilyolason — Tue, 23 May 2023 16:34:54 GMT

By Marina Khidekel, Chief Content Officer at Thrive Global

The COVID-19 pandemic has urged us to rethink our relationship with time, work and productivity in ways we'd never expected. Among one of the biggest lessons: Many of us have learned that slowing down and taking breaks to recharge actually boosts our productivity, our focus, and concentration. Whether we've returned to an office or continue to work from home, being intentional about breaks is key to a more efficient and more fulfilling workday.

We asked our Thrive community to share how they carve out time for breaks during the day, and what they do during those breaks that benefits their well-being and productivity. Which of these will you try?

Doodle in between tasks

"I stumbled into the world of doodling by accident when I was diagnosed with breast cancer — a time when my mind was filled with anxiety and fear about what tomorrow might bring. Yet the more I doodled, the more peaceful and calm I began to feel. Doodling quickly became a profound daily practice that allowed my spirit to rest, recover, and regroup. Now, I set time aside every day to doodle, even if I only have ten minutes. In the beginning, doodling sounded like such a frivolous and mindless activity, yet it opened me up to a sacred space within which allowed me to access my own healing wisdom and connect with my creative spirit. I found myself experiencing more energy, enthusiasm, and joy. I felt more productive with whatever project I was working on as it cleared my mind of excess mental chatter. It's now my favorite way to take a break!"

—Carol Edmonston, speaker and author, Fullerton, CA

Set a "stand up and move" alarm

"I rely on my watch as my reminder to stand up every half hour for at least for a minute. I also make sure that halfway through the day, I take a 20-minute walk. Science shows that simply walking for 20 minutes boosts your mood and improves your creativity. I find that it really makes a difference!"

—Nicki Anderson, director of women's leadership program at Benedictine University, Lisle, IL

Nourish yourself with "soul fuel"

"I've been finding that taking self-care breaks is key. Self-care is the 'soul fuel' that always enhances my productivity. During the day, I make time for a hot cup of tea, a few stretches, or a short meditation. I come back to the keyboard with new energy, fresh ideas, and a sprinkling of inspiration. I also bookend my day with a walk in nature to reflect on lessons learned and creative possibilities."

—Siobhan Kukolic, author, inspirational speaker and life coach, Toronto, Canada

Take a dance break

"My fifteen-year-old daughter and I have developed TikTok traditions that help us decompress and connect during our day-to-day routines. We take an impromptu break at least once a day, sometimes by making a dance TikTok, which is a great way to activate both sides of the brain! I never thought that a social media app would be the impetus for our mother-daughter bonding. As parents, we spend so much time trying to manage or restrict our kids' screen time. This environment has helped me see how technology can introduce new ways of connecting with my teenager."

—Monique Johnson, nonprofit executive, Richmond VA

Give yourself breathing room between meetings

"To take productive breaks, I've started to reserve a few minutes on either end of meetings. Often, I use those few minutes to hug my partner, step outside for some fresh air, or do a short meditation. I've found these fairly frequent short breaks have been great to help me stay grounded throughout the day and shift from different meeting mindsets as my day progresses. I have enjoyed scheduling it in such a way enough that I anticipate keeping a similar model when we return to work."

—Priya Jindal, transition management consultant, Washington, D.C.

Walk your dog

"My dog reminds me to get up and go outside several times a day. After lunch, it has become our habit to walk a half mile. Not only do I get the fresh air and exercise, but it clears my mind. When I sit at my computer again, it is with a new perspective."

—Laurie Jonas, blogger, Red Wing, MN

Schedule reminders to check in with yourself

"I set reminders on my phone to ask myself questions throughout the day, such as, 'How could this day feel better?' or 'Is there anything more energizing you could be doing right now?' These little reminders go off multiple times throughout the day, and they are a way to check in with myself and ask if what I'm working on is actually serving me. During these breaks, I take the time to get outside, sit in the sun, slow down my breathing, and shake up my energy."

—Taylor Slango, business coach, Buffalo, NY

Combine a chore with your favorite podcast

"I take productive breaks by carving out small blocks to put on a podcast and tackle a brief household chore, like watering the plants or loading and unloading the dishwasher. What I love about these breaks is that not only are they a complete mental break from work which allows me to return with greater productivity and creativity, but I'm also productive — listening to something I enjoy, chipping away at housework, getting in a little movement, or just giving my eyes a break from my screens."

—Alexis Haselberger, time management and productivity coach, San Francisco, CA

What's your favorite way to take a break during the day that improves your productivity? Share it with us in the comments!

For more actionable tips and inspiration on strengthening resilience and improving well-being at work and beyond, visit ThriveGlobal.com

Marina Khidekel, Chief Content Officer at Thrive Global

10 Ways to Stop Sweating the Small Stuff and Move Forward

lilyolason — Tue, 23 May 2023 16:26:14 GMT

By Marina Khidekel, Chief Content Officer at Thrive Global

We all encounter small daily stressors and challenges that can make us feel frustrated or anxious. There's power in acknowledging the causes of our stress before it becomes cumulative or overwhelming — and it's also important to arm ourselves with tools and strategies to help us address stress in the moment so that we can move forward instead of dwelling on the issue.

We asked our Thrive community to share with us the small ways they move on from their stressors and stop sweating the small stuff. Which of these tips will you try?

Take a long-term view

"I ask myself what impact the thing I am stressing over will have in the long term. Will I still care in five hours, five days or five months? In most circumstances, it's something that won't cause stress beyond a day or two, so I tell myself that the impact is minimal and I try to let it go. It's not easy, but adding the lens of time often helps me to put things in perspective. It helps me realize that most things aren't worth stressing over."

—Marta Rzeszowska Chavent, management and change consultant, France

Shift your language

"I learned from several coaches and friends to reframe my thoughts from 'I have to' to 'I get to.' This simple mindset shift helps me think differently about situations that are inducing stress or nervousness."

—Donna Peters, executive coach and MBA Faculty, Atlanta, GA

Go for a walk to think it over

"I think getting up, leaving your home, and going for a quiet walk goes a long way for both grabbing a breather and avoiding letting stressors get to you. I use the walk to think about what's going on and figure out a strategy for how I will handle this challenge. These walks also allow me to gain a bit of perspective about the situation. By the time I come home from the walk, I feel confident that I can handle the stressor and that in the short and long term this particular stressor does not signify the end of the world."

—Heather Taylor, communications coordinator, Calabasas, CA

Remind yourself to accept what you can't change

"I try to accept what I cannot change. I've always enjoyed this quote by the great philosopher Epictetus who said, 'Don't seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.' Life is unpredictable, so to find peace, it's essential to embrace all moments without judgment. Peace comes from knowing that unpleasant events are transitory and will pass, just like the natural cycles of day and night."

—James Petrossi, president of PTNL, Austin, TX

Reverse your self-talk

"At this stage in my life and career, nothing surprises me and most importantly, nothing scares me. I am confident in my ability to cope. I have seen these movies before and know that in the end, everything works out just great. Worry (a top stressor) is a made-up story that definitely causes you to enter a world of stress. However, realistically, the event hasn't happened yet. What you do is make up a story, believe it and then it becomes your truth. What do I do? I tell myself a different story. It works every time."

—Chere Estrin, CEO of Estrin Legal Staffing, Los Angeles, CA

Look at something that puts things in perspective

"I was given the gift of a 'present clock' by a dear friend. It makes a full revolution in 24 hours and is your reminder to stop stressing, get grounded, and stay in the present. It's mounted in a place in my house where I can see it from most angles any time I need the reminder. Every time I look at it, a little click goes off in my head to let go of whatever stress I'm dealing with, and I'm reminded of my lovely friend who put so much thought into this gift."

—Sonia Hunt, author and marketing executive, San Francisco, CA

Think about tomorrow

"I was raised to believe that when you are 15 minutes early, you are actually on time. Although I've carried this belief with me into my work habits, it has also caused me stress, worrying about being late, planning out the entire day around one activity, and limiting my time to prioritize others' needs. But what I've learned as a business owner is the phrase, 'Tomorrow is still going to come.' Tomorrow is going to show up whether we're ready or not. We cannot control the fact that we are continuously in motion. This phrase has been my mantra for when the stress starts to feel overwhelming."

—Laura Collins, launch curator, Denver, CO

Create 80/20 buckets

"I stop and take a moment to do a five or ten-minute breathing exercise to center myself. Then, I take the thought captive and create 80/20 buckets. I ask myself if what I am anxious about went wrong, will I still be fine? If the answer is yes, then I would place that thought into the 80% bucket. If there is a risk involved, then I would place that thought in the 20% bucket and address the issue from a place of calm and clear-headedness after my breathing exercises."

—Karla J Noland, personal development coach, Durham, N.C.

Put things in context

"What helps me stop stressing and put things in perspective is remembering that we are spiritual beings having a human experience — the stuff we are dealing with is not usually important and it likely won't matter in the next dimension or plane of existence."

—Courtney Daniels, filmmaker, Sherman Oaks, CA

Identify one thing you can control

"One way I've been able to lessen trivial stress in my life is to focus on the present moment and what I can control in the present moment. As a chronic overthinker, I tend to get wrapped up in the little thoughts and stresses. But, when I refocus my mind and actively think about what I do have power over, it helps me to ground myself and feel less overwhelmed by what is not in my power to change."

—Marisa Donnelly, writer, editor, coach, San Diego, CA

For more actionable tips and inspiration on strengthening resilience and improving well-being at work and beyond, visit ThriveGlobal.com

Marina Khidekel, Chief Content Officer at Thrive Global

Beyond the Binary: Solving the Hybrid Work Paradox

lilyolason — Mon, 15 May 2023 23:50:46 GMT

Illustration by Eiko Ojala

This is the hybrid work paradox: People want the flexibility of remote work, and they also want the inspiration and ease of in-person. For so many organizations just trying to keep up with the careening changes of re-opening workplaces, the hybrid paradox can feel like an unsolvable contradiction. How can workers expect to have it both ways?

A true hybrid workplace won’t be defined by where people gather but by how they feel included in the collective effort and the shared mission. Inclusion turns employees into stakeholders, and stakeholders turn blank screens and empty offices into places rich in meaning.

As any team that collaborates using online tools knows, the physical locations where we perform our work aren’t really the same as the place where the work gets done, which so often is in a purely digital space. The idea that work is an activity tied to a specific location is a deeply ingrained cultural norm. You’re either in the office, or you’re not. But the months that so many organizations around the world have spent in all-remote mode have uprooted the notion that work must necessarily be tied to a single address.

The physical spaces where we perform our work aren’t the same as the place where the work really gets done.

From the earliest days of the web, scholars in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) have grappled with the idea of the internet as a “place.” In a seminal 1996 paper, HCI researchers Steve Harrison and Paul Dourish drew a distinction between “place” and “space” that has become critical for understanding how a sense of place can extend into the digital realm.

A space, they argue, is just where we’re located. A place is where we act. It’s like the difference between a house and a home, they write: “A house might keep out the wind and the rain, but a home is where we live.… A space is always what it is, but a place is how it’s used.”

Instead of being anchored to a physical space, work starting in early 2020 became massively distributed. The internet became the new “place” where millions worked together. With varying success, companies sought to replicate online not just the processes of in-person work but the higher-order needs, such as team cohesion and creative collaboration, that they used to count on offices to enable.

But that dependency itself reflected a binary mindset toward the workplace that conflated purpose with location. Purpose reflects a shared understanding of mission, a sense of meaning that permeates the activities of work, wherever they’re happening in the world. It’s that common cause that creates the “place-ness” of work, not breathing the same literal air.

Sharing the experience

One way of thinking about place is through a common frame of reference. It’s where people share the same experiences, understandings, and interactions. As such, consistency is critical to establishing a sense of place. Consistency makes inclusion possible, because consistency puts people on equal ground.

To be sure, enabling a shared experience can benefit from investing in tools purpose-built for hybrid work. Technologies designed for beyond-binary work are creating entirely new categories. Employee experience platforms can create a digital fabric that connects teams through shared knowledge and culture, wherever they are in physical space. The new Cloud PC category puts the entire operating system into the cloud, liberating workers from any single device, freeing them to work wherever they most need to be. And collaborative applications, accessed in the flow of work, break down silos between collaboration, communications, and business processes. Hybrid meetings feel more inclusive when remote participants are at eye level with people in the room and smart cameras segment in-person participants so they can be seen individually on remote screens. Some organizations may even experiment with mixed reality “metaverses” that simulate 3-D workspaces.

It’s a common cause that creates the “place-ness” of work, not breathing the same literal air.

But tech upgrades alone aren’t enough. The key to bridging the inconsistencies between physical and digital lies in the approach to process and participation. Enabling everyone to invest in a shared environment is how authentic hybrid places emerge. Done right, people won’t feel constrained by their identities as “in person” or “remote” because they’re participating equally regardless of physical location—and likely more effectively than ever before. When people feel included, are engaged, and have the liberty to work anywhere—rather than feeling tied to a single space, either at home or at the office—the potential for innovation, shared culture, and wellbeing increases exponentially.

Consider a feature as seemingly simple as parallel chat. When meetings became all-remote in 2020, use of chat during video meetings surged. In the process, chat helped define new parameters of place, whether it was more introverted employees feeling like they had a safer way to speak up or work friends sealing their camaraderie with the artful deployment of the right emoji. People felt more included. Putting a beyond-the-binary mindset into practice means creating fields of opportunity for ownership, whether through chat or collaborative cloud apps or asynchronous meeting experiences that bring people together in new ways.

Solving the hybrid paradox means letting go of the deeply instilled urge to equate work space and work place. In the hybrid era, the spaces where we work will encompass everything from corporate campuses to satellite hubs to home offices to coffee shops. What’s more, who is where at any given time will be in a state of constant flux. Dividing workers into “in the office” and “at home” camps will become meaningless. In the hybrid era, “either/or” distinctions will always break down. The answer is to say “yes, and ...” to a sense of place defined not by “where” but by “how” and “who.”

The "Great Resignation" Is a Great Cultural Shift

lilyolason — Mon, 15 May 2023 23:38:07 GMT

By Arianna Huffington, Founder CEO at Thrive Global

It's being called "the Great Resignation" and "the Great Awakening." The terms are being used to describe a global phenomenon in which, as we begin to emerge from the pandemic, a record number of people are quitting their jobs. In April alone, that exodus amounted to four million U.S. workers, or 2.7 percent of the workforce, the highest rate since 2000. As a Wall Street Journal headline put it, "Forget Going Back to the Office — People Are Just Quitting Instead." Experts are predicting another "wave of resignations"; a Microsoft survey shows a staggering 40 percent of the global workforce considering leaving their jobs this year. And, according to a Prudential survey, if given the chance to retrain, 53 percent would take a job in a new industry altogether. As Kevin Roose wrote in a New York Times article with the headline "Welcome to the YOLO Economy": "For a growing number of people with financial cushions and in-demand skills, the dread and anxiety of the past year are giving way to a new kind of professional fearlessness."

Clearly people are reassessing their options, and most of the stories cite burnout as one of the biggest reasons. And that's no surprise. A study by Asana of 13,000 knowledge workers across eight countries found that 71 percent had experienced burnout in the past year. As Melissa Swift, global leader of workforce transformation at Korn Ferry, told Axios, "We basically burned out the global workforce over the past year. One of the ways people deal with burnout is switching employers."

Burnout alone, as deep and widespread as it clearly is, doesn't fully explain the phenomenon. After all, we were in an epidemic of burnout even before the pandemic. What the pandemic did was give us time — a lot of time — to think about what we really value, and the place of work in our lives. We've had time to reflect on what truly makes us thrive, and which parts of our pandemic lives we want to take with us into our post-pandemic future, and which parts we want to leave behind.

Which is to say, there's something deeper at the heart of this great awakening: a collective redefinition of success. When so many parts of our lives were cut off from the external world — which was true whether we were fortunate enough to be able to be working at home or not — we also became less connected to the world's definition of success. More and more people have come to see that defining ourselves by our résumés, and chasing an idea of success based solely on the metrics of money and status, isn't sustainable. It's like sitting on a two-legged stool — sooner or later we're going to fall off. What we're seeing is a shift to living lives based on a more fulfilling, intrinsic, and sustainable definition of success that adds to the first two metrics the third metric of well-being — which includes resilience, and being able to tap into our own inner peace, joy, and wonder. Coming out of this forced pause, the intangibles of life that make it worth living have become a lot more tangible. If people have connected with this third metric in the past year and a half of lockdown-inspired reflection, they're not willing to give it up, and if their current job doesn't allow for it, they're willing to look for one that does.

There are of course many other reasons for the Great Resignation/ Awakening. In a piece for The Washington Post, Abha Bhattarai reported on the record number of workers quitting the retail sector — 649,000 just in April. Here's how Aislinn Potts of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, explains her decision to leave her job at a national pet chain to focus on her writing and art: "It was a really dismal time, and it made me realize this isn't worth it. My life isn't worth a dead-end job."

And there are millions who are coming out of the pandemic, as a global study in the journal Frontiers in Medicine found, more anxious and depressed than before. Indeed, CVS Health CEO Karen Lynch has warned about a continuing "post-traumatic COVID disorder." And if you're feeling despondent and desperate for a change in your life and are married with children, probably the least difficult thing to change is your job. The more stressed we are, the more overwhelmed we feel by what we can't control, and as a result focus on whatever is in our power to control.

With a record 9.3 million jobs open right now, employers have no choice but to respond to the Great Resignation/Awakening. In the HR world, we're no longer in a "why well-being" world. We're squarely in a "how" world. And it's clear that the "how" is not going to be about perks like Ping-Pong tables, in-house DJs, and lavish office buffets, but about introducing mental, emotional, and physical well-being policies.

Instead of chasing an antidote to burnout, we need to incorporate well-being and recharging practices into our work and our lives. Well-being weeks and mental health days, as welcome as they are, aren't enough. We need to go beyond episodic, ad hoc well-being interventions. We need to stop thinking of recharging as a reward we get for working hard and burning out. As the science makes clear, being recharged actually allows us to show up as our best, most productive, most creative selves. It's the foundation of any strategy for both a broader definition of success at the personal level and a sustainable definition of business success.

The next step is to embed well-being into the fabric of the daily work experience itself, with opportunities to course-correct in real time from stress and integrate chances to reset into our workflows. That's the core of Work.com, our new partnership with Salesforce. It's about fundamentally changing how employees are able to access well-being content, Microsteps and tools like Reset, one of the most popular features in our Thrive App, which allows us to course-correct and lower our stress in just 60 seconds. By embedding them in the daily workflow, we give people the right tools right when they need them. This allows employees to boost their daily well-being and be their most productive, highest-performing selves. On my What I've Learned podcast, Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff talked about why this kind of shift is so important, especially as we emerge from the pandemic and return to a way of working that looks very different from the pre-Covid model. "I had to create a whole new way to run my company," he told me. "We have to enable new skills for our employees like mental health skills … unlock them so they can be truly productive and successful."

Companies are increasingly acknowledging the importance of recharging. In an all-hands letter last month, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google's parent company, Alphabet, announced that the company would continue offering extra "reset" days "to help employees recharge." On May 28th, Citi gave employees the opportunity to take a "Citi Reset Day." Hootsuite announced a "Wellness Week" for employees in July, and the dating app Bumble is giving employees a paid week off to help recover from burnout.

It's great that companies are recognizing the importance of well-being and the dangers of burnout. But the truth is, people have for years been burning out, then taking a week or two off here and there and then returning to burn out again. What's changed is that the highs — or at least the lows — have gotten more extreme. According to a survey by the recruiting firm Robert Half, 25 percent of workers forfeited paid time off in 2020, 44 percent are more burned out than they were a year ago, and 57 percent say they need an extended "awaycation" to unplug from work completely.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to redefine success, and along with it, the way we work and live. People are waking up to the value of living lives that allow them to connect with themselves and nurture their well-being and resilience. They're waking up from the collective delusion that burnout is the price we have to pay for success. Companies that realize this will be less likely to be capsized by the great wave of resignations. Those that don't may be in for a not-so-great awakening.

Originally posted on Inc.

For more actionable tips and inspiration on strengthening resilience and improving well-being at work and beyond, visit ThriveGlobal.com.

Arianna Huffington, Founder CEO at Thrive Global

Arianna Huffington is the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, the founder of The Huffington Post, and the author of 15 books, including Thrive and The Sleep Revolution. In 2016, she launched Thrive Global, a leading behavior change tech company with the mission of changing the way we work and live by ending the collective delusion that burnout is the price we must pay for success. She has been named to Time Magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people and the Forbes Most Powerful Women list. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union. She serves on numerous boards, including Onex and The B Team. Her last two books, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder and The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night At A Time, both became instant international bestsellers. Most recently, she wrote the foreword to Thrive Global's first book Your Time to Thrive: End Burnout, Increase Well-being, and Unlock Your Full Potential with the New Science of Microsteps.

How to Improve Your Leadership Style and Why It Matters Now

lilyolason — Mon, 15 May 2023 23:51:22 GMT

By Rebecca Muller, Community Editor at Thrive Global

When the pandemic first started and leaders were grappling with how to manage a remote workforce, we spoke a lot about communication, honesty, and compassion, and how these values can support employee well-being. But as it became clear that our "temporary" WFH setup wasn't as temporary as we thought it would be, those workplace values may have moved to the back burner — yet there's still a great need for them. Research published in 2021 shows that employees are looking for emotional support from their workplaces, with two-thirds feeling like their employer could be doing far more to support their mental health and well-being.

To improve your leadership style and make your employees feel seen and supported, here are three Microsteps to try immediately:

1. Before discussing work with colleagues, ask how they're doing.

When the pandemic first disrupted our routines, there was a shared camaraderie in asking each other how we're doing. But over time, as the disruption became our new normal, so many of us stopped checking in. Now is the time to get back into this habit. By asking our teammates how they're feeling and how we can support them, we show respect and interest in their personal lives and their well-being.

2. Reach out to every member of your team once a day.

Now that we've been working remotely for a while, it's crucial that we schedule virtual touch-bases, and make an effort to Slack or email our team members to check in. Even a quick hello will let your colleagues know you're thinking of them, which helps them feel valued. Working from home removes the synchronicity of connection that we once had when we were sitting next to each other in the office, so making your check-ins constant is key.

3. End your next one-on-one with an optimistic statement.

Researchers have found that leaders who convey hopefulness in stressful times are better at helping colleagues find meaning in their work. During your next one-on-one, try ending the conversation with a joyful story you heard on the news or a hopeful anecdote that's keeping you resilient. Remember that your words have power, and can impact the mindset and well-being of your team.

For more actionable tips and inspiration on strengthening resilience and improving well-being at work and beyond, visit ThriveGlobal.com.

Rebecca Muller, Community Editor at Thrive Global

Managers, Here Are 4 Simple Ways to Help Your Team Feel Seen and Acknowledged

lilyolason — Mon, 15 May 2023 23:52:11 GMT

By Jessica Hicks, Managing Editor at Thrive Global

Managing people is tough — but managing people as they work from home or in hybrid schedules during a global pandemic, well, that's another story. Whether you're a first-time manager or have been leading people for years, COVID has likely pushed you into uncharted territory. On top of overseeing day-to-day workflow, problem-solving, and paying attention to the bottom line and deliverables, there's another big task on your plate: helping to take care of the human capital on your team when you don't see them every day.

"It is difficult to know what demands each individual is facing — whether it be navigating health issues, a partner that is a frontline responder, children in need of care, extended family members that are isolated," Ashley Hardin, Ph.D., a professor of organizational behavior at Washington University in St. Louis, tells Thrive. "Many employees are balancing many roles and enacting those roles simultaneously for the first time."

And amid all the juggling, workers may struggle to feel seen. Not so much in a physical sense — we have Zoom and other virtual platforms to thank for that — but in the sense of feeling acknowledged, validated, and supported for all they're doing. Parents, for instance, might be getting up early and staying up late so they can finish their work while also homeschooling or tending to their children's needs. And employees who struggle with mental health challenges may be managing a heightened degree of depression or anxiety while also making sure not to fall behind on their work responsibilities.

That's not to say managers aren't facing the same challenges. They, too, are figuring out how to stay productive in the midst of a pandemic, with the added pressure of leading by example for their people. If you are a manager trying to do it all, remember to be patient with yourself and recognize that a simple but meaningful way to support your team during this time is to help them feel seen. These four strategies will help you do it.

Open your next one-on-one with a personal question rather than a work-related question.

Even something open-ended, like "How are you doing?", can go a long way in letting someone know you care about their whole-human well-being. This will show your direct reports that you care about their lives outside of work and give them an opportunity to open up (if they choose to). In fact, Hardin's own research has found that personal knowledge can lead to seeing colleagues as more "humanized" (in other words, seeing them as people — not robots) and help you be more attentive to their needs.

When communicating with your team, be direct about what you know and what you don't know.

In times of crisis, employees don't need their leaders to have every answer — but they do need to know they're listening and sensitive to people's concerns. Being clear about what you know, how you can help, and in some situations, who might be better equipped to answer their questions will help you keep an open dialogue with your team and make it clear that you aren't overlooking their concerns.

Check in with each member of your team about what they have going on — in and out of work.

With a remote workforce, it can be much harder to detect the signs of burnout. It's important to foster a culture in which your direct reports feel safe letting you know when they're overloaded. "In these times, flexibility and adaptability will be critical in enabling team success," Hardin says. And keep in mind that what is best for one member of your team might not be ideal for another. "Someone may need to log on and work early in the day, another may find nighttime to be more conducive to productivity. One person may be able to take video conference calls freely and enjoy the connection, while another's environment may make those impromptu calls an undue burden on those they are sharing a space with," Hardin adds. Remembering that each member of your team is an individual will help you best adapt to their unique needs.

Schedule a regular virtual touch-base for your team.

"While working from home, people are missing out on the daily banter and informal communication we took for granted at the office," Cathleen Swody, Ph.D., an organizational psychologist and leadership coach, tells Thrive. "Loneliness and sadness can chip away at employees' mental health." A regular dose of connection will help your team stay on top of their tasks and feel in-

For more actionable tips and inspiration on strengthening resilience and improving well-being at work and beyond, visit ThriveGlobal.com.

Jessica Hicks, Managing Editor at Thrive Global

Research Shows Managers Are at an Increased Risk of Stress and Burnout — Here's How to Fight Back

lilyolason — Mon, 15 May 2023 23:17:05 GMT

By Jessica Hicks, Managing Editor at Thrive Global

Whether you aspired to be a manager from the day you joined your company, or you unexpectedly found yourself in a leadership position, taking on managerial responsibilities likely changed the way you work, your daily responsibilities, and your overarching professional goals. A Gallup report, "The Manager Experience," which surveyed over 50,000 managers from 2014 to 2019, found that managers enjoy the resulting involvement in decision-making, autonomy, and opportunities for career advancement. But the report also found that managers are typically expected to juggle numerous tasks and challenges at once — many times with unclear expectations — leading to increased stress and risk of burnout.

Managers often shoulder a significant workload. They're typically expected to serve as points of contact, mentors for their teams, and representatives to other teams, but they must also find time to tend to their own workloads and well-being. "Managers deal with more stress as they have more people interactions and dynamics to deal with, more increased accountabilities, and more time pressures balancing the dual role of being both a player and coach," Amy Su, M.B.A., an author, CEO coach, and co-founder of Parvis Partners, tells Thrive.

Just as an inspirational manager can spark positive change throughout the workplace, a burned-out manager can have a ripple effect on their team, causing them to lose sight of their goals and motivation. Teaching managers how to navigate their complex responsibilities and avoid burnout should be at the top of every company's priority list. If you're a manager yourself, you can use these Microsteps to better manage your primary sources of stress, and give yourself the tools you need to fulfill your role and feel your best.

Take the time to connect with co-workers

According to the Gallup report, managers are 27 percent "more likely than individual contributors to strongly agree that they felt stress during a lot of their most recent workday," putting them at a significant risk of burnout, which can lead to increased job dissatisfaction, absenteeism, and depressive symptoms, amongst other things. It is unmanageable workloads paired with unreasonable time pressure that make managers most prone to burning out, according to Gallup.

"Managers don't have a lot of opportunities to spend time with people who recharge them," Gallup reports. "They are less likely than individual contributors to strongly agree that they liked who they worked with, and liked what they did on their most recent workday." If you find it tough to stay in control of your stress during your workday, identify colleagues who can help you prioritize, find solutions, and develop greater life-work integration. As a manager, making a concerted effort to check in with someone whom you trust and can turn to when you're in need of guidance can help you feel less stressed and have a positive impact on your habits. Try scheduling a walking meeting with this colleague and reap the benefits — you'll experience a mood boost and improved focus, according to research published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.

Block off "power hours" for focused work

Managers who participated in the Gallup poll also reported experiencing many distractions during their workdays, greatly impacting their ability to deeply focus and get their work done. Compared to individual contributors, managers work about four more hours each week, and are 67 percent more likely to strongly agree they have a lot of interruptions at work. That can tempt them to multitask, which can keep them from focusing.

Our brains are not wired for heavy duty-multitasking, the American Psychological Association notes, and trying to do so can eat up time, increase the likelihood of error, and lessen attention to detail. Instead of spreading yourself too thin, attempting to switch between tasks, and meet every demand of your team, block off focused work time, or as Su calls them, "power hours," on your calendar each day. Su says scheduling these 90-minute blocks on your calendar will help you protect windows of time where you need to engage in tasks where clear thinking and focus are required. And if someone interrupts you, Su recommends letting them know you'd love to help when you're available, or redirecting them to someone else on the team who might be able to assist.

Ask for feedback in a way that works for you

Receiving feedback can also be a significant source of managerial stress. Gallup reports that only 8 percent of managers strongly agree that their performance reviews motivate them to improve. And what's more, they find their performance reports less accurate than individual contributors do. Managers spend so much time giving feedback to others, but they also deserve the opportunity to get meaningful feedback for themselves — throughout the year.

To have a better, more thorough understanding of your performance, so that you can course-correct and more accurately assess how you're doing, you should feel empowered to approach your own senior manager with compassionate directness, and solicit feedback often, and in a way that works for you. After all, a stronger, less stressed manager who knows what they are doing well, what they can improve, and the support they can get to make changes will better serve their teams, their company, and themselves.

View self-care as part of your job description

Su's biggest piece of advice for managers is to view self-care and self-compassion as a mandatory part of their job description. "Self-care is critical to ensure that a manager regularly recharges their battery for the stamina the role requires. This can include rituals such as taking three deep breaths at the start of every hour, or walking outside for some fresh air. Self-compassion is equally critical because a manager can drain a lot of energy through rumination," Su says. Instead of asking yourself, "Am I doing this right or wrong?" Su recommends reframing the question to be more reflective, rather than ruminative, like: "Am I doing this as authentically, constructively, and effectively as I can?"

For more actionable tips and inspiration on strengthening resilience and improving well-being at work and beyond, visit ThriveGlobal.com.

Jessica Hicks, Managing Editor at Thrive Global

Try This Now: Keep a "Worry Diary" to Reduce Stress

lilyolason — Mon, 01 May 2023 17:45:39 GMT

By Rebecca Muller, Community Editor at Thrive Global

With all of the stressors in the world right now, it comes as no surprise that we're more worried than ever. And when we ignore those feelings, they can pile up and prevent us from being productive, creative, and present. If you're looking for a strategy to channel your worries in a way that's positive and constructive, try keeping a "worry diary."

"Write down in the diary each worry you have," Graham Davey, Ph.D., an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Sussex, tells Thrive. "Then, in a week or so, go back and have a look at which worries were useful and which weren't." By reflecting, you can see your concerns from a new angle, and shift your perspective to see what you could have done positively, instead of just letting the issue stress you out.

You could start your worry diary by writing down one thing that's on your mind each day, or break up your entries into prompts and topics to help you sort through the various thoughts that could be holding you back. Either way, the idea is to put your thoughts into writing, keeping them from interfering with your work and relationships during the day. Plus, when you put your fears and worries into words, you'll gain a new perspective when you revisit them and see which ones actually came true. "By writing it down, you can see which 'what if' scenarios actually happened, and which didn't," Davey explains. "That should help you ground your worrying, and implement solutions based on the given problem."

For more actionable tips and inspiration on strengthening resilience and improving well-being at work and beyond, visit ThriveGlobal.com

Rebecca Muller, Community Editor at Thrive Global