What Makes Workers 'Thrive'? Microsoft Study Suggests Shorter Workweeks and Less Collaboration

Microsoft describes 'thriving' at work as being 'energized and empowered to do meaningful work.'

So Microsoft's 'people analytics' chief and its 'culture measurements' director teamed up for a report in Harvard Business Review exploring 'as we enter the hybrid work era... how thriving can be unlocked across different work locations, professions, and ways of working.'

ZDNet columnist Chris Matyszczyk took special note of the researchers' observation that 'Employees who weren't thriving talked about experiencing siloes, bureaucracy, and a lack of collaboration,' asking playfully, 'Does that sound like Microsoft to you?'

Klinghoffer and McCune were undeterred in their search for the secret of happiness. They examined those who spoke most positively about thriving at work and work-life balance. They reached a startling picture of a happy Microsoft employee. They said: 'By combining sentiment data with de-identified calendar and email metadata, we found that those with the best of both worlds had five fewer hours in their workweek span, five fewer collaboration hours, three more focus hours, and 17 fewer employees in their internal network size.'

Five fewer collaboration hours? 17 fewer employees in their internal network? Does this suggest that the teamwork mantra isn't working so well? Does it, in fact, intimate that collaboration may have become a buzzword for a collective that is more a bureaucracy than a truly productive organism?

Klinghoffer and McCune say collaboration isn't bad in itself. However, they say: 'It is important to be mindful of how intense collaboration can impact work-life balance, and leaders and employees alike should guard against that intensity becoming 24/7.'

If you're a leader, you have a way to stop it. If you're an employee, not so much.

The Microsoft researchers' conclusion? 'Thriving takes a village' (highlighting the importance of managers), and that 'the most common thread among those who were not thriving was a feeling of exclusion — from a lack of collaboration to feeling left out of decisions to struggling with politics and bureaucracy.'

Matyszczyk's conclusion? 'It's heartening to learn, though, that perhaps the most important element to making an employee happy at work is giving them time to, well, actually work.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.