Short on Time Summary
Microsoft has developed a range of digital tools to enhance productivity and motivation. SharePoint provides a space for collaborative innovation with real-time document sharing. Viva delivers an engaging employee experience, enabling feedback collection and goal setting. Power Automate frees up time for more inspiring and productive tasks by automating daily busy work.
What is productivity paranoia?
Productivity is a top concern for leaders adapting to managing hybrid teams. Despite 87% of employees reporting they work just as or more productively at home, only 12% of managers are confident about the level of productivity. There is a clear disconnect between leaders and their teams. We explore this phenomenon here.
There’s an illusion of productivity in the office despite research suggesting only 36-39% of the time is spent actually working. Managers need reassurance that people are still working hard when they can no longer physically observe people at their desks.
But employees feel demotivated when they’re micromanaged and constantly asked to prove their productivity. Monitoring technology like mouse trackers may be tempting but is harmful to employee engagement. Workers feel pressure to move their mouse and maintain their available status, but it’s unlikely to make a meaningful change to outputs.
For hybrid working to be sustainable, managers must find a balance of trust and accountability without sacrificing autonomy. Move away from the subjective visual cues of the office. Create clarity around goals and focus on measurable outcomes to understand productivity.
SharePoint collaboration | Protect teamworking opportunities
Collaboration is an essential component of a virtual team. Brainstorming improves project planning, knowledge sharing and sparking creativity. Microsoft SharePoint brings the benefits of teamwork to the digital workspace. Anyone can create a shared space and invite the people they need, and all collaborators are kept up-to-date with simultaneous editing. Delegate individual tasks while still enabling the team to work on the document at the same time.
SharePoint offers a designated space for communication so people can feel like part of a team. Shared documents are the most obvious benefit, but you can also synchronise calendars to facilitate teamwork. Seeing a project progress in real time is more motivating than working in isolation. Collaboration is an effective way to strengthen team bonds, and inspire productivity and efficiency without being intrusive.
Power Automate | Save time by automating mundane tasks
Power Automate is a low-code tool that can be harnessed by everyone to maximise their own productivity. It streamlines repetitive, time-intensive processes to free up time for activities that add most value to the business. Remove human error from data collection, receive alerts directly in Teams, automate approvals, and more. There are endless possibilities to solve your unique productivity challenges.
Workflows can help you quickly assess productivity without disrupting your team with check-ins. For example, set up a workflow to notify you when a task in Planner is updated or marked as complete. Easily see who is on track and who needs extra support.
SharePoint collaboration | Protect teamworking opportunities
Collaboration is an essential component of a virtual team. Brainstorming improves project planning, knowledge sharing and sparking creativity. Microsoft SharePoint brings the benefits of teamwork to the digital workspace. Anyone can create a shared space and invite the people they need, and all collaborators are kept up-to-date with simultaneous editing. Delegate individual tasks while still enabling the team to work on the document at the same time.
SharePoint offers a designated space for communication so people can feel like part of a team. Shared documents are the most obvious benefit, but you can also synchronise calendars to facilitate teamwork. Seeing a project progress in real time is more motivating than working in isolation. Collaboration is an effective way to strengthen team bonds, and inspire productivity and efficiency without being intrusive.
Viva Goals | Align your people with your purpose
Viva Goals seamlessly integrates with Teams so your people can work together towards goals, directly in the flow of work. This project management tool enables you to implement the OKR framework to clearly outline objectives, and provides progress tracking so you can quantify productivity and have confidence that your team are on track.
Employees who aren’t trusted to work flexibly and manage their own schedule are at risk of becoming uninspired and unproductive. Goals connects everyday tasks to the bigger picture so your team can see the impact of their work. People are more motivated when they can see how their contribution supports the organisation’s success.
Viva Insights | Understand how meetings are used
The new ‘effective meetings’ feature breaks down the time employees spend in meetings. Explore how their time is spread across different categories such as team meetings, client meetings and one-to-ones. Employees are also prompted to give feedback about how helpful and productive the meeting was. You can use this valuable information to restructure how the team meets. For example, shorten morning round-up calls.
Setting up a Teams meeting can become the default for solving issues when the answer can be found elsewhere. Insights offers a ‘no meeting day’ feature to protect time for independent focus tasks, giving everyone uninterrupted time to get their work done and meet deadlines.
Implementing Viva Topics provides an alternative. Reduce search time by up to 75%, with an internal catalogue of resources and subject experts. Empower employees to independently find answers without disrupting the flow of work.
Viva Pulse | Give your employees a voice
Providing opportunities for employees to give feedback and have their opinions heard is vital for employee engagement. But 57% of businesses rarely incorporate it. Viva’s new module Pulse makes collecting confidential feedback more efficient. There’s a research-backed question library to get you started, or you can move beyond the templates to set your own questions and get opinions on the things that matter to your team.
Feeling valued is one of the most important factors for motivation. It’s important that employees feel connected to the organisation and can influence changes. Highly engaged employees will be more productive as they take more personal responsibility for their work. Feedback is also an early signal of problems, allowing you to proactively resolve them before they cost your business money or talent.
Productivity paranoia will have an increasingly negative effect on employee morale and motivation if it’s not addressed. Digital products can help bridge the gap by defining new expectations for hybrid work based on agreed outcomes. Facilitate communication and teamwork with SharePoint, reduce time spent on mundane tasks with Power Automate, and keep your team connected to the organisation with Viva.
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