RSMUS.comThe Great Resignation denotes the massive wave of employees who – resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and other economic factors – either quit their jobs or sought out a different type of work. Consequentially, this transition in the workforce led to remote work opportunities becoming more popular than ever. However, this change is not without its challenges. The work-from-home environment allows for more variance in worker output, and the term “quiet quitting” has recently come to prominence as a phrase describing employees who choose to simply fulfill the parameters outlined in their job description rather than going above and beyond. This attitude-shift regarding work moves away from the popular hustle culture in the United States, which posits that the ideal employee is willing to put in extra hours outside of the average nine-to-five schedule, work on weekends, and ask for additional work whenever possible. While one side of the quiet quitting debate uses the phrase to claim that employees are putting in the minimum amount of effort required for their role, the other side cites prioritizing their mental health over work, and the hope is to avoid overall burnout by only performing the duties assigned to them.
Instead of expecting or even demanding that employees put in extra time outside of the average nine-to-five, employers can now turn to Microsoft Viva Insights as a solution for helping workers best utilize their day to work as efficiently as possible. Viva Insights is included with any Microsoft 365 subscription (however some features are only available with additional licensing), and helps people and businesses thrive with data-driven, privacy-protected insights and recommendations to improve productivity and wellbeing. While there are other programs available that allow employers to record device keystrokes, view an employee’s screen, or even have complete access to the camera of a worker’s laptop, Viva Insights is much less intrusive. The goal of this program is for both the employee and employer to utilize various insights to maximize daily output while avoiding burnout.
Microsoft Viva Insights provides readings into five key areas, the first of which is Personal insights. These insights are only viewable by the worker, and can be found in the Viva Insights app, a Briefing email in Outlook, or in the worker’s personal Dashboard. Their purpose is to help staff learn about how they work and what changes can be made to achieve their best overall output in an efficient manner. Insights provide recommendations – such as protecting time in the day for regular breaks, focused work, and specific learning – that help improve wellbeing and boost productivity. With this clarity, the worker should be able to build a daily work schedule that allows for their best performance while maintaining their mental health.
The next focus area is Teamwork habits. This gives much-needed visibility into work habits that might lead to burnout and stress. These habits include regular after-hours work, meeting overload, or too little focus time. Workers can use these insights to help their teams strike a balance between productivity and wellbeing. They can also learn how their habits impact their team while getting suggestions on how to foster team culture. This serves to help avoid overwork while improving collaborative efforts.
Organization trends help qualifying managers and business leaders see how their work culture is affecting aspects of employee wellbeing and productivity. They can use the recommendations on the Outcomes page to see opportunities where a change could improve their business outcomes. Essentially, this view helps higher-ups manage their team in a way that maximizes workers’ potential without overextending a team member.
Similarly, Advanced insights can also help business leaders address critical questions about organizational resiliency and work culture. This provides a view into how employees’ work affects both individual staff members and the overall business. Leaders can then identify opportunities where a change in processes may improve business outcomes, as well as where they can potentially take steps to protect employee wellbeing. By streamlining daily processes and emphasizing workers’ mental health, this also serves to help avoid burnout.
Finally, through Data privacy, Viva Insights complies with applicable laws and regulations to keep personal data private and protected. When leaders view worker data, Viva Insights de-identifies an individual’s data by using pseudonymization and other techniques, such as aggregation. Instead of singling out individuals to target for punitive action, the purpose of examining employee data is for leaders to locate outliers within specific groups of workers and take action to even-out the allocation of responsibilities. For example, by setting specific parameters to search within (such as type of role), staff members can be identified by the number of extra hours they work or if they are in many more meetings throughout the day as compared to other employees in the same position. Then, leadership can work with these groups to improve workload delegation and incorporate opportunities for scheduled mental health breaks. Again, this serves to protect workers’ well-being and maintain a healthy work environment.
In this era of remote work, it is more important than ever to ensure that employees operate within a well-defined environment that not only focuses on efficiency, but also fosters opportunities to improve mental health. Microsoft Viva Insights serves this purpose by supplying an invaluable view into Personal insights, Teamwork habits, Organization trends, and Advanced insights. Coupled with Data privacy, this program allows both the employer and worker to optimize daily schedules and workloads for the best possible outcome on both sides.
To learn more about Microsoft Viva Insights and other Viva solutions reach out to our team, here.
Julius Fortaleza Klinger
Julius is a Technical Writer with the RSM Modern Work team. He supports both Modern Work and other teams through content creation and other functions.