Microsoft Ceo Says The Era Of The 9-To-5 Is Over, And That's Not Good

Microsoft says that since the outbreak, commuters have been working an average of 13 per cent longer, an increase of 46 minutes per day.

White-collar workers who telecommute are no longer just going to work from 9 to 5, more and more are constantly online, often working late into the night. This has caused concern for Microsoft (Microsoft) CEO Satya Nadella. Speaking at the Wharton Future of Work Conference last week, Nadella said managers have a responsibility to set reasonable expectations for their teams so that people are not under pressure to answer emails or complete tasks after dinner.

To improve its Teams office collaboration software and better meet the needs of its users, Microsoft has studied how often office workers access the system by tracking users' keyboard activity.

During a normal workday, productivity usually peaks in the hours before and after lunch. But the researchers found that during the epidemic, a third of white-collar workers began to experience a "third peak" of productivity late at night, between 6 and 10pm.

According to Bloomberg, Nadella said at the conference: "We measure productivity through collaboration and results metrics, but the physical and mental health of our employees is one of the most important parts of productivity. We are well aware of the impact of stress on workers, so we need to learn soft skills, such as traditional good management practices, to enable employees to take care of their physical and mental health."

Microsoft's Work Trend Index report shows that since the outbreak, workers have been working an average of 13 per cent longer each day, an increase of 46 minutes. In addition, Teams users are now sending an average of 42 per cent more messages after office hours.

In the report, Mary Chervinsky, research director of the Human Understanding and Empathy team at Microsoft Research, said that for many workers, especially those with children, it is easier to log on to the system in the evening to get extra work done. "Parents need to care for their children in the afternoons, so work in the evenings to make up for the time spent caring for them. Some make the most of the newfound flexibility of working from anywhere by adjusting their office hours. Some people need to get some breathing space in the evenings, away from message beeps and work calls, to allow themselves to really concentrate."

During the epidemic, flexibility has become the most important factor for workers and telecommuting has become the basis for many job openings, with recent data from the Future Forum, a research consortium sponsored by Slack, finding that 95% of knowledge workers want to set their own work schedules.

The "third peak" phenomenon could be the result of this new flexible work schedule. Managers don't have to ban late-night emails outright; they should give employees some autonomy to decide what time works best for them. As long as they are not waiting for a reply to an email sent in the middle of the night, they can choose to reject emails in the evening.

Shams Iqbal, Principal Researcher for Productivity and Intelligence at Microsoft Research and the Microsoft Viva Insight division, said: "'Third peak' should be available as an option for those who need it, but one of the issues we will face in the future is how to ensure that people are not working 24 hours a day, seven days a week? If people are working during all three peaks, this can lead to premature burnout."

Iqbal says that breaks during work are vital to ensure productivity and physical and mental health. One way to do this: set a time for late night emails and instant messages to be received so that they are only delivered to inboxes during general working hours.

"People often send emails at their leisure because they want to capture fleeting thoughts and avoid forgetting them, but there is no need for such emails to appear immediately in the recipient's inbox," says Iqbal. "Delayed delivery emails can kill two birds with one stone, recording the idea to avoid forgetting it and ensuring the recipient can receive it at a more convenient time."