Flexible work makes measuring performance more challenging for business leaders, who must also contend with confusing economic signals, including rising inflation, shrinking budgets, and a tight job market.
Research shows that 87 percent of employees feel that they’re productive at work, whether they’re in the office or at home. But only 12 percent of leaders say they have full confidence that their team is productive. “Leaders are saying, ‘I can’t see the work happening. I don’t know how to measure it. This is new territory, and I don’t like it. It feels like I’m lost in a dark cave,’” says Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Modern Work. But productivity signals across Microsoft 365, like the number of Teams meetings, continue to climb.
Spataro returns to the WorkLab podcast to share key insights from the company’s latest Work Trend Index report . This special report is based on findings from a survey of 20,000 people in 11 countries, trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals, LinkedIn labor trends, and Glint People Science insights.
He is the first guest for Season 3 of Microsoft’s WorkLab podcast, in which hosts Elise Hu and Tonya Mosley have conversations with economists, technologists, and researchers who explore data and insights into why and how work is changing.
Three big takeaways from this conversation:
WorkLab is a place for experts to share their insights and opinions. As students of the future of work, Microsoft values inputs from a diverse set of voices. That said, the opinions and findings of the experts we interview are their own and do not reflect Microsoft’s own research or opinions.
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Here’s a transcript of the Episode 1 conversation.
