Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Yeah, this is Bloomberg Business Week on this Monday,
Speaker 1: Carol Messer and our Bloomberg Interactive Broker's Studio on Monday, December.
Speaker 1: So we talked about the commercial real estate market earlier.
Speaker 1: We're all really trying to assess what will be the
Speaker 1: longer lasting impact of the pandemic on that market, and
Speaker 1: just like we're watching the trends created by the pandemic
Speaker 1: on how we work and on American workers overall. And
Speaker 1: on that point, I recently hosted a panel on the
Speaker 1: pulse of the American work in the future of work.
Speaker 1: Really digging into that. On that panel was jared' Spataro,
Speaker 1: corporate vice president of Microsoft three five. He had so
Speaker 1: many great statistics and findings that he and his team
Speaker 1: had pulled together and he shared with us, So I
Speaker 1: knew we had to do a little bit more. Jared
Speaker 1: joins us on this Monday on the phone in Seattle, Washington. Jared,
Speaker 1: it is so nice to have you here. How are you.
Speaker 1: I'm doing great, Carol, Thanks for having me. Really looking
Speaker 1: forward to our conversation. Me too, because I was blown away.
Speaker 1: I know you guys are doing really digging deep into
Speaker 1: cut up finding out how we are we're working right now,
Speaker 1: and then you know, kind of making some conclusions off
Speaker 1: of that. So it is about a month since we
Speaker 1: last talked on that panel, how are things going for
Speaker 1: you and your team? And the longer this goes on,
Speaker 1: what are you finding in terms of those that are
Speaker 1: working on Microsoft platforms how they are working now? You're
Speaker 1: bet you know, since we've spoken, we continued to see
Speaker 1: a surge of COVID and that's changed the outside environment
Speaker 1: quite a bit. Um We have really tried, as I
Speaker 1: indicated them, to just be students of the moment and
Speaker 1: try and take in data from as many sources as
Speaker 1: we can and then piece together a mosaic a little
Speaker 1: bit of what's going on and where do we think
Speaker 1: it'll it'll go. Some of the numbers for me are
Speaker 1: really pretty astounding. I'll give you a couple thinking of
Speaker 1: one of our products called Microsoft Teams. This is a
Speaker 1: product that brings together, for instance, meetings and chat and
Speaker 1: team workspaces. Teams users have had more meetings and calls
Speaker 1: per week now than they did pre pandemic. In addition,
Speaker 1: the work they span and teams, so that's the time
Speaker 1: between the first and the last active log in is
Speaker 1: up by an hour in many countries in the world.
Speaker 1: In some countries like Australian Singapore, it's up by over
Speaker 1: two hours. And then that's even bleeding over into the weekends.
Speaker 1: Teams chats on the weekend have spike since before the pandemic,
Speaker 1: So there's a lot going on. I think workers all
Speaker 1: across the world are really feeling the stresses of this
Speaker 1: remote work and kind of trying to adapt. So none
Speaker 1: of that's really changed. I mean, those trend lines have
Speaker 1: stayed pretty consistent. They have. Um, we saw some countries
Speaker 1: starting to add back, as an example of university states
Speaker 1: in Western Europe, there was this hope that we could
Speaker 1: kind of get back. But during the spikes that we
Speaker 1: have seen in both places here in the winter, UM,
Speaker 1: we've just continued to see people, you know, moving backwards
Speaker 1: kind of in their progression, deciding we need to stay
Speaker 1: remote for a while. So those trends just continue for us.
Speaker 1: I wonder, and I don't know if you guys are
Speaker 1: measuring this, measuring this, so forgive me if I'm going
Speaker 1: to no place that you guys aren't. But I wonder
Speaker 1: about productivity because there is such a debate are about
Speaker 1: you know, people working from home? Are they as productive?
Speaker 1: I mean I felt like I was really productive of
Speaker 1: at home, and there were certain areas that I never
Speaker 1: were able to really make inroads on that I did
Speaker 1: at home, and vice verse. So I just wonder what
Speaker 1: people are seeing. You know. There was a really good
Speaker 1: article in the Well Street Journal today that I picked
Speaker 1: up on, and I thought one of the conclusions there
Speaker 1: is worth repeating. Maybe it says that the research essentially says,
Speaker 1: you know, productivity for a lot of people is up
Speaker 1: for all the reasons that you say it, but it's
Speaker 1: coming at a cost. Again to data points that give
Speaker 1: us some sense. When we recently went out and around
Speaker 1: the world pulled workers just across different countries, we found
Speaker 1: that over thirty percent of workers, and that was in
Speaker 1: a pool of six thousand people we as so thirty
Speaker 1: percent of them said that the pandemic can increase their
Speaker 1: sense of burnout at work. Imagine that almost a third
Speaker 1: of people saying I feel more burned out, and then
Speaker 1: a third of remote workers say that the lack of
Speaker 1: separation between work and life. So roughly about the same
Speaker 1: as negatively impacting what they would call their well being
Speaker 1: just overall. So I think productivity is up for many
Speaker 1: for many companies, many firms, but there is a cost
Speaker 1: associated with it. Well, and I wonder, you know, you
Speaker 1: guys talk this stuff, how much of it do you think? It?
Speaker 1: Was interesting? I was just talking with Ken Swig Swig Equities,
Speaker 1: who is very involved in the commercial real estate market
Speaker 1: UM in New York and elsewhere on the country, and
Speaker 1: just this whole concept of working from home, you know,
Speaker 1: how much of it sticks ultimately going forward? And I'm
Speaker 1: just curious. Microsoft is a company right that has said,
Speaker 1: you guys want to work from home, you can continue
Speaker 1: doing that, you know after the pandemic. How much of
Speaker 1: some of the trends that we're seeing, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: after hours weekend, how much of it do you think
Speaker 1: ultimately sticks. We'll take a step back for a second.
Speaker 1: I think I would frame it this way. Um, when
Speaker 1: we look at what people are learning during this pandemic,
Speaker 1: they are learning that in many instances, they can use
Speaker 1: digital connections to more easily, more conveniently connect with other
Speaker 1: people when they previously had relied on physically being present.
Speaker 1: You know, right with someone. And so then if we
Speaker 1: kind of translate that into what are they saying about
Speaker 1: work post pandemic, we found that um, excuse me, managers
Speaker 1: expect to have more flexible work from home policies post pandemic.
Speaker 1: So overcent of managers saying, yeah, we expect that we
Speaker 1: will give people the option to work from home. Seven
Speaker 1: one percent of employees want to continue to work from
Speaker 1: home at least part time, and part time in many
Speaker 1: ways as we're seeing the data come in is at
Speaker 1: least two days a week. So that's a pretty big
Speaker 1: change from pre pandemic. I think almost everyone felt like
Speaker 1: they needed to show up at work. If you imagine
Speaker 1: your workforce where just across the week people who choose
Speaker 1: two of those days not to be there. We think
Speaker 1: even if just that sticks, it will dramatically change in
Speaker 1: the dynamic of how people are getting their work done
Speaker 1: and when you guys are checking out, you know, when
Speaker 1: people you're doing your research and gathering the data. I
Speaker 1: mean you're talking about employees companies from all different types
Speaker 1: of industries, correct, that's correct. Yeah, we go across all
Speaker 1: different types of industries and we try to be broad based.
Speaker 1: At one survey I decided the moment to go, for instance,
Speaker 1: with six thousand workers across the world, so across different nations,
Speaker 1: in all different industries, so we're not just looking at
Speaker 1: one We're trying to get a really nice broadly segment
Speaker 1: size so that we can make sure we see the
Speaker 1: trend well. And I wonder if you and you know,
Speaker 1: give me some insight into you know, with the promise
Speaker 1: of a vaccine. Here we are on a day where
Speaker 1: we've seen the first you know, vaccine happened in the
Speaker 1: United States, so we are seeing it's certainly a different
Speaker 1: narrative when it comes to a vaccine specifically and maybe
Speaker 1: getting some control of the virus, you know, with that
Speaker 1: promise of a vaccine here and on the horizon for
Speaker 1: for most workers, how quickly do you think we see
Speaker 1: employees kind of you know, get workers back in the
Speaker 1: office and just got about forty seconds and then we'll
Speaker 1: take a break and come back and do some more. Sure,
Speaker 1: we we think that it's going to take time for
Speaker 1: the vaccine to roll out, and so we'll see that
Speaker 1: kind of rollout over time. We love the fact that
Speaker 1: we're seeing the vaccine go to those that need it most.
Speaker 1: Perhaps healthcare workers and others. So we think that you
Speaker 1: look at one and it won't be all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: We think that there will be a long time being
Speaker 1: in this hybrid state. And is that similar to what
Speaker 1: you guys are doing internally as well? Just got forgive
Speaker 1: me saved another thirty seconds here. Well, we haven't quite
Speaker 1: made the decisions are announced exactly what we're doing internally,
Speaker 1: but our announcement has been that people won't have to
Speaker 1: come back to work, but we won't even be opened
Speaker 1: back to work until the summer, so July is what
Speaker 1: we've talked about this year. We're hearing a lot of
Speaker 1: that too here on the East coast, Jared. One of
Speaker 1: the stats when we did the panel together that stuck
Speaker 1: out for me is you guys, actually are there some
Speaker 1: research and I think you guys were involved in it
Speaker 1: or let it on brain waves and what happens when
Speaker 1: we're in a video meeting. Can you share some of
Speaker 1: that with our audience? You bet. I think all of
Speaker 1: us who have been involved in kind of these virtual
Speaker 1: meetings have helped a sense of fatigue, and so we
Speaker 1: were pretty curious about that early on, wondering you know,
Speaker 1: was it was it just made up or were we
Speaker 1: actually feeling something. So we went into the lab and
Speaker 1: actually put these sensors on people, allowed them to both
Speaker 1: interact in person and interact in virtual meetings. What we
Speaker 1: found wasn't surprising if you were in online meetings, but
Speaker 1: there was science now behind it. It turns out that
Speaker 1: these online meetings really do tax our brain more. They
Speaker 1: make it more difficult for us to concentrate, They make
Speaker 1: it more difficult for us to stay in the meetings
Speaker 1: and be productive, So that was really interesting. From there,
Speaker 1: we decided that we they're probably some innovation that was
Speaker 1: going to be necessary, and so we did create some
Speaker 1: kind of product features that were meant to address that
Speaker 1: in teams. Well, that n fun is fascinating. Look, listen,
Speaker 1: crisis leads us to different ways of doing things. And
Speaker 1: I think this whole rise and all the stuff that
Speaker 1: we've been able to do socially virtually is pretty impressive
Speaker 1: and the work that we've been able to get done.
Speaker 1: But you know, what, do you feel like you are
Speaker 1: learning about how people work and how we can maybe
Speaker 1: do it better so that it's not so taxing. Because
Speaker 1: I know when we were on the panel together, part
Speaker 1: of What we also talked about was the burnout that
Speaker 1: you've mentioned previously, and just making sure that our mental
Speaker 1: wellness was taken care of in this environment where we
Speaker 1: were connected to technology mostly not really too people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Well, that the things we found that are
Speaker 1: making a big difference um consists somewhat of technology and
Speaker 1: somewhat of just us learning new ways of doing things.
Speaker 1: So let me tell you one that was surprising to me.
Speaker 1: One of the pieces of research that we did that
Speaker 1: now has made its way into the product is the
Speaker 1: idea of virtual commute. Awesome, not to be able to
Speaker 1: not to have to jump into a car and or
Speaker 1: a subway and commute into work, But what we found
Speaker 1: was that people were having a really high hard time
Speaker 1: creating boundaries between their work and life. And so we've
Speaker 1: actually introduced a bot into the team's environment that allows
Speaker 1: people to kind of ramp up into their work day,
Speaker 1: have just a little bit of a buffer, and then
Speaker 1: to ramp down out of the work day to really
Speaker 1: process what happened. As funny as it may sound, that
Speaker 1: makes a huge difference. We actually found that that the
Speaker 1: people in our research said that they felt like it
Speaker 1: impacted their productivity in really positive ways, and so we've
Speaker 1: introduced that into the product. We've also done some really
Speaker 1: interesting things that I wouldn't have guessed made a difference.
Speaker 1: Going back to the idea of the brain wave study,
Speaker 1: we found that one of the things that was happening
Speaker 1: is that we stare at each other in this Brady
Speaker 1: bunch few oftentimes of just everybody together. We see our
Speaker 1: backgrounds and that makes it hard for each of those
Speaker 1: different squares that it's hard for our brains to parse
Speaker 1: out kind of the social cues were used to seeing
Speaker 1: the nodding, turning away, the yawning, and so we found
Speaker 1: it by using a check knowledgy, we could cut people
Speaker 1: out of their backgrounds, put them into a shared background,
Speaker 1: and the brain actually reacts remarkably well. Of that, we
Speaker 1: feel more connected number one and number two, the amount
Speaker 1: of effort required to read those cues goes down. And
Speaker 1: so again that's that's an application of technology that we
Speaker 1: think is pretty novel. So there are these types of
Speaker 1: things that can really help us, and we'll make a
Speaker 1: difference a little longer. Yeah, that's really fascinating, right, and
Speaker 1: you do wonder you know, we know, listen, we've been
Speaker 1: so critical of our kids sitting in front of screens, right,
Speaker 1: and you know that there is an impact of that.
Speaker 1: And yet here we have been doing it now for
Speaker 1: you know, nine months and counting, and and there is
Speaker 1: an impact. And so we can figure out ways to
Speaker 1: do it where it's healthier and better. Um, that's the
Speaker 1: way to go. Indeed, you know, the the other thing
Speaker 1: I'll note is, in some ways, when you have a hammer,
Speaker 1: everything looks like a nail. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: happened in this pandemic. You know, we couldn't walk down
Speaker 1: the hall and see each other, and so all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, man our only way to get in touch
Speaker 1: was to start up an online meeting. And we are
Speaker 1: finding that increasingly people are learning, gosh, I don't have
Speaker 1: to do everything and a meeting. And fact, we talk
Speaker 1: about the flow of work contains meetings. You know, as
Speaker 1: you get things done, you certainly want to meet together
Speaker 1: and do things. But increasingly people are getting back to
Speaker 1: a little bit more normalized flow where sometimes they work
Speaker 1: on their own, sometimes in small groups. Sometimes it's just
Speaker 1: a chat, sometimes a voice call, sometimes a full fledged meeting,
Speaker 1: but varying kind of the mode that you're working really
Speaker 1: makes a difference in your ability to also concentrate and
Speaker 1: to get that work. I love that you said that,
Speaker 1: because I've done that to a couple of people now
Speaker 1: and then just said, you know, we can just talk
Speaker 1: on the phone. We'll be good. We'll be good exactly. Hey, listen,
Speaker 1: one of the things that's so important of the work
Speaker 1: that you're doing is that you know, we have talked
Speaker 1: about this a lot, that the pandemic has really uh
Speaker 1: laid bare once again so many inequities in our society,
Speaker 1: and that includes the skills gap. And I do think
Speaker 1: how are you guys thinking about that um in terms
Speaker 1: of trying to maybe act as a community, the tech community,
Speaker 1: you know, working to make sure that people aren't once
Speaker 1: again left behind. Here. Well, let's take a look at
Speaker 1: the numbers, because I think they again give us the backdrop.
Speaker 1: According to our calcul relations, we think global unemployment in
Speaker 1: this year before we finish over the next few weeks
Speaker 1: may reach a quarter of a billion people. So the
Speaker 1: numbers are pretty big. At the same time, we see
Speaker 1: opportunity because over the next five years, we estimate that
Speaker 1: the global workforce will be able to produce, to create
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty million new tech oriented jobs. So
Speaker 1: we look at that kind of tension between the two
Speaker 1: and have looked long term at kind of what's happening
Speaker 1: in this skills gap and what are the big trends
Speaker 1: that we can address. We've seen three things. First, there
Speaker 1: is a rapid emergence of AHI power technologies that are
Speaker 1: definitely propelling a new era of technology coming into the workforce,
Speaker 1: so you know, we feel it and the numbers bear
Speaker 1: us out. Second, um we're increasingly seeing that people need
Speaker 1: these technological skills, they need technology acumen to get their
Speaker 1: work done. And then third is the real counter balancing one.
Speaker 1: Even though those first two are true, we've seen employers
Speaker 1: actually reduced their training investments over the past two decades
Speaker 1: and employees so more need but less training happening. So
Speaker 1: as we looked at that ten ship and kind of
Speaker 1: have the shape of that tension. In June, we actually
Speaker 1: launched something called the Microsoft Global Skills Initiative, and this
Speaker 1: is where we decided that we were going to help
Speaker 1: twenty five million people worldwide game more digital skills, particularly
Speaker 1: in this year right and year today, we've been able
Speaker 1: to get thirteen million learners in every US state in
Speaker 1: two or thirty one country. So we're excited. We still
Speaker 1: have work to do, but we're excited that we're starting
Speaker 1: to be able to reach out right. And it's amazing
Speaker 1: how like just all this stuff is is ramping up
Speaker 1: and reaching out to people who really need it. Um, Jared,
Speaker 1: I see, I knew it when we heard these statistics.
Speaker 1: I knew we needed to dig even deeper. So thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on and sharing that with
Speaker 1: our audience really appreciated. Jared's Pitaro, he's corporate vice president
Speaker 1: at Microsoft three sixty five, joining us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Seattle, Washington. Really just digging down into the numbers
Speaker 1: based on what they're seeing on those Microsoft platforms in
Speaker 1: terms of how we've been working, what the impact has been,
Speaker 1: and uh, how we can maybe learn from it, And
Speaker 1: they certainly are in terms of some of their initiatives