Data from our 2022 Work Trend Index Annual Report confirm the shift. We found that 53 percent of employees were more likely to prioritise health and well-being over work than before the pandemic. In addition, nearly half of respondents (47 percent) were more likely to put family and personal life over work than they were pre-pandemic.

Figure 1. Employee work attitudes post- vs. pre-pandemic. (Source: Microsoft, Work Trend Annual Report, 2022.)

At Microsoft, we believe technology can be a powerful ally in the journey towards better employee well-being. As such we wanted to take the opportunity to raise awareness of mental health issues and promote good practice both in and beyond the workplace.

To help you reclaim the right balance we’ve pulled together eight practical Microsoft 365-based tips to help employees and managers reshape today’s fast-paced work experience in the name of better mental health. 

1. Nurture community and connection at work

Research shows that, in a hybrid world, it’s even more important to forge meaningful networks and relationships at work. Employees who have thriving relationships with team members report better well-being than those without (76% vs. 57%).

To help you reconnect and find belonging at work, Microsoft Viva Engage – an add-on in Outlook – enables you to share work and experience with colleagues. Join digital communities and conversations, find answers to questions, and inspire others with your stories. You can also connect via the announcements, to-dos and check-ins on your personalised Viva Connections dashboard.

2. Book focus time each week

If meetings are dominating your days or weeks, it can be stressful to keep on top of incoming emails, messages and resulting actions. It’s also hard to focus on challenging work when you only have small chunks of time between meetings.

Blocking out time every day or week to focus without interruption can help. The Wellbeing tab in Microsoft Viva insights contains a section called “Take action to improve your wellbeing”, in which you can create a daily focus plan.

To help you stay in control and also step away from work, other available well-being features include:

• Make time for messages
• Schedule emails for later
• Take a break or two
• Make time for lunch

To help you concentrate, your status in Microsoft Teams will auto-switch to Focus during booked focus time. You’ll only get notifications for messages that are urgent or from contacts with priority access.

3. Schedule times to manage email

Most office workers check their email regularly throughout the day. But it’s a battle to get work done if you spend most of your time responding to tactical requests from other people.

Try limiting when you check emails to two or three slots per day. Disabling email notifications will help reduce the temptation. This can easily be done in Microsoft Outlook – go to the File tab, select Options, select Mail, and in the Message arrival section, uncheck Play a sound, Show an envelope icon in the taskbar and Display a Desktop Alert:

4. Stay on top of your to-do lists

A helpful way to get something off your mind is to write it down. But how many to-do lists do you have? Perhaps a grocery list on the back of an envelope, a list of things to do in notes or a phone app, maybe some tasks in Outlook?

You might also have flagged emails to get back to, not to mention a task someone has assigned you in Planner.

You can organise this avalanche with an app like Microsoft To Do. It’s free and syncs across Windows 10 and 11, iPhone, Android and the web. It’s also integrated with Outlook.com, making it easier to manage all your tasks in one place.

Planner tasks assigned to you also appear in To Do under the Assigned to you list:

5. Set limits to your working day

Our research has identified a third productivity peak outside the typical pre-pandemic 9am-5pm spikes, with the most common after-hours activity being email (source: Microsoft New Future of Work Report 2022). While working remotely can make this habit more tempting, it’s crucial to set boundaries to your working day and give yourself a break.

To do so, select the Wellbeing tab in Viva Insights and use the “Disconnect with quiet time” card, which allows you to set your quiet time.

As a manager or leader, you can also use Viva insights to help ensure your team properly disconnects after work. View their total weekly after-hours collaboration time and, if needed, recommend changes.

Taking a well-earned holiday? Set your Out of Office and stop syncing Outlook on your phone to remove temptation. You might even want to remove work apps from your phone to avoid peeking at emails.

6. Be aware of your after-hours impact on others

This follows from the previous point. While minimising after-work hours is an ideal, we recognise that work schedules must flex for many reasons. Some people are night-owls; others may choose to work late to prepare for a busy day ahead.

Whatever the case, we need to be aware of the impact our habits may have on others. As reported in a 2022 UK Parliament Post briefing, after-hours working in a hybrid setting can cause remote colleagues to feel under pressure to always be available online.

To help avoid this, Viva Insights can show you the after-hours impact you impose on co-workers. Its coaching tools can also help you build smarter habits.

If you must work late, minimise any unwanted impact by saving emails to your Drafts folder until business hours, or schedule the delivery of your email using Options > Delay Delivery:

7. Work the way that works for you

A key strength of technology is its potential to support inclusiveness, empowering everyone to access tools the way that suits them best. Microsoft 365 apps come with built-in accessibility features for a more comfortable experience at work. For example, Microsoft Teams supports inclusive collaboration in hybrid meetings with captions and live transcripts, which can help people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

To enable a personal and human touch in virtual meetings, Teams also incorporates live React controls (at the top of the meeting view).

8. Pay attention to the present moment

Mindfulness is about being aware of your body, mind and feelings in the moment. Practising it can improve your sense of well-being and how you approach challenges.

In Viva Insights, you’ll find guided meditations and focus music, including content from Headspace. Take a break to support your mental health.

Seizing the opportunity

We hope our commitment to well-being has a positive ripple effect in today’s workplace. However, while technology can help promote a healthier work-life integration, only we ourselves – workers and leaders together – can deliver it.

Find out more

• Work Trend Index Annual Report (2022)
• Microsoft 365
• Microsoft Viva
• Microsoft Teams

About the author

David manages Microsoft UK’s Employee Experience business, overseeing a suite of solutions designed to enhance employee engagement and boost business performance.

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Sometimes when you work from home, you can find the balance between family life and home life blur. As a manager, it’s important for me to ensure my team work together, prioritise connections, and all support each other to maintain the right balance.

Modern mindset conclusion one: There is now a universal lens of empathy being applied to how we live first and work second.

Emphasise mental wellbeing

A University of Oxford study found a direct correlation between employee wellbeing and positive business performance. More and more companies are recognising mental health as important, with 83 percent of businesses addressing it directly in their wellbeing strategies, according to REBA.

Despite this information, only 9.2 percent of the C-level board drives wellbeing agendas. We all recognise there is no price on a healthy mind. Companies that consider how teams can work together and what support employees might need at home will likely see a quicker return to profitability and prosperity.

Modern mindset conclusion two: Mental wellbeing support will be at the forefront of every company’s success moving forwards and no longer an optional ‘tick box’ benefit.

Working from home will become more acceptable

The working from home stigma well and truly has been blown out of the water. Amidst return to work considerations, savvy companies will properly design spaces to be about bringing teams together in safe, collaborative and productive environments.

We won’t encourage employees to be in every day just ‘because’. Office running costs will likely be lower, and this will enable bursaries to help employees set up decent, comfortable work areas at home. We will appreciate each other’s company more, and make more effort to support and reach out over video call, or chat.

Modern mindset conclusion three: Our appreciation of the workplace and colleagues will be invigorated, and mundane routines will be reduced leading to healthier and happier places of work.

Rapid digitisation of companies will help offset our travel carbon footprint.

Whilst I miss being with my teams across EMEA, their cultures, their languages, foods, and customs – I do not miss flying eight hours from Spain to New York for a two-hour presentation or hopping back-to-back across countries to roll out a new methodology.

My teams have quickly adapted to virtual workshops, presentations, and pitches. We meet regularly to reframe, brainsteer, and ideate together and with our clients thanks to Teams. It’s no longer a process of aligning diaries, tag team across weeks, and finally arrive in one physical place. We can get together as a global team quicker, meaning we can better adapt and respond to any changes.

Modern mindset conclusion four: Digital transformation has become more important. Focus on consistency to keep people connected wherever they are and whatever their work task.

The future of work

Empathy and human connections go hand-in-hand in a modern workplace. We will have a higher focus on everyone’s wellbeing. Technology will aid this. It will give us the ability to connect in new and exciting ways, no matter where your team is located. I’m looking forward to it.

Find out more

How to maintain a connected remote working experience 

Master working from home with Teams

Find out more about VMLY&R

Become a Microsoft Partner

Tools to empower your development teams

Watch the on-demand session: Top ten tips for remote working from the Teams team 

About the author

Karen is VMLY&R’s EMEA Chief Experience Officer. Karen is responsible for developing VMLY&R’s CX capability in the EMEA region and growing clients’ engagement. She drives the creation of world-class consumer engagement experiences and platforms at the intersection of technology, creativity and culture to create connected brands.

With 15+ years’ experience across every sector, Karen has led world-class brands and organisations forwards from both a strategic and implementation perspective, weaving together ideas and people in a politically agile way to gain momentum, both outwardly as a brand and inwardly as an effective organisation.

She previously held roles as Head of Innovation at Adam&EveDDB and Global Client Lead at AKQA. She is also the founder of tech startup THEI.A Cognition. Karen was winner of the IPA’s 2016 Women of Tomorrow awards in Tech & Innovation, named as one Google’s ‘Top 10 Female Creatives to Watch for 2017 and 2018, the Drum’s Most Influential Top 100 Digerati for 2017, 2018, 2019 and one of the Drum’s ‘Top 25 from the last 25 years’ Women shaping digital 2019.

The post How to keep your remote team connected appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Video-conferencing can be tiring work. Here are 5 useful tips to help you stay motivated and avoid video-conferencing burnout whilst you’re working from home.

1.      Avoid back-to-back meetings

This isn’t always as easy as it sounds. We have all been in meetings that have overrun their time slot and it can be quite uncomfortable having to interrupt someone to let them know you need to join another call.

To combat this, schedule in 20/50 minute meetings instead of the standard 30/60 minutes. Not only do you get 10 minutes back between meetings to focus on the tasks you need to get done, but it will give you time to stretch your legs, rest your eyes and grab a drink too.

In meetings, be clear and structured on what you want to get out of it beforehand. Think of three key takeaways and actions. This way, you can determine whether a meeting is necessary, can be shortened (win) or perhaps removed altogether if you could collaborate over a Teams chat instead. (bigger win).

2.      Reduce on-screen stimuli

Rather amusingly, research has proven that when we are on video, we tend to spend most of the time gazing at our own faces (guilty as charged)! Focus on your colleagues, or the person talking instead of admiring yourself.

It can be tempting to strain to see what is hiding behind our co-workers in their different rooms. Remind yourself and others to reduce background distractions. You can easily do this by using background blur or a plain backdrop on Teams. Not only does this reduce onscreen distractions, but it is also more accessible to those who may have hearing impairments and may need to lip read.

3.      Take a break

We only have finite energy, and sometimes we need to reinvigorate our minds. Get up, do some stretches, go for a walk, go get that delicious cookie that you’ve been thinking about, have a drink – the list of things you can do is endless but extremely important. Whether you take a full hour for lunch or shorter intermittent breaks throughout the day, make sure to have some downtime away from your screen.

Studies have shown that most of us can only concentrate for less than an hour. One even said only 14 minutes!

Also, fresh air is good for your mental health. Fresh air increases oxygen in our bodies alongside boosting serotonin: a mood-enhancing hormone that keeps us happy.

For us to be at our most productive, it’s beneficial to take a break. So yes, get up and go treat yourself – have that cookie (I know that’s what I’m going to do on my break).

4.      You don’t always have to turn on video

Video calls are a great way to communicate when you’re working remotely as so much of communication is non-verbal. But don’t feel the pressure to always turn them on. Staring at the screen and watching everyone’s individual reactions can sap the energy out of you.

If you are present in an hour-long meeting, it should be acceptable to turn off your camera for parts of the call, especially if you’re not speaking, so you can give your eyes a rest.

Video-conferencing can also feel extremely intimate. If you’re meeting with someone outside your organisation that you don’t know very well, it’s ok to just use audio.

The most important thing with meetings is to ensure everyone can confidently and comfortably take part. This may mean using video, blurring your background, including real-time closed captioning, or not turning on video at all.

5.      Switch to email or phone/audio calls

Have a quick look over your calendar and see if there are any Teams meetings that you could have over the phone or email instead. If 4:40pm rolls around and you are feeling that impending video-conferencing fatigue, see if the person would mind switching your meeting to a phone/audio call. Same with those ‘quick’ check-ins – see if they can be chats or emails instead.

You could suggest rescheduling the conversation to a later time too which can give you both a chance to recharge and revisit the conversation when you will be able to give it the full attention it deserves. Most of us are facing the same challenges so it’s likely the other person will be relieved by the switch, too.

Avoiding fatigue

So, there it is. My top tips to reduce that end-of-the-day slump after a day jam-packed with video conferences.

We know how encouraging a friendly face during a meeting is, and how it helps provide extra connection to our peers. However, it’s draining to be stuck in one video meeting after another, so try out some of these hacks to make your day easier and more productive.

Find out more

Read more: 5 tips to keep your remote team engaged and motivated

Get support: Maintain a connected remote working experience

Download the eBook: How to run effective remote meetings with Teams

Join the webinar: Run effective meetings in Teams

Tools to empower your development teams

Watch the on-demand session: Top ten tips for remote working from the Teams team 

About the author

Laura is a Management with Marketing student from Scotland. She is interning at Microsoft in the One Commercial Partner business. Her role as a Partner Marketing Advisor in the Partner Business and Development team involves helping Microsoft partners to successfully drive their Go-To-Market Campaigns. Outside of work, her biggest passion (some may say kryptonite) is fashion! She loves how fashion enables you to express yourself with the colours, shapes, textures, and patterns of clothes. Her bank balance, however, isn’t so keen on the insatiable clothing addiction…

The post 5 ways to stay motivated and avoid video-conferencing fatigue appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

A recent study of 1,400 information workers commissioned by Microsoft found that 40% of people work outside of regular hours in a way that interferes with family time. The report also found 70 percent of professionals don’t fully unplug from work.

With our world becoming increasingly connected and the lines blurring between our work and personal lives. The very technology that introduced the benefits of being always on and always connected, has impacted our ability focus and disconnect, reducing our productivity and disrupting our family time.

Earlier this year, as part of Mental Health Awareness Week, Casandra Marrero and I collated a series of our favourite tips on how technology has allowed us to take back control and manage a healthier mental wellbeing at work. Here are the top 7 tips that I use personally:

1. Turn off notifications

According to Forbes, 98% of the population don’t multitask very well – we are only shifting back from one task to another.

Research also shows it can take up to 23 minutes to refocus after checking just one email or chat. Not to mention, the impact that other distractions like social media can have on your attention. I sat down one day and laid out all the mobile communications apps I use on my phone onto one screen.

One day I sat down and moved all the iPhone applications that I use to communicate personally and professionally onto one screen and came up with 20 of them. It was no wonder I had trouble focusing. I found the constant notifications so disruptive to my productivity that I made a conscious effort at the beginning of the year to turn them off completely. I haven’t looked back.

Turn off your notifications and regain your focus. On an iPhone, this can easily be done by going to Settings, tap on Notifications, and for each application toggle Allow Notifications to Off. On an Android device, go to Settings, tap Sound & Notification, then scroll until you see the App notifications. For each application, toggle Block All to Off.

2. Schedule time for email

The average person checks their email about 15 times per day. It’s hard to get important work done if you’re spending most of your day responding to tactical requests from other people.

Try limiting when you check your email to 2 or 3 key times of the day. Remove the temptation by disabling new email notifications. This can easily be done in Outlook 2013 or 2016 by going to the File tab, select Options, select Mail, and in the ‘Message arrival’ section, un-check ‘Display a Desktop Alert’ and ‘Show an envelope icon on the taskbar’.

3. Book focus time each week

There used to be weeks where my days were so jam packed full of meetings that I’d get home and spend the evening catching up on actions and emails. I also found it hard to get deeply involved in challenging work when I only had small chunks of time to focus in between meetings.

I started blocking out time every day or week to focus without interruptions to help me improve my concentration and effectiveness. MyAnalytics in Outlook can help suggest and book focus time on your behalf, particularly if it looks like your calendar is filling up. Go to MyAnalytics to open your personal dashboard.

We recently announced some exciting new focus features coming to MyAnalytics. When these features roll out, your status in Microsoft Teams will automatically switch to Focus during booked focus time to help you concentrate. You will only get notifications for messages that are urgent or from contacts with priority access.

4. Stay on top of your tasks

A great way to get something off your mind is to note it down. But how many to-do lists do you currently have? Perhaps a grocery list on the back of an envelope, possibly a list of things to–do in notes or an app on your phone and maybe some tasks in Outlook?

But what about those emails that you’ve flagged to get back to? And what if someone has assigned you a task in Planner?

One way to stay on top of all these tasks is to use an application like Microsoft To Do which is available for free, and syncs across iPhone, Android, Windows 10, and the web. To Do is integrated with Outlook Tasks, making it easier to manage all your tasks in one place.

Planner tasks assigned to you will also now appear in To-Do under a new Assigned to Me list.

5. Try using a digital assistant to save time

One of my biggest stresses at work used to be trying to find a mutually agreeable time to meet for a call, particularly when the attendees were external to my organisation and calendar free-busy information wasn’t available. I used to have to go back–and–forth with options and found it incredibly time consuming.

Not everyone can afford to have their own personal assistant, but how about a digital assistant? Now when I need to schedule some time to meet I used Calendar.help (calendar.help). I simply cc: Cortana in an email with other people and ask her to schedule a meeting. Cortana handles all the back-and-forth emails to find a time when everyone can meet and then sends out an invite on my behalf. I can even predefine what number to call, which meeting room to book or whether to add online meeting details by default.

Cortana.help is currently in exclusive preview. Other great tools that can help relieve the burden of booking meetings include Outlook plugins like Findtime and intelligent assistants like Zoom.ai that integrate with your chat apps and email.

6. Be mindful of after-hours impact on others

I love working for an organisation that fully supports flexible working. This means that I’m able balance personal commitments like school sporting events or parent-teacher conferences with my work commitments; allowing me the flexibility to take time out during the day and catch up in the evening. While some of us may be night owls or choose to work after hours to catch up or prepare for a busy day ahead, we need to be mindful of the impact that this work habit may have on others.

This is particularly important for people managers in setting expectations around availability where a study states that “employees do not need to spend actual time on work in their off-hours to experience the harmful effects. The mere expectations of availability increase strain for employees and their significant others –even when employees do not engage in actual work during non-work time.”

MyAnalytics in Outlook can show you the after-hours impact you impose on co-workers and coaches you towards building better work habits. If you must work late, trying saving emails to draft or delaying email delivery until business hours.

MyAnalytics in Outlook can show you the after-hours impact you impose on co-workers and coaches you towards building better work habits. If you must work late, trying saving emails to draft or delaying email delivery until business hours. 

7. Set yourself boundaries

A study of 1,400 information workers commissioned by Microsoft found that 40% of people work outside of regular hours in a way that interferes with family time. The report also found 70 percent of professionals don’t fully unplug from work.

“You need to regenerate your energy. Unplugging is an emotional recharge that we all need”

Set yourself boundaries to give yourself a break and a chance to recharge. Monitor your progress through the number of Quiet Days, days where you have spent less than two hours actively collaborating outside your set work schedule, in MyAnalytics in Outlook.

Whilst we may be tempted to work long hours at times, it is important to remember that sleep is as important as eating, drinking and breathing as described by the Mental Health Foundation. Turn on the night light on your screen or use dark mode to reduce the strain on your eyes and lessen sleep disruption.

And when you’re on holiday, set your Out of Office and stop syncing Outlook on your phone to remove temptation. Additionally, consider leaving your laptop at home and feel empowered to remove work apps off your phone to avoid sneaking a peek at your emails.

About the author

Angela Bos is Microsoft UK’s Marketing Communications Manager for Executive Engagement. Prior to that, she spent 4 years at a Technology Specialist in Microsoft’s Modern Workplace team, helping public sector customers deliver better citizen services using cloud technologies. Angela is a passionate communicator, regularly speaking at Microsoft and industry events. She loves sharing ways that we can use technology to simplify how we collaborate, be more productive, and have more time for the things we enjoy. An advocate for diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, Angela currently sit on the Women@Microsoft UK Board as the Women in Technology lead, supporting activities and initiatives to attract, inspire, develop, and retain women in technology careers. 

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