Lessons learned from using Microsoft Viva during the pandemic to improve employee work-life balance

Keeping a pulse on employee feedback

Microsoft maintains an employee listening program through a variety of surveys. When employees shifted to working from home, the company expanded the daily pulse survey to reach more employees and added questions about employees’ perception of their productivity and work-life balance. Microsoft also changed from an annual survey to conducting companywide surveys two times a year using Glint. Dawn Klinghoffer, Vice President of HR Business Insights, explains, “We expanded our feedback mechanisms to better monitor employee sentiment, expecting a reduction in work-life balance because of the pandemic. But when the scores kept dropping and dropping, with managers’ scores typically dropping faster than employees’, we knew we had a problem.” 

Klinghoffer’s team worked to identify specific issues that might cause some people’s work-life balance to feel worse than others. Using the extensive data collected with Microsoft Viva Insights, the team identified several factors that seemed to influence work-life balance perception. These factors included time away from work, setting priorities, having enough focus time to work, and using meetings effectively. With an understanding of potential solutions to improve work-life balance, the HR team set about driving change.

Implementing a personalized approach to work

The focus for change was helping managers implement a personalized approach to work-life balance for their teams. “We’ve asked managers to talk with their employees about how and when they work, and even get into details like whether they like to get updates outside of their work hours,” says Klinghoffer. “And with our Hybrid by Design program, which provides flexibility for employees in how to return to the office, these conversations have to include where people want to work.”

Microsoft uses its Model, Coach, Care model as a set of expectations for managers. The HR team set out to help managers improve their handling of work-life balance on all three pillars. Managers receive regular coaching emails that deliver lessons on work-life balance and how to use Microsoft Viva capabilities like Focus time, whereby Viva Insights recommends booking time to focus on completing tasks, and quiet time, which mutes notifications from Outlook and Microsoft Teams according to a schedule. “We encourage managers to model habits like taking time away from work and creating focus time because those changes not only help them personally but also give their teams implicit permission to do the same,” says Klinghoffer. “That guidance extends to the coaching and caring expectations as well, where we’re helping managers have conversations about their wellbeing and long-term career growth.” Microsoft managers rose to the challenge, and on the March 2021 annual engagement survey, managers received higher scores on average than they ever had before.

Microsoft HR implemented another change to address the lack of time off, deciding to give employees five wellbeing days in addition to their other vacation and sick days. The HR team had tried encouraging time off through employee communications, but that had little impact. “We saw a strong correlation between taking time off and reported work-life balance, but with lockdown in place in many areas, employees weren’t able to travel and were choosing to save those days,” says Klinghoffer. “We added the wellbeing days to make it easier for employees to justify taking a day off just to do something fun, and the feedback was extremely positive.”

Bringing balance to the team and individual level

For Rich Kaplan, Microsoft Human Resources Viva Strategy Team Leader, ensuring work-life balance for his team has been a continuous process since forming it a few months ago. Kaplan used many of the best practices highlighted by HR to support team members located across the United States.

At first, the team was doing too many things at once. “It didn’t take long to recognize that we were having too many meetings,” explains Kaplan. “As the leader, if you drive too many meetings, you drag your whole team along with you.” The team used the effective meetings suggestions in Microsoft Viva to curtail unnecessary meetings and meeting attendance. However, Kaplan did not reduce his weekly team meetings and weekly one-on-one meetings. He prioritized those to ensure that everyone continued to feel good about their work and stayed aligned with the same goals.

Soon after his team was formed, Kaplan initiated a discussion about how and when everyone wanted to work together, using the Microsoft Developing Team Agreements guide for managers. “I feel it’s important to talk with my team about what’s important to them,” he says. “Everyone on my team has a family, and everyone deals with health issues. As the team leader, I make it clear that their priorities and health are important to me.” The team agreed to hold team meetings within the hours of 9 AM to 3 PM Pacific Time, Monday through Thursday. To help everyone stick to the plan, Kaplan implemented those boundaries with the My Team capabilities available to managers in Viva Insights.

The team also sets OKRs (objectives and key results) to make it easier for members to understand their priorities and further reduce the need for meetings. “We manage our team OKRs so that everyone understands their goals and what work needs to be done to achieve them. If it’s not on the list, then they don’t have to worry about it,” explains Amy Strande, Microsoft Viva HR Director of Business Management and Customer Zero Strategy and a member of Kaplan’s team. “We also know that we can take time off when we need it. I had a procedure on a Wednesday, and I felt comfortable taking a couple of days off knowing that I had a meeting-free day on Friday to catch up.”

Focusing on meaningful work with clear goals and a clear mind

Sunita Khatri, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Microsoft, also uses Microsoft Viva to help manage her team’s work-life balance. Khatri finds it critical to set goals to help ensure her reports direct their efforts toward meaningful work. “We recently completed our biannual OKR refresh in Ally.io. This task pushes everyone to think about what they want to accomplish and then stay organized to achieve those objectives.” Team members can look at what they have accomplished over the past six months and what they still need to do. For new employees, the OKRs provide instant visibility into each team member’s responsibilities and outline areas of impact for the next 30, 60, and 90 days.

Khatri admits that disconnecting from work hasn’t always been a strength for her. But she has become a believer after improving her productivity and seeing the benefits in modeling it for her team—and Viva nudges her to set these boundaries. “Focus time, automatically scheduled for me by Viva Insights, ensures I have uninterrupted time set aside for the upcoming week and minimize after-hours work,” says Khatri.

She also takes advantage of other Viva Insights capabilities like the Headspace meditation exercise and the quiet time feature that makes disconnecting easier. “The Headspace exercises help me take a quick break and then get back to work with a fresh mind," continues Khatri. And to encourage more time in between meetings, Sunita uses features in Outlook to schedule meetings to start five minutes after the hour. This method to ensure short breaks between meetings is becoming standard across Microsoft.

While Microsoft Viva helps teams develop positive habits, it’s not all about technology, and a personal touch is important. “One-on-one time and team meetings are a great way to tap into the indirect signals we wouldn’t otherwise get from Glint surveys or Viva Insights data to help ensure people are motivated and managing work-life integration.” Khatri uses team energy as an indicator—positive energy is often a great signal her team is aligned and moving towards collective goals and meaningful growth. 

Looking forward to a hybrid workplace

Microsoft employees can now return to their offices in many locations. As they navigate the change to hybrid work, the company’s improved focus on work-life balance should help ease some of the strain that they felt during the pandemic. Now that managers and employees have a growing set of practices that use Microsoft Viva to encourage maintaining focus time, disconnecting from work, and sticking to priority tasks, Microsoft expects employee satisfaction to remain high.

Find out more about the employee experience platform on the Viva webpage.