Some really interesting analysis that shows workdays lengthened (for good reasons given) and there were more frequent meetings, but of shorter duration.
‘While weekly meeting time increased by 10% overall — we could no longer catch up in hallways or by the coffee machine, so we were scheduling more connections — individual meetings actually shrank in duration. We had 22% more meetings of 30 minutes or less and 11% fewer meetings of more than one hour.’
‘Managers are enabling employee resilience through this disruption. Employees across our team saw their work hours spike after the shift. But looking at one-on-one meetings, a key connection point in the manager-employee relationship, we found that the employees who averaged the most weekly one-on-one time with their managers experienced the smallest increase in working hours. In short, managers were buffering employees against the negative aspects of the change by helping them prioritize and protect their time.’
Probably well worth other companies also doing some introspection into how remote working has changed their norms.
See Microsoft Analyzed Data on Its Newly Remote Workforce
Here’s what it found about meetings, culture, workdays, and engagement.