More than a business agreement, the partnership between Microsoft and Sunderland is based on shared values and aspirations. We’re joining forces to positively impact the lives of local people and businesses in this vibrant city.

Microsoft’s focus on public-sector transformation has been a driving force throughout our collaboration. We know from experience that technology and digital solutions can help revolutionise public services, making them more efficient, effective, and citizen-centric.

Working hand in hand with the council, we’re leveraging Microsoft’s cutting-edge technologies and expertise to streamline administrative processes, enhance citizen engagement, and optimise resource allocation. We want to redefine what it means to deliver public services in the digital age. 

“Smart cities” collaboration: creating a connected, sustainable future 

Our mutual commitment to smart cities collaboration also sets this partnership apart. Sunderland City Council’s vision for a new kind of urban development aligns perfectly with our expertise in creating smart city solutions. We’re on a joint mission to transform Sunderland into a connected environment that offers enhanced liveability, economic growth, and environmental sustainability.

By integrating advanced technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and data analytics, we’re shaping an urban ecosystem that will optimise resource management, create intelligent infrastructure, and foster innovation. Together, we’re laying the foundation for a future that embraces digital transformation, innovation, and inclusion.

Empowering citizens with new skills

It’s important to note that our partnership goes beyond technology and infrastructure. At its core, this initiative is about empowering the people of Sunderland.

We understand the importance of digital skills in today’s world. They can provide a significant boost to personal growth, employability, social mobility, and community development. That’s why Microsoft has long supported UK digital talent with events and training opportunities, as well as initiatives such as the Microsoft Connector Community.

In Sunderland, we’re equally committed to bridging the digital divide for residents by providing technology skills training, resources, and support. Through our collaboration we’ll equip individuals with the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in the digital economy. By empowering local people, we’re not only transforming lives but also fuelling innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic resilience within the community. 

“Together, we will minimise disconnects between people, technology and place.”

Liz St Louis
Director of Smart Cities, Sunderland City Council

The journey begins

Our Memorandum of Understanding with Sunderland has set the stage for an exciting journey of collaboration and positive change.

Liz St Louis, Director of Smart Cities at Sunderland City Council, said: “Catalysed by our leading smart city achievements, I am extremely proud to be harnessing this new relationship with esteemed partners, Microsoft. 

“Together, we will minimise disconnects between people, technology and place – leaving no-one and nowhere behind.  

“Microsoft’s thought leadership, technology and digital solutions will help to revolutionise our public services, whilst empowering our people, as we continue to digitally transform our smart city.” 

Watch this space to see how technology innovation and a vision help Sunderland reimagine itself as a thriving digital hub. 

Find out more

• Visit the Microsoft for Government hub
• See our skilling and career resources
• Visit the Microsoft UK Digital Skills hub
• Read the blog: New connections – how we’re bridging the UK digital skills gap

About the author

I lead the Northern Sales Team at Microsoft, working with regional government on digital transformation and using technology and digital skills to drive economic growth and citizens’ lives.

The post Enhancing citizen-centric public services in the digital age appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Technology advancements are now accelerating faster than our ability to adapt, leaving a huge gap in digital skills. A recent Microsoft study has revealed that 82 percent of UK jobs already require digital skills, and that 69 percent of leaders feel their organisation suffers from a digital skills gap, even though 59 percent of employees believe in the importance of developing their digital skills.

The skills gap is only getting wider. By 2025, there are expected to be three million new tech jobs in the UK, and 60 percent of employers are expecting their reliance on advanced digital skills to grow in the next five years. In effect, organisations hoping to grow and remain competitive in the future need to build a workforce that is equipped to fill these roles and thrive in a digital world of work.

Yet many employees don’t have the skills they need to perform their role currently, let alone in the future.

Demand for digital skills also goes beyond the technology sector. A recent employer survey by the Learning and Work Institute found that the proportion of employers who saw basic digital skills as important for employees was particularly high in certain sectors – including media, marketing, advertising and PR (100 percent), IT and telecoms (99 percent), and finance and accounting (97 percent).

However, even in the industry with the lowest proportion – manufacturing – nearly nine in ten (87 percent) employers said that basic digital skills were important for their workers.

So, what more can businesses and employers do to ensure that we have a steady supply of tech talent joining the sector? And, importantly, how can Microsoft help?

Introducing the Microsoft Connector Community

Whilst many business leaders recognise that their organisation is facing a skills shortage, the challenge often comes in knowing what to do about it.

At Microsoft, we believe that part of the answer to tackling the UK’s digital skills gap is collaboration. Bringing together organisations from across the public and private sector to work collectively and deliver tangible benefits to the prospective careers of young people, while driving growth and innovation across the economy.

The Microsoft Connector Community, part of the Microsoft Apprenticeship Connector, is designed to bridge the digital skills gap. It nurtures a connected community of businesses and organisations that collectively leverage their brands, reputations and resources to address the need for digital skills in the workforce and connect talented individuals to opportunities.

We believe that taking a collaborative approach ensures a steady and well-equipped technology talent pipeline. This is essential to addressing the skills shortages faced by employers today, as well as mitigating future shortages.

I’d like to share my thoughts on how this could work:

1. Creating a connected talent ecosystem: When employers work together to support, empower and inspire young people, rather than bombarding them with too many competing options, we all benefit. By using the Microsoft Apprenticeship Connector to advertise digital vacancies, digital skills bootcamps and opportunities for learning and training, we can create a highly visible and inspiring platform that enables young people to find the opportunities that are right for them. In addition, by pooling vacancies across one platform, with a single access point for roles, we can recycle and share talent. We can also signpost applicants towards other vacancies and employers, even if they have been unsuccessful in applying to a different company.

2. Simplifying the talent pipeline: We can help simplify the technology talent pipeline by reimagining how we advertise digital vacancies and training opportunities. For example, we can reach a larger and more diverse pool of candidates by simplifying the language that we use across our digital vacancies. This might increase engagement with candidates from non-conventional technology and digital backgrounds – allowing us to widen our talent pool and employ people who bring a unique and diverse perspective to the sector.

3. Leveraging expertise and insight: A coalition of like-minded individuals enables us to learn from one another’s expertise and experience, helping us to identify, profile and address the systemic issues that are stifling the UK’s economy. What’s more, the Apprenticeship Connector can also support business leaders and employers to better understand the social impact of the work that they’re doing. With demographic and geographic insight, we can identify and better target under-represented and under-served groups.

Building a Connector Community in Greater Manchester

As part of Microsoft’s UK Get On commitment, we’re committed to helping 30,000 people find jobs in the technology sector in Greater Manchester.

I recently had the pleasure of joining colleagues in the region for an event focused on building a connected talent system, as part of National Apprenticeship Week. After the event, I caught up with Greater Manchester Regional Lead, Marie Hamilton, for her take on how the introduction of Microsoft Connector Community could empower the next stage of the Get On campaign in Greater Manchester, and across the UK. Marie said:

“Greater Manchester is now the fastest growing technology hub in Europe, but to maintain this growth, we need to build a skilled and sustainable digital workforce. Working collectively across sectors and industries, regionally and nationally, allows us to understand and measure the skills gap, as well as enabling us to build a shared plan to tackle it.

Our National Apprenticeship Week event demonstrated huge enthusiasm for using the Connector Community model to further the progress made by Get On – as shown by the attendance from not only our largest private sector customers but also across the public sector, academia, central and local government”.

Marie Hamilton, Greater Manchester Regional Lead

What’s next?

Over the coming months, Microsoft will be holding a series of regional roundtable events to help businesses and organisations understand more about the Microsoft Apprenticeship Connector, and the Connector Community.

To find out more, please visit the Microsoft Apprenticeship Connector platform.

Microsoft Get On

At Microsoft, we believe everyone deserves access to the skills, knowledge and opportunity needed to achieve more. Through our Get On commitment, we’re helping 1.5 million people build tech careers and connecting 300,000 to tech job opportunities.

You can find out more by visiting our Digital Skills Hub, where you’ll find a host of information and resources designed to provide business leaders and employers with insights on how to close the UK’s skills gap, harness new technology and drive innovation.

You can also explore Microsoft Learn, which has an array of certifications, modules and learning pathways designed to help business leaders to upskill employees, as well as supporting individuals to take control of their careers and build vital digital skills.

Find out more

Microsoft Digital Skills Hub

Microsoft Apprenticeship Network

How Microsoft is connecting jobseekers to employers

About the author

I am the UK Apprentice Lead for Microsoft in the HR team. Working with apprenticeships since 2012, I have also worked with SMEs creating, designing, and delivering large corporate apprenticeship programmes. My role at Microsoft is all about creating and developing an apprenticeship strategy that supports our UK business and delivers an exceptional experience for both our apprentices and our business.

The post New connections: how we’re bridging the UK digital skills gap appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Using hard data as a starting point, we explore the changing world of hybrid work. Guided by our own experiences of neurodivergence and disability, we debate how a more collaborative and accessible approach can drive efficiency across the public sector. In most cases we find that it can be done using technology that governments already possess.  

As a former policy advisor with hands-on experience of shaping equality legislation, these issues are all very close to my heart. 

Aligning leaders and teams to make hybrid work, work

The first episode of the Public Sector Podcast Series, season four, is The Future of Work – Facing the Hybrid Challenge. In it, Microsoft’s Henry Rex, industry advisor, and Rakhi Sachdeva, modern workplace specialist, discuss findings from the latest Work Trends Index report. The numbers reveal a significant disconnect between managers and teams around attitudes to remote working. 87 percent of remote employees reported feeling confident in their productivity at work, while only 12 percent of managers felt the same way about the performance of their remote teams.  

Managers can benefit from investing more trust in their teams and using soft skills to ensure that everyone gets access to the vision and culture of the organisation, which is key to productivity. Helping staff learn new skills ‘on the go’ improves both retention and productivity. We also discuss how a more flexible approach to work can empower individuals who have differing needs to be more effective. Building trust between management and staff enables everyone to align around the public service mission; as Henry Rex points out, people often join an organisation for the money, but stay there for the culture.

Neurodivergence and the innovation challenge

In episode two, Innovate Together, Microsoft account technology strategist, Andrew Boxall, talks about managing change in government and how it can enable staff to embrace more productive and collaborative ways of working. Along the way we discuss our shared experiences of being neurodiverse in the workplace, which provides insights into the challenges of data-driven innovation. 

Addressing bias and differing learning styles enables public servants to collaborate better across organisations. The Innovate Together initiative, supported by Microsoft, aims to accelerate innovation and best practice sharing across the public sector. Trailblazers like Norfolk County Council provide an inspirational example of how advanced techniques such as robotic process automation can drive efficiency.  

Success depends on leaders who set an example and have the initiative to share their learnings. All our guests agreed that making better use of existing tools is a great way to achieve incremental efficiency gains in government, and start building confidence. 

Extending accessibility and inclusion to drive productivity 

In episode three, Accessibility, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, I speak to Maria Grazia Zedda, senior EDI manager at HS2, who is severely deaf. Maria Grazia speaks movingly about overcoming the challenges of disability and hardship when she arrived in London as a young woman. London is also where she found support on her career path and discovered her vocation, improving accessibility in the workplace for everyone. These uplifting experiences are captured in her first novel which is to be published in her native Italy. 

Maria Grazia welcomes the adoption of new technologies that enhance accessibility and inclusion, such as minicoms and auto-captions (Live Captions in Microsoft Teams), the use of which was accelerated by remote working. The momentum now needs to be maintained so that inclusion becomes a fundamental principle of the workplace and the built environment. 

Explore episodes from our previous series 

Our previous three podcast series provide fascinating insights into how efficiency in the public sector could be improved with fresh thinking.  

Public Sector Podcast Series – Season One

In Public Sector Podcast Series – Season 1, guests discuss how citizen services can be enhanced using new digital technologies. Further episodes explore the challenges of managing security across government in a digital world, and overcoming the barriers to legacy estate reduction. Hindsight is also explored as a means of understanding past mistakes and improving government performance in the future.

Public Sector Podcast Series – Season Two

Public Sector Podcast Series – Season 2 builds on these themes, looking at how citizen identity in government can be managed simply and securely. The challenges of hybrid work, and the uses of geospatial data science in the context of the government’s levelling-up agenda, are also up for discussion. A highlight from series two is the episode that draws lessons from the Environment Agency’s experience of digital transformation. Cross-government data sharing also comes under scrutiny.

Public Sector Podcast Series – Season Three

Public Sector Podcast Series – Season 3 digs deeper into data sharing and how citizens engage with government. We assess the government’s Green agenda and the challenge of data literacy in driving innovation across the public sector. And what, we ask, do young people think about entering public service? We devote an episode to figuring out the changing face of apprenticeship in a hybrid world.

Find out more

Successful trial of the Microsoft and Socitm Change Agent programme

Our innovation – Norfolk County Council

Microsoft 365 Collaboration Blueprint for UK Government – Microsoft Industry Blogs – United Kingdom

How the public sector can streamline operations and innovate with intelligent automation – Microsoft Industry Blogs – United Kingdom

About the author

Aaron has worked at Microsoft as an industry advisor for central government for the last four years. Before that he spent twenty-five years in the public sector across a number of departments, in both central and local government, leading on technology policy and strategy. Most notably, he worked on the creation of the Equality Acts (2006 and 2010), the Public Sector Equality Duty and the translation of the EU Accessibility Regulations over to the UK. Outside of his day job, Aaron lectures on accessibility, inclusion and neurodiversity at local institutions and across the wider tech sector.

The post How to make government more effective in a hybrid world: podcast series appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

In the current economic environment, banks and other financial services firms recognise the need to embrace digital transformation to get maximum value from their technology investments and do more with less. Leveraging technology also helps businesses to navigate emerging risks while driving sustainable and responsible business outcomes internally and with their customers. But how are they approaching these challenges? Last week I attended Sibos 2022 in Amsterdam, where business leaders, policy makers and technologists came together for deep dive debates and big picture outlooks on the future of the corporate banking market, including lending, trade and treasury solutions, and the related capital markets instruments. The energy and excitement on the pace of innovation was clear and I saw many themes that resonate with where we aim to lead the market in our Microsoft UK Financial Services business.  

Geopolitical tensions, the economic environment, evolving cyber threats, the race to Net Zero, the competitive landscape and ongoing reimagination of business models, modernising policy and regulation, and the continuous innovation of what is possible with people, process and digital technology are driving rapid change in the industry. When managed correctly, this change can unlock new opportunity. 

The industry is leading in many areas of technology, product and operating-model innovation, but a responsible business purpose and sustainable societal outcomes are now firmly embedded as objectives that banks are expected to deliver. “We should not seek innovation for innovation’s sake,” noted HM Queen Máxima of the Netherlands in the opening plenary. “With each new technology, we must always ask ‘What problems are we trying to solve?’” At the same time, we need to ensure any innovation is done securely and collaboratively while being additive to interoperability of data and platforms. The IMF predicts technological fragmentation can cut a country’s GDP by five percent; the benefit of collaborative industry approaches and ecosystem business models is clear. 

Through all the customer, partner, and colleague conversations at Sibos 2022, and while contributing and learning as much as we could about new ideas and technologies, the Microsoft UK Financial Services team took away four main action points: 

1.      Transform securely  

One of the key things that was highlighted by industry leaders was the importance of getting cyber security basics right to enable secure transformation. “The human firewall is the first line of defence,” said Nicolas Trimbour, Head of Fraud Prevention and Chief Data Officer for Cash Management at BNP Paribas. It’s important to educate employees and customers to recognise phishing, scams and ransomware attempts especially while the attach surface grows with increased digitisation and growing ecosystem business models. 

AI/ML solutions can work at high performance across large amounts of data to spot fraud or suspicious activity in transactions and endpoints. An industry-specific cloud solution that uses a completely private data model, while offering full data portability can help organisations as they shift from on-premise to hybrid or cloud-native architectures. At the same time, organisations can benefit from built-in security and compliance offerings that infuse healthy cyber hygiene. 

Our security experts have pulled together resources, training and more to help your teams empower and educate your employees and customers to be cyber aware. This is the right time to focus on this with October being Cyber Security Month. Check out our Cyber Security Awareness Month resources. 

2.      Build a talent and collaboration model that supports your digital ambitions   

Banks need access to the right engineering and digital skills at scale to drive industry digitisation and innovation. This is not just about attracting the talent, but re-skilling and up-skilling current resources and creating an empathetic, flexible culture. I’ve often heard it said that the number one headwind on many banks’ ability to execute on their digital transformation strategies is access to the right talent and skills. “We need to make sure we invest in our people and support them in their growth,” says Erika Irish Brown, Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer and Global Head of Talent at Citi.  

At Microsoft, we’re helping financial services institutions give their employees the digital skills they need. Whether that’s showing how decentralised teams can work collaboratively while working remotely, using tools to securely automate processes and workflows, or empowering pro dev, citizen dev and fusion dev teams to develop new apps, processes and reporting to make their work simpler in their domains. With 53 percent of employees more likely to prioritise health and wellbeing over work, leaders must take an empathetic approach to building a hybrid workplace. A culture that embraces flexibility and prioritises wellbeing will build a thriving organisation and drive long-term sustainable growth. This webinar with my colleague Craig Wellman goes into the importance of planning, leadership and culture in transforming financial services. 

3.      Align your ESG objectives to your business value 

The banking industry has a societal obligation to direct funding, capital, investment and lending to businesses in the real economy that will move the needle positively on ESG measures and on carbon reduction. And not only do customers, stakeholders, investors, regulators and governments expect it, but it’s also good for business. “$97 trillion needs to be invested to get to net zero. That’s a massive opportunity. It’s the most strategic and important thing we can do as an industry,” says Marisa Drew, CSO at Standard Chartered. 

The best way to start building effective ESG strategies is to tie it into your business value. Some institutions are already including their sustainability results in their financial statements. However, the industry faces challenges. A lack of global standard around climate reporting, mixed with slow manual processes and siloed data can affect how quickly you can build an effective strategy. “We don’t have perfect data, but we have actionable data,” says Gill Lofts, Global Financial Services Sustainable Finance Leader at EY. 

A unified and resilient cloud infrastructure like Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability can help you gain visibility across your data, drive efficiency, track and minimise your environmental impact and create sustainable value chains. We also need to drive more cross-industry collaboration.

“This is a planet-scale problem that needs planet-scale innovation and collaboration,” says Bill Borden, Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Financial Services at Microsoft.

When we made our sustainability commitment in 2020, we also decided to share our learnings, results and practices, and increase our focus on supporting our customers drive their own ESG agendas. 

4.      Lead on innovation that can open new sources of value  

Recent innovations are increasingly moving from POC to production adoption across digital assets such as Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). 

While AI has been leveraged in organisations for a long time to reduce risk and streamline operations, organisations need to take a novel approach to AI to create new avenues of growth. “People don’t think of AI as a way to get to a new digital business,” says Sameena Shah Managing Director, AI Research Executive, and Chief Transformation Officer for Client Onboarding at JP Morgan Chase. “You need to bring people with a business mindset together with people with AI knowledge.” These groups, known as fusion teams, can help organisations deploy solutions up to two and a half times faster than siloed teams. 

“Cash as a form of payment has been declining, but cash in circulation is growing. We have also seen over the past 10 years the rise of digital assets, including cryptocurrencies and CBDCs,” says Marion Laboure, Senior Economist at Deutsche Bank. 

One thing digitisation can do is help with financial inclusion. The 1.7 billion people who don’t have access to financial services can potentially use CBDC to start using financial services without a bank account. 

NFTs are currently used to tie ownership to a digital asset. However, as they evolve, it could allow the construction of the end asset to be more sophisticated. “That’s when it becomes more interesting to us in Finance. We can look at a new type of securitised asset, a new type of yield profile that may or may not be totally uncorrelated with traditional markets and assets,” said John Egan, CEO of L’Atelier at BNP Paribas. In fact, the US Securities and Exchange Commission are already looking into NFTs as a security. With no intermediaries, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) is less complex and more agile than the traditional central counterparty model. However, it is probably riskier. Experts suggest a hybrid model for DeFi, with the right regulatory guiderails to manage AML, fraud, conduct risk, and cybercrime. 

“Web3 and blockchain technologies are unique because they create a different, efficient way of executing processes. They can be best served to decrease complexity, increase security and transparency,” says Willayna Banner, Microsoft’s Head of Web3/Blockchain in Financial Services. Learn how organisations are using blockchain to transform functions such as trade finance and commercial specialty insurance. 

Collaborating for industry growth and responsible innovation 

As we shared these thoughts and ideas on the future of banking at Sibos 2022, a recurring theme was industry collaboration across the widest perimeter of stakeholders. To drive growth while being resilient, secure and compliant in our changing industry, our key priorities must be removing friction, increasing interoperability and improving the service experience for our customers, empowering our teams, and driving inclusive, sustainable innovation. 

Find out more 

Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services 

Microsoft Dynamics Customer Service Webinar for Financial Services: The changing role of the Digital Contact Centre

Rethinking the Customer Experience | Microsoft

About the author 

Niall is responsible for defining and leading Microsoft’s strategy for Financial Services in the UK. His focus is on helping Microsoft’s customers’ address industry-wide challenges, adapt to new regulatory frameworks and achieve business transformation through the adoption of Microsoft technology and partner solutions. He works to deliver on the cost, growth, risk and regulatory agenda front-to-back through the enterprise. 

Niall has experience in consulting, partner ecosystems, and large programme delivery in Financial Services. Niall has focused on operating model transformation and technology solutions for business challenges in Banking and Capital Markets, often in the regulatory change context. He has worked mostly with international banking groups and has lived in Hong Kong and London. 

The post The future of banking: How to stay innovative, collaborative and secure appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

We’ve always had accessibility standards ensuring we use closed captions and subtitles but we needed to think beyond that. Like many organisations, our accessibility journey is ongoing. It adapts as we learn and get feedback from our employees, partners, and customers. As Storytelling & Digital Destinations Lead, I continually challenge myself and my team to reimagine our websites, pushing to create great experiences that everyone can access.

Through our AI for Good cohort, we were made aware that for over 70 million Deaf people globally, their first and preferred language is sign language. Sign languages are structured differently from spoken and written language. As a result, some Deaf people have difficulties understanding content in written form. Many rely on friends and family to access the information they need. For example, getting a COVID vaccination is not a simple task when booking and follow-up information is in written text and healthcare staff are wearing facemasks (reducing the ability to lipread).

Despite our focus on accessibility and ensuring all content has subtitles and closed captions, this identified that our content was still inaccessible to a broad group of people.

“BSL is not the same as spoken English or written English, says Tim Scannell, Signly ambassador. “A lot of companies say English is good enough, because they think that Deaf people can understand English like a first language. We’re trying to show that the Deaf grassroots BSL community don’t necessarily understand English well.”

As part of the Deaf BSL community, Tim and Signly have been researching into the impact of the lack of BSL services. “They [BSL users] would always talk about having to bother somebody who is hearing that they knew.” Tim says. For some, this may be the children of Deaf adults, which then changes their relationships and increases stress and anxiety for both. “It also took Deaf people sometimes long time to understand.” For example, if a hearing customer had an issue with their bank, they could go into the branch, or call and get it sorted quickly. “A Deaf customer, however, will go into the branch and the bank would give them written information to read, or they [the bank] wouldn’t know about booking an interpreter or very rarely that would happen. But most don’t know how. They just apologise and say they couldn’t. A Deaf person just wants better communication.”

Learning about Signly

Technology has the power to help everyone. Therefore, it’s clear that we need to make sure that no one gets left behind. That’s why at Microsoft, we’re always looking at ways we can improve accessibility.

We were introduced to Signly when they became part of our AI for Good programme. Instantly, I knew they’d be a key partner to help us further our inclusion goals.

What do Signly do? Their technology translates written text to sign language. It removes this barrier, making content more accessible and is all run on Azure.

“A lot of firms think about just providing the typical accessibility features and think it’s okay, and it’s always because of the wrong perception that Deaf people are okay with English,” says Tim. “If people only think about the options they’ve set up. That’s not going to work. They need to think sometimes outside of the box.”

And Signly thinks innovatively. Signly allows users to self-serve, view or request sign language translations on webpages. The AI for Good programme helped Signly scale their app. Lloyds Bank became the first UK organisation to offer a translation website in British Sign Language.

“Signly covers the fixed information you have on a website so that you make less calls to need an interpreter,” says Tim.

With only around 1000 interpreters in the UK, it’s important we use technology to assist them in their roles while empowering BSL users. Both the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) and the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI) express how machine learning or AI signing avatars should not be used when the information being delivered is live, complex or of significant importance to the lives of Deaf citizens. Signly helps free up BSL interpreters to focus on those moments, while giving BSL users equal access to the information when they need it.

Improving access for everyone with sign language

The Microsoft Apprenticeship Network was built to help connect apprentices and organisations together. To bridge a digital skills gap, the UK needs over three million people in tech careers by 2025. Apprentices are key to this.

At the same time, we need to ensure that our new talent is diverse and inclusive. According to the NHS, people who are Deaf or experience hearing loss are more likely to be unemployed. And in employment, 74 percent surveyed felt that their employment opportunities were limited because of their hearing loss. This means we’re missing out on diverse perspectives, building new talent and driving inclusive innovation. We’re also missing out on the potential economic output. If we don’t address these employment rates by 2031 the UK economy will lose £38.6 billion per year.

The low code tech behind the solution

The beauty behind Signly is its simplicity. As a low code solution, it can be easily added to any website. You can translate the pages like we did. So, when you launch you are automatically accessible for everyone. The service also works on demand. Users can request websites to be translated when they need it.

“We use Azure to create a ‘Signing Studio,’” explains Mark Applin, Signly CEO. “It grabs the English straight from the website and fires it straight into the teleprompter for the Deaf translator working from a home studio.”

From there, the video goes back to Azure, and straight onto the web page. And when you update your website, a notification is automatically sent to Signly to update that section. This means all your users are getting the right information at the right time.

The BSL user experience

When Tim showed the website to other BSL users, he said they were amazed and relieved. As one Signly user said: “Wow. That’s wonderful, that’s really beautiful. I’ve had a problem with all kinds of things, whether it’s doctors or banking and nobody will help me with the English. And I don’t know any of that in English… I have to go to Citizen’s Advice. There’s just barriers everywhere. All the companies just won’t help you.”

“People were getting emotional just to see something in their language.”

– Tim Scannell, Signly ambassador

The future of our accessibility journey with sign language

Working with Signly has shown me the massive opportunity it has in democratising access to everyone. Our values are right there on our website. We aim to help everyone achieve more. And we want to not just talk the talk but to walk the walk. Signly helps us achieve this goal. This is the start of a journey. This pilot is a good first step to see how we can scale the technology across other websites. In the future we can even perhaps scale it to our partners and customers.

“I think with Microsoft being such a massive leader, it could have a huge impact on so many other firms and organisations and what can be done. Every website should have sign language content. It makes deaf people feel accepted,” says Tim.

Another Signly user agrees with Tim. “It [BSL on websites] would be a massive benefit. Less stressed, I’d know how to communicate. I wouldn’t constantly have to ask what does this mean, what does that mean. It would give us equality. I can learn at the same time.”

How Signly could transform other industries

It’s also a great opportunity for the public sector to deliver important information to BSL users. For example, the NHS could use it to provide fixed information around vaccinations, as suggested by a Signly user: “They [The NHS] send me a leaflet about the vaccine, and I said, ‘I just can’t read it’. I’ve not had any information about the vaccine. I keep saying ‘where is the interpreter?’ They’re all wearing masks and I can’t lip read them. If I had a bad reaction, I don’t know what to look out for.”

Media companies can also leverage the technology, to provide more equitable access to news and content. “You miss things on the news…The BBC website should have sign language on the news [page]. And the NHS,” adds a BSL user.

Your accessibility journey will be constantly evolving as you learn. It’s important to remember that implementing inclusive designs in your services and products is not a ‘one and done’ job. It’s a continuous process that you must update and approach in new ways. And working with companies like Signly, you can easily scale out these innovations. This endeavour is a stepping stone for us at Microsoft. It’s one we are proud of and hope to expand on.

Find out more

Learn more about Signly

Our accessibility commitment

Help Signly and take part in their social impact research

Resources to empower your development teams

Accessibility fundamentals

Learn the basics of web accessibility

About the author

Great stories demand heroes, emotions, and insight. As Storytelling & Digital Destinations Lead at Microsoft UK, Victoria Oakes places these principles at the heart of Microsoft UK’s content output. In this role, she drives to unify messaging and content across Microsoft using insights at the heart. Through her passion for engaging copy, visual storytelling, and data-driven insights, she truly cares about content being useful, interesting and easy to digest. As a philanthropy advocate, Victoria strongly believes in using technology for social impact, strengthening empowerment and inclusion for all and environmental sustainability.

The post How to empower even more people by challenging accessibility standards appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Start your data strategy with a goal

To build an effective data strategy, the first thing to do is think about what you want to achieve. Analyse business functions or goals where data could provide a tangible result. I often suggest to customers to start small, with one project. Use that to learn new skills and explore your data. Use the learning from these projects to iterate and build towards a successful integrated data strategy. This way you will gain first-hand knowledge and skills, while dealing with the practical and operational tasks necessary for success.

Do the groundwork for your data strategy

By 2025, IDC research expects data to reach 175 zettabytes. You may not have this much, but you’ll find you have collected a lot of data. Once you have your business goal, take some time to look at your data. Here’s three data realities you’ll need to be aware of when building your strategy:

Research from Harvard Business Review and Microsoft found that 52 percent of respondents say inaccurate and insufficient data is a key business challenge. To ensure you get the best insights out of your data you need to take stock of what you have and what you want to do with it. In fact, data preparation is about 80 percent of the work in data analysis.

Build innovation excellence with data

This same Microsoft research found that 55 percent of respondents believe data silos and managing data from multiple new systems are an organisation’s biggest challenge. But we know that bringing together these datasets are what can help organisations innovate and build competitive advantage. That being said, we have to ensure we build a data strategy using a best-in-class approach.

A best-in-class approach to data strategy:

Data modernisation is key to addressing and fixing data silos. Connect your data together across the business with tools such as Dynamics 365. This will help not only reduce silos but build new insights from the collective data that you wouldn’t get if they were segregated.

Cloud-native apps support high performance at any scale. Take advantage of the power of the cloud capabilities to truly use your data and reduce those tedious tasks for employees – helping them spend more time on value-add work.

Analytics are needed to truly understand customer behaviours, operational processes, and to generate insights. When you have the right data as your base, analytics can help inform decision-making in a powerful way.

Data science then takes those insights and applies machine learning and AI to power experiences. But it isn’t just for the data scientists anymore. Thanks to low/no code solutions like Power Platform, employees without large coding experience can build workflows and solutions using data to improve their day-to-day operations. For example, a customer service team can build a Virtual Agent to answer frequently asked customer questions, so they can spend more time on complicated queries.

Data governance underpins any data strategy. You need to ensure you’re adequately protecting valuable business and customer data. This includes ensuring you have the proper regulatory compliance in place. A cloud platform like Azure has multi-layered, built-in security controls and unique threat intelligence to help you identify and protect against rapidly evolving threats.

It’s also important to think about how you use that data. The responsible and ethical use of data and AI is important for your reputation. It can also reduce bias and risk in your data, ensuring you’re delivering exactly what you need to better serve the community.

Build a data-driven culture

Fundamentally, a strategy won’t work unless you have the right culture. For a journey to be successful, everyone needs to take part in it.

Engage with your stakeholders and the senior leadership team from the start. Of course, this doesn’t mean you have full company meetings about your first project. Look at what problem you’re trying to solve and the teams you will engage along the way. Bring and inform the key stakeholders from those teams early on.

Another way of building culture is encouraging ‘champions’ to share their love and knowledge with their peers. This can be done by giving them the time and ability to set up workshops, employee groups, and even ‘hackathons’ to build a more grassroots approach to culture change. At Microsoft our yearly hackathons have bought product improvements, apps that improve accessibility like Seeing AI, and innovations to help sustainability, like machine learning models to assist in ocean clean ups.

It’s important to ensure every employee has the power to make impact-orientated decisions. After all, they’re the ones who know the business the best. By democratising access to data in a responsible way, you will empower employees to be more innovative, make better decisions, and ultimately, serve exceptional customer experiences.

Finally, build all employees skills to ensure they get the best out of data. According to our recent digital skills report, 63 percent of UK employees don’t think they have the appropriate digital skills. Building these skills is key to ensure they can confidently use data to make decisions, build innovation, and create new solutions. We have shared our learning paths, workshops, and on-demand training to help organisations re- and up-skill their employees on Microsoft technologies.

A people-centric approach to data strategy

Once you build your data foundation and connect it across your organisation, you will have a 360-degree view of your data. Take this further and join up external data to create an expanded view not restricted by your own organisational boundaries. And with a data-driven culture you can empower your organisation to leverage this to gain even more opportunities and insights, creating competitive growth.

One thing I’ve learnt from our journey at Microsoft is the technology is the easy bit. Most data strategy projects are about the people – the cultural change. Ensure this by being transparent along the journey, engaging others, and building their digital skills. Remember a data strategy is not a one-and-done approach. It’s a continuous learning cycle, where everyone can take part.

Find out more

Visit the landing page: Reimagine data and analytics

Download the eBook: Build a data-driven organisation

Download the report: Discover a new model of competitiveness

About the author

As an advocate of data-driven decisions, Robin has spent over two decades at Microsoft ensuring organisations have the tools to leverage the zettabytes of data available today to achieve their digital transformation vision.

Microsoft has been on its own digital transformation journey for several years and data has been a central part of that journey. Robin focuses on creating a data-driven culture across the business at Microsoft. This includes ensuring that we are considering data across our internal processes, as well as how we are helping our customers and partners succeed with data.

Robin is passionate about learning and collaborating with our customers and partners about how to truly leverage data and AI to create new solutions.

Prior to working at Microsoft, she served in the US Military. She strives to bring her best in all aspects of work and personal life. From obtaining two law degrees and multiple professional certifications – all while working full time, parenting her daughters and balancing personal commitments (including training for an IronMan), she believes anything is possible.

The post How to power up your data strategy to build innovation appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Apprenticeships are becoming a very popular way into the working world. It allows young people to earn a salary and get a head-start in their careers. While doing this they are learning important skills and gaining certifications.

This year, Microsoft hosted a virtual event for National Apprenticeship Week. We looked at how to build a supportive culture for a successful apprenticeship programme. We also looked at ways to democratise digital skills throughout your organisation.

Building a growth mindset in your culture

We engaged in inspiring sessions, delivered by Selina Tishler. She spoke of the history of Microsoft, starting from the beginning with Paul Allen and Bill Gates. From here, we saw the main drivers of change within Microsoft. We learnt how Satya made changes to the culture to empower employees. This shift alongside the focus of diversity and emphasis on mental health has led to a more inclusive community. This change to a ‘learn-it-all’ culture means that challenges become opportunities.

This growth mindset is key to apprentices to find their feet on this journey. It also helps organisations create passionate, excited employees who want to acheive more.

Helping apprentices succeed in the hybrid workplace

In the new world of work, people have different expectations of the workplace. This includes apprentices. It’s a reflection of their experiences with technology. This means they may expect flexible devices and tools, or a remote working policy. We know that the last year means organisations may have already started building a hybrid workplace. Microsoft and YouGov research found that almost nine out of 10 employees report that their businesses have adapted to hybrid working. But you can’t forget to ensure you adapt your apprenticeship programmes to the hybrid workplace too.

We talked to current Microsoft apprentices to get some insight into how they have faced the changing world of work. We also spoke to some managers on how they can help apprentices in the hybrid workplace.

Building technical skills in apprentices

As I mentioned earlier, apprentices are a great way for organisations to develop technical capabilities in new technology such as AI. By utilising AI, organisations can streamline operations, discover new insights, deliver better customer experiences and more. But it’s not just important for apprentices to learn these skills. The ability to re- and upskill needs to be available to all employees – especially if you want to drive that growth mindset culture. It will make you more innovative, more competitive, more attractive to new talent and therefore – more profitable.

Despite digital acceleration in 2020, our recent report found 69 percent of UK leaders believe their organisation has a digital skills gap. Luckily, we have plenty of resources to share with organisations or people wanting to see how they can leverage AI or other technology:

• Achieve more with on-demand learning paths on Microsoft Learn.
• Learn how to create lasting business impact with the AI Business School.

Driving innovation with apprentices

At Microsoft, our apprentices and employees don’t just stop learning once they reach their certifications – they continuously upskill. This is because they live and breathe our growth mindset culture. Part of this is our work with AI for Good and how we help enterprises create better experiences. We heard from Vanessa Araújo, Microsoft Cloud Solution Architect about where the world is moving to with AI.

Vanessa spoke about the importance of responsible AI and Microsoft’s commitment to it. We learned all about what can go wrong with AI and how to mitigate those risks. Moreover, she also talked about how we all must be accountable and proactive when thinking about these concepts. Part of this is ensuring we have the digital skills and soft skills to understand how to responsibly use new technologies. In the new world of work, we will be increasingly working alongside AI. Therefore, it’s important for apprentices to learn digital and soft skills while they’re on the job. Not only to effectively do their work but be able to understand these important concepts to drive responsible innovation in the future.

We had a lot apprentices attending who were keen to understand the way in which things were moving. Vanessa told us about augmented reality and automation. How we can take advantage of low/no code solutions in Power Platform, for example, to streamline our own work without coding knowledge. Others were curious about how AI and accessibility works, and we learnt about how AI can help make interviews more accessible.

Helping us to achieve more

Our sessions during National Apprenticeship Week reflected the growth mindset culture of Microsoft. While we focussed on apprentices, what came through was Microsoft’s core belief that everyone is part of this journey. We collectively grew our curiosity, learnt new things, and have discovered many new opportunities with technology.

As we are optimistically looked towards the future, there’s no question that apprentices and a growth mindset will be a driving force in developing the innovation, competitive growth and resilience in our organisations.

Find out more

Learn about apprenticeships

Build your digital skills

About the authors

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But how do you run these sessions remotely while creating that same energy? How can you maximise productivity and return on investment of time and resources? Virtual meetings tend to require more thought and planning to enable and drive business results in an engaging and inclusive way.

We consider some of the underlying assumptions around working in the same physical space to map to a fully virtual way of working model for remote creative thinking sessions.

Moving on from traditional creative thinking sessions 

It’s a general assumption that the investment of time (including travel), focus and energy is offset by generating innovative ideas. This leads to workshops and agendas which are coarse-grained, to maximise the investment in time people have set aside to contribute.

Being somewhere physically can lend itself more naturally to creating serendipitous moments and the feeling of connectedness. Yet, when organised correctly, these moments can be designed into a virtual event.

And when you factor in those other ideas such as travel, and focus, hosting a virtual event can improve those. A major benefit of virtual events is that there is reduced cost and no travel time – there may even be a reduced carbon footprint. This increased flexibility can result in increased attendance, allowing people to carve out the time and get themselves in the right headspace.

Now we have the digital tools to support virtual ways of working, it makes sense that people’s expectations have changed, and they’re more likely to expect virtual events in the future. A virtual event has the potential to be just as good as, or even more successful than a physical event.

What makes a good facilitator for a creative thinking session?

It’s important to remember that often ideation session attendees are diverse and in a lot of cases do not have close and pre-established working relationships. This means you need a good facilitator to help drive the session.

They will ensure that everyone is briefed on ground rules, agenda, objectives and required tools. Ongoing active facilitation manages the energy and focus of the group. When all are in the same physical location the facilitator can read visual cues. This needs to be done differently for virtual ideation sessions. Visible or declared accessibility needs can also be more explicit and actively catered for. We’ll go into some depth about how to manage these in the virtual environment.

How to flip from physical creative thinking sessions to virtual effectively

Examine your assumptions

• Video conferencing fatigue is real: Agendas should be much more granular in a virtual setting to ensure breaks.
• Introduce small breakout rooms to ensure everyone can share ideas.
• Establish ground rules.

Virtual accessibility

• Planning is key: Ensure you have accessibility factored in, such as automatic captioning.
• Consider everyone: Use the Accessibility Checker in your presentations and documents to ensure everyone can access them.

Virtual engagement

• Actively plan engagement: Use digital engagement tools to gamify sessions.
• Facilitate creative thinking: Implement warmups, games, and quizzes during breaks.

Virtual tools and processes

• Effective meetings take planning: Share a pre-brief of the tools and processes you will use so participants can familiarise themselves.
• Mistakes happen: Allow time in your agenda in case something doesn’t work right away.

Examine your assumptions for creative thinking sessions

When everyone joins remotely, we need to examine our assumptions of physical meetings. For example, we shouldn’t assume that all attendees have blocked out the half-day or whole day to collaborate. Conversely, we should be mindful that many will be sitting in their home office or living space. Agendas should be much more granular in a virtual setting. Allowing people the time to get away from their desk is a key part of this.

We should challenge our assumptions that workshops must be in a whole or half day event. Consider breaking up your agenda into ‘bites’. Make sure to include recap time to warm people back up. This also allows real time for consolidation of previous sessions and presentations of feedback and insights to guide the group forward.

This approach might mean more facilitation time is needed – potentially filling the time of two facilitators where one was previously enough.

Virtual inclusion

We all make assumptions of how we want to collaborate. Even if we’ve identified strategies to address our subconscious biases, inclusion requires extra consideration in a virtual setting. Virtual meetings have the potential to be a great leveller, where everyone is starting from the same place.

One useful strategy for driving inclusion in diverse groups is to task attendees to write an ‘about me’ slide which is shared ahead of the session. This can outline things such as:

• How I like to work
• My areas of expertise
• What I am hoping to get out of the session
• How I prefer to communicate

Facilitators can also use this to look at the balance of perspectives, objectives and experiences in the team. They can also allocate individuals to breakout groups to maximise diversity or concentrate expertise (as appropriate).

Another useful approach to drive inclusion is to structure your agenda around smaller group breakouts, followed by share backs with the wider group. Smaller groups still need an element of facilitation. However, generally the smaller the group the more opportunity everyone has for their voices to be heard.

Ground rules are also important to establish. Brief attendees to try to be more self-aware and to actively give each other airtime. Establish the use of the ‘Raise hand’ feature in Teams when they want to speak, for example.

In some cases, we have even seen virtual meetings become a cultural leveller, as they flatten organisation hierarchies – for example by reducing deference that team members might have for their boss in a physical setting.

Virtual accessibility

We need to actively plan for specific accessibility needs in virtual settings. In a physical setting visual cues may make accessibility needs more present. Yet, a remote setting may even be an enabler through the use of accessibility features in digital tools such as live captions. Like in physical settings, planning is key.

Virtual engagement for creative thinking

Engagement needs to be more actively planned. Warmups and ice breakers need to be more part of the agenda. Digital tools can help defend against distractions. Asking people to be present is a start. But techniques such as regular voting and gamifying participation can drive engagement. It can also help deliver feedback to facilitators on the level of group engagement and attention, and where help and coaching may be needed.

Consider side challenges – for example quizzes or cryptic puzzles, with prizes awarded to inject purpose. Creativity is your only limit. Make things fun! Equally, actively encourage breaks more regularly than you would with a typical set of back-to-back meetings.

Virtual tools and processes

There are many established design practices and tools to utilise which will help you establish the right methodology, tools and templates. Yet, we should be mindful of how these need to be modified, extended or changed for virtual meetings. Effective physical meetings require preparation. So do virtual meetings.

You’ll need to standardise the overall working method and toolset ahead of time, sharing this and encouraging people to try it out before the meeting. From a process perspective, a small working group should define the process based on objectives and create things like required templates, breakout meeting groups and process guides. And for the first time you try this, allow for things to go wrong by with extra time in your agenda – as they probably will.

Creating engaging experiences for everyone

Where do we get our best ideas from? Diverse groups where everyone has a voice to share their thoughts. That’s why ideation sessions are an essential business tool to solve the problems of today and create the opportunities of tomorrow.

And because we’ve moved more to virtual meetings, this means more people can take part, solving challenges quicker and building new ideas. When done in a clear and structured way, they can maximise human creativity and drives business results.

Creativity never needs to stop – even in a hybrid or remote working environment.

Find out more

Reimagine the new world of work

Discover how to respond to the new world of work with leadership, culture and practice

About the author

Terry Room is currently a Managing Architect for Microsoft Consulting Services in the UK. With over 20 years of technology industry experience, he leads a cross disciplinary team of consulting architects and digital advisors, with a focus on driving large scale business and technology transformation with strategic enterprise customers through the design of compelling business cases, resilient technology architectures, and transformation programmes which deliver sustainable business value.

The post How to encourage creative thinking inclusively and remotely in the new world of work appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

A recent study from Microsoft and the University of London assesses UK business competitiveness. The results suggest that innovation will be vital to enable the UK to better compete on a global stage.

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I believe one of the biggest innovations from this year could have the greatest potential to transform the way we all live and work and propel British businesses forward. This is remote and flexible working.

Use flexible working practices to drive innovation

The Tech Talent Charter has, since its inception, championed working practices that drive inclusion. In building a robust and representative tech workforce, we need to offer more equitable opportunities. UK tech suffers from a widely acknowledged skills shortage – a 2019 survey from CWJobs highlights that 45 percent of British companies are actively seeking staff with tech skills. But despite this, the tech industry in particular, lags when it comes to diversity of all kinds.

Many women say they are interested in a career in technology – Fawcett Society research in 2019 found that around 70 percent of young women would be interested, and 45 percent of working age women are willing to retrain for a technical role. However, female participation in tech hovers at around 17 percent, while other diversity measures tend to score even lower.

Part-time, flexible hours, or flexible working locations have long been recognised as key to attracting women to the tech workforce. Women tend to have more domestic responsibilities than men – a 2016 ONS survey found women shoulder 60 percent of ‘unpaid work’. This can mean a 9-5 office-based role can be impractical. By failing to offer flexible or remote working, women often feel they cannot align their career ambitions with the demands of the rest of their lives.

These are women who would otherwise return to the workplace with their many talents and experiences. They also bring that added dimension that drives innovation – diversity. This wasted talent is a significant loss to a business’s ability to compete and innovate.

The hybrid workplace

Until now, many companies have been reluctant to embrace remote and flexible working models. These decisions are often clouded by stereotypes or an outdated understanding of their employees’ expectations. Some have just been hesitant to innovate and embark on a major disruption to their working model.

2020 caused this to change.

Thousands of companies have had to enact a live trial of remote and flexible working, unplanned for, untested but utterly essential for their business continuity.

Even the most sceptical employer has learned that remote working not only works. They’ve discovered it is a vital part of their ability to competitively attract and retain the best talent. Microsoft’s research confirms this with 83 percent of UK managers revealing they expect to have more flexible and work from home policies moving forwards.

This shift holds immense potential for inclusion and diversity. Mounting research has demonstrated the impact of diversity on creativity and innovation (the World Economic Forum calls the business case for diversity ‘overwhelming’), and the UK’s economic growth will depend upon its ability to innovate and compete on a global stage.

Empowering employees

Remote working is not without its challenges. But what we have seen is that is it possible to do many more jobs remotely than was previously thought. Also, productivity tends to increase and not decrease. What’s more, employees have rapidly come around to the many advantages of being able to be based where they choose and not have to commute. It is not just women who stand to benefit from this new working set up.

Research from Timewise in 2018 shows that while 91 percent of women want flexibility, so do 84 percent of men, 92 percent of 18–34 year-olds and 88 percent of 35-54 year-olds. This is a wake-up call and a significant opportunity for the industry.

Companies who adapt to these new rules of play have the potential to recruit the best talent, regardless of location or even available working hours. This is a win-win situation. It’s something that will prove fundamental to the UK tech industry’s ability to address the skills gap and compete on a global stage.

Building competitiveness and innovation

This competitiveness is currently not a given. Microsoft and University of London research shows that 46 percent of UK firms fall into the least competitive quadrant of competitiveness. Clearly, we are facing a skills gap, and UK businesses need to eliminate barriers to finding talent.

The UK must reinvent itself. If we could show we retain our competitiveness in terms of innovation, talent and technology. We need to start to offer a new definition of what work is, where and when it happens. Then, we can begin to redefine our productivity as a nation.

And that can drive competitiveness and economic recovery – with a potential cumulative economic boost of £48.2 billion. Doing the right thing is no longer just the right thing, it is the smart business thing. Embracing the benefits of remote work to find and retain the best, most diverse talent pool will make a positive impact on the bottom line. It will also benefit the economic recovery of the whole country.

There has never been a more important time for the UK to take action.

Find out more

Download the economic recovery report

Start building the new world of work

Empower employees to drive innovation

Resources for your development team

Build an innovation roadmap with our Envisioning workshops 

About the author

Debbie Forster is an award-winning leader and a recognised figure in the areas of diversity, tech, innovation and education and was named by Computer Weekly as the Most Influential Woman in UK IT for 2019. She is co-founder and CEO for the Tech Talent Charter, an industry collective which aims to deliver greater inclusion and diversity in the UK tech workforce. As part of her wider portfolio, Debbie works as an executive coach and a consultant. She specialises in supporting start-ups, scale ups, SMEs and social enterprises. Debbie was awarded an MBE in January 2017 for ‘Services to Digital Technology and Tech Development’.

Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) named Debbie Woman of the Year for 2016. Her work for the TTC was recognised by Women in IT awards 2018 for Diversity Initiative of the Year. She was awarded Women in IT Awards Diversity Leader of the Year 2019. Computer Weekly also named her Most Influential Woman in UK IT for 2019.

After 20 years working within education, Debbie joined e-skills UK, the national IT Sector Skills Council. There, she heads up their educational programmes, liaising with both policy makers and leaders in the IT industry. Debbie then became the Co-CEO of Apps for Good, an award-winning education charity. Debbie joined Apps for Good in 2010 and took the organisation through a period of exponential growth, from two centres in London to almost 1000 schools around the world; reaching 75,000 young people in just five years, with 50 percent of its students and 40 percent of its tech mentors being female.

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If I told you, that one in five of your most crucial workforce, the one who spends the most time speaking to your customers, doesn’t have the right tools to do their jobs, would you believe me? Frontline workers are the first people to see your brand, interact with your customers and ultimately, the ones who leave a lasting impression. Customers rely on the services our frontline workforce provide. Your business depends on the operational tasks they perform. And finally, your brand and reputation is based on their success.

What are you missing if you are not connecting to the people who are seeing your customers every day? A huge opportunity to innovate and improve business operations. I see Microsoft’s role as a tech provider to build the technology that helps everyone do their best work, including frontline workers. For organisations, your role is to create an inclusive culture where everyone can be at their best. Accessible tools help you foster this culture. Here’s how you can empower your frontline workforce using accessible tools.

The diversity of the frontline workforce

A billion people in the world have some sort of disability. Let that sink in.

Today, I am focussing on tools that can help those with hidden disabilities, literacy, and language. It’s important to understand that accessible tools level the playing field for all. Organisations who have improved productivity, employee wellbeing, and innovation are ones with an inclusive culture. They support their employees and give them confidence to be their best selves in the workplace.

Therefore, enabling these accessible tools is an opportunity for organisations. You are addressing challenges faced by your people. You’re also empowering them to be confident and building an innovative, inclusive workforce.

Hidden disabilities

80 percent of people who are disabled have hidden impairments. And often people don’t feel comfortable bringing them up. For example, 73 percent of people with dyslexia don’t tell their employers. But when you have accessible tools built into your systems, everyone is on a level playing field to access the resources they need in their own way.

Immersive Reader is a tool found in most of Microsoft 365 apps. For example, an employee can use it in Teams to make it easier for them to read company announcements, messages, and documents.

Literacy

According to the US National Skills Coalition, 60 percent of service sector workers have limited literacy skills. In the UK, the National Literacy Trust says over 7 million people can be described as having ‘very poor literacy skills’.

Using Microsoft Teams and Shifts on personal mobile devices empowers workers to be able to use your software in their own way. They can take advantage of accessible tools such as Read Aloud and Smart Lookup to ensure they understand the information as it’s presented to them.

Language

Frontline workers will be interacting with people from different backgrounds and with different first languages. In fact, 38 percent of people in the UK over five speak at least one other language.

Microsoft Translator is a powerful tool that can translate written text or spoken word to the relevant language.

For those frontline workers in manufacturing, 80 percent have noise related hearing loss. Enabling automatic captions can ensure that everybody gets the same information at the same time and can fully take part in team meetings.

An inclusive digital partnership

One story that really crystallises to me the impact of accessible tools on culture is our partnership with Sodexo. As the leading provider of Quality of Life services for working professionals, Sodexo wanted to offer new and innovative services to its clients. They also wanted to further develop employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Therefore, they chose Microsoft 365 to enable communications and collaboration across its business, giving these tools to frontline workers. What they saw was a more empowered team and a whole organisational culture of inclusivity and collaboration. They also saw the digital skills of their frontline workers increase. This meant that their services to their customers also improved.

How tech can drive inclusion

Organisations should want everyone to feel connected be able to collaborate and coexist efficiently. Giving people accessible tools will ensure that they have the confidence to do the job as best they can, while still feeling part of a bigger picture. They’ll be able to spend more time on value-added tasks and be more engaged.

We’ve talked a lot about how accessible tools can help foster a culture of innovation and inclusivity. But it’s important to remember that it also makes good business sense. According to the Harvard Business Review’s The Value of Belonging at Work, if employees feel like they belong, you will see a 56 percent increase in job performance, a 50 percent drop in turnover risk and 75 percent in reduction of sick days.

Take action

So now it’s time to take action. Start the conversation with your business leaders and HR about empowering your frontline workers with technology. Take some time for yourself to learn how to enable inclusive features for your employees and share this information out for everyone to do so. See what includes accessible features are built into Microsoft 365, for example by learning fundamentals and best practices on Microsoft Learn. And if you have any questions, you can always reach out to our Disability Answer Desk and we will help in any way we can.

Remember this is a journey. Listen to your employees and see what they feel they need to be able to do their best work. By including everyone in your journey you will be more likely to be successful and foster that inclusive culture you want.

Find out more

Watch the on-demand session on building an inclusive frontline workforce

Re-imagine the new world of work

Discover how to build an inclusive culture in the new world of world

About the author

Hasan is a Product Marketing Manager and UK Lead for our frontline worker business. Having been a frontline worker across many roles, his passion is helping people be their best, through the power of technology. Having emigrated to the UK at an early age, he enjoys staying true to his values of helping all people through storytelling and empowering everyone to achieve more. Hasan has held several roles across Product Management, Marketing and Retail, across the UK.

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