Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. Microsoft is that
Speaker 1: with another round of data points about how we have
Speaker 1: been working during the pandemic, where we are today. So
Speaker 1: let's get more on this. This is going to be
Speaker 1: part of our Workshift event are Bloomberg Live event that
Speaker 1: Tim and I are participating in on Wednesday. Great to
Speaker 1: have back with us, Jared's Pitaro. He's corporate vice president
Speaker 1: of Microsoft uh and he joins us on the phone
Speaker 1: in Redmond, Washington. Jared, great to have you back. How
Speaker 1: are you. I'm doing great, Thanks for having me. Carol. Well, well,
Speaker 1: it's great to have you here. And we don't want
Speaker 1: to give away all the data points, but we do
Speaker 1: want to kind of cue up our event on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: but tell us about the data collection. Remind our audience,
Speaker 1: you know who you're talking to, what types of questions
Speaker 1: and information you were after. Of course, so when all
Speaker 1: of this started to happen about a year ago, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things I knew for certain, probably the
Speaker 1: only thing I knew for certain, is that we just
Speaker 1: needed to get some data, like we needed to become
Speaker 1: students of the moment. So over the course of this
Speaker 1: last twelve month period, we have periodically been taking samples
Speaker 1: as we go out and find out across the world
Speaker 1: how people are doing. This last report that we published
Speaker 1: is a survey of over thirty thousand people in thirty
Speaker 1: one countries. It's all sorts of different mixes of roles
Speaker 1: and industries, so you see everyone from typical knowledge worker
Speaker 1: that you might see an in office to people who
Speaker 1: are working on the front lines. We're getting a good
Speaker 1: sense of how people are feeling and what they're valuing
Speaker 1: and what their challenges are. How are we doing? I mean,
Speaker 1: like I gotta tell you, uh, just talking to friends,
Speaker 1: reading about how people are feeling, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are at their wits end. You know, that
Speaker 1: is essentially what the data says. But let me let
Speaker 1: me kind of pull out a couple of points that
Speaker 1: really caught my attention. If you asked leaders, they actually
Speaker 1: say they're doing pretty well. Sixty of leaders say that
Speaker 1: they are thriving. But that's twenty three percentage points higher
Speaker 1: than those without decision making authority. When we get down
Speaker 1: to the average worker and ask them, how are we doing?
Speaker 1: Then those numbers, I think, you know, really hit that
Speaker 1: feeling that we all feel around us. Um fifty four
Speaker 1: percent of workers globally say that they feel overworked, say
Speaker 1: that they feel exhausted. So there is a sense of
Speaker 1: exasperation that it's been a very long year and very
Speaker 1: challenging here. Well, the thing that that says to me, Jared,
Speaker 1: is that we've got to make sure that leaders are
Speaker 1: in sync with workers, right, because leaders ultimately said policy
Speaker 1: that's right. I mean, the way I look at this,
Speaker 1: if we take a step back for a moment, you know,
Speaker 1: I think this is one of those once in a
Speaker 1: lifetime shocks that comes to an economy, that comes to
Speaker 1: a business, that comes to organizations, and and in fact,
Speaker 1: what the data seems to point out is that leaders
Speaker 1: are not in sync, that they need a little bit
Speaker 1: of a wake up call. I think so many leaders
Speaker 1: are just kind of thinking we're going to go back
Speaker 1: to the way it was in January, and that's just
Speaker 1: not the case. And so this wake up call, I
Speaker 1: think is a moment for all of us to look
Speaker 1: around and recognize things have changed. The labor market has changed,
Speaker 1: employee sentiment has changed, to how we do things has changed.
Speaker 1: It really is a moment that demands vision and leadership.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're trying to point out in the
Speaker 1: data is that there's there's an opportunity for so much
Speaker 1: good there. But at the same time, if we just
Speaker 1: let it unfold on its own, under its own weight,
Speaker 1: there's an opportunity for some downside to look such a
Speaker 1: disconnect between the way that workers feel and the way
Speaker 1: that managers feel. How did the two meet? How do workers?
Speaker 1: How do you know? How do managers rise to the
Speaker 1: occasion here? Well, let's first talk a little a little
Speaker 1: bit about what we're hearing from both sides. So when
Speaker 1: we talk to workers, we hear that over seventy percent
Speaker 1: of them want flexible remote work to stay in some forms.
Speaker 1: In other words, they're saying, I like the flexibility. Just anecdotally,
Speaker 1: when I talk to people on my team out here
Speaker 1: on the West Coast, they say things like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm eating breakfast with my kids for the very first time.
Speaker 1: I've never done that before. I'd like that to stick around.
Speaker 1: So they like that. At the same time, those same people,
Speaker 1: sixty percent of them say that they want more in
Speaker 1: person time with their teams. So they're saying, please give
Speaker 1: me flexibility, but at the same time, give me the
Speaker 1: opportunity to get back in person. Now when we look
Speaker 1: at it, managers or leaders, on the other hand, they
Speaker 1: are recognizing that that flexibility is valuable. Over eight percent
Speaker 1: of them plan to keep more flexible remote from work
Speaker 1: from home policies post pandemic. So I think the meeting
Speaker 1: the way I would term it is we want the
Speaker 1: best of all worlds. We want people to be able
Speaker 1: to work together, workers and managers to find kind of
Speaker 1: that best of all worlds set up so that everybody
Speaker 1: is getting things that that benefit them. And I believe that,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a bright future head it will grab
Speaker 1: onto them work together. Hey, Jared, what about demographic differences,
Speaker 1: age differences when it comes to all of this. You know,
Speaker 1: we definitely saw that if we go back to that
Speaker 1: idea that we're trying to understand who's living and who's
Speaker 1: not doing so well, if I just point to gen Z,
Speaker 1: that's a very interesting data point for a sixty percent
Speaker 1: of gen Z say that they're just surviving or even
Speaker 1: struggling right now during the current set up. And so
Speaker 1: essentially what we're seeing is that this generation is more
Speaker 1: likely to be single early in career. They are definitely
Speaker 1: feeling the effects of kind of the impact of isolation,
Speaker 1: struggle with motivation at work. They don't have the same
Speaker 1: financial means as those who are more established, and so
Speaker 1: gen Z in particular reads needs I think, you know,
Speaker 1: some energy and some attention, because after all, you know,
Speaker 1: from our perspective, they are the future of work. When
Speaker 1: we talk about it, it has to do with people,
Speaker 1: and that's the generation that's going to help us. How
Speaker 1: do we do it though? That's like I keep I
Speaker 1: keep thinking about this from the perspective of just talking
Speaker 1: to my friends over the last year, which has been
Speaker 1: want of struggle, especially people who have kids. We only
Speaker 1: have about well, no, we we have a little bit
Speaker 1: of time. So I want to make sure that we
Speaker 1: we tease this out a little bit. What is the
Speaker 1: what is the right way for us to approach this
Speaker 1: when it comes to balancing our working lives. You did
Speaker 1: mention that for the first time parents are able to
Speaker 1: be breakfast with their kids. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it also means that there isn't that separation between work
Speaker 1: and home life. Yes, definitely, that's something that people are
Speaker 1: struggling with there's this idea of how do I put
Speaker 1: boundaries on what I'm doing? So we you know, in
Speaker 1: many ways, I think that you should kind of internalize
Speaker 1: that we have become the first truly always on digital workforce,
Speaker 1: you know, and that was forced upon us starting last year,
Speaker 1: and we just didn't have the norms or the boundaries
Speaker 1: or the kind of cultural things that we needed to
Speaker 1: deal with it. So our recommendation from the data is
Speaker 1: that companies take a step back and they think about
Speaker 1: a couple of key things. They think about new norms
Speaker 1: that they want to establish, kind of new approaches that
Speaker 1: they think will be important, and even new policies that
Speaker 1: will help them out. So Microsoft, as an example, we've
Speaker 1: we've already made the announcement that our workers can work
Speaker 1: from home of the time, and what we're trying to
Speaker 1: do there is signal we think in person time is important,
Speaker 1: that FaceTime will be important. At the same time, we
Speaker 1: want to give employees more flexibility than they had before
Speaker 1: the pandemic to do some of those things that really
Speaker 1: matter to them. And then I'm happy to talk about
Speaker 1: kind of some of the other investments I think companies
Speaker 1: need to make because it's more than just the policy.
Speaker 1: You actually we think have to invest in key areas.
Speaker 1: But that's a good start. Well that's interesting. So where
Speaker 1: do you think you know companies need to invest because
Speaker 1: it also sounds like on the other side, I know
Speaker 1: you guys did some work with LinkedIn. You know specifically
Speaker 1: employees are looking for that flexibility when they go searching
Speaker 1: for a job. Absolutely, I mean, one of the data
Speaker 1: points that definitely caught my attention was the remote job
Speaker 1: postings on Lincoln increased more than five times during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and we saw that it was women, gen z and
Speaker 1: those without graduate degrees who are more likely to apply
Speaker 1: for those jobs. So we see a really interesting thing
Speaker 1: happening here with the labor market, where again this could
Speaker 1: be a real upside coming out of this new world
Speaker 1: of work. Now in terms of investments and things that
Speaker 1: we think that people need to do, we think that
Speaker 1: there needs to be more investment in kind of first
Speaker 1: just the people, the soft side of how work gets done.
Speaker 1: We think that companies, as an example, really need to
Speaker 1: lean into well being and helping their employees understand you
Speaker 1: just aren't going to perform well if you're trying to
Speaker 1: work twenty four seven. That's a little bit different than
Speaker 1: you know, I think most companies would would try and
Speaker 1: do it. But how do you make that argument to
Speaker 1: a company that's just focused on the bottom line? Like,
Speaker 1: how do you convince them that this is an investment
Speaker 1: that they need to make, Like what are the numbers
Speaker 1: that you can show them that say, hey, this is
Speaker 1: something that is vital to the success of your company.
Speaker 1: You bet. I think what you do is you appeal
Speaker 1: to the bot mine. Our perspective has been what the
Speaker 1: numbers are starting to show us is that you can't
Speaker 1: treat people like machines and try and increase their productivity
Speaker 1: by just simply increasing their uptime. It turns out humans
Speaker 1: aren't like that. Instead, you have to think about people
Speaker 1: in terms of performance, the way we think about high
Speaker 1: performance in elite athletes as an example. Those folks need
Speaker 1: to train and need their work, but they also need
Speaker 1: downtime and they need boundaries. And that's what we're seeing
Speaker 1: from the science is that that's what companies are going
Speaker 1: to have to lean into to get the most out
Speaker 1: of their employees going forward. So there's still work to do,
Speaker 1: but there's science there. We think we can rely on. Well,
Speaker 1: I would assume at some point to those productivity numbers
Speaker 1: show up that people are getting burned out and they're
Speaker 1: not as productive, because I definitely felt early on, you know,
Speaker 1: working from home for many months that I was incredibly
Speaker 1: productive and I got more because I wasn't commuting and
Speaker 1: there were things that weren't I wasn't doing that I
Speaker 1: could just kind of plow into my jobs. But there
Speaker 1: was a point where, like not having that delineation jared
Speaker 1: between work and home, that I started to get burnt out. Oh. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: You know, what's what's most interesting to me is that
Speaker 1: productivity has actually either stayed the same in many industries
Speaker 1: or in some cases gone up during this time. But
Speaker 1: it's been the result of exactly what you're saying, people
Speaker 1: just working themselves so hard because they want to make
Speaker 1: sure they're contributing to the company. Is It's fascinating to
Speaker 1: me that one of the biggest questions we feelded early
Speaker 1: on in the pandemic is will our employees really work
Speaker 1: or will they watch Netflix? And you know, twelve months
Speaker 1: into it, we're realizing, wow, did they ever work? In fact,
Speaker 1: we've got to figure out how to help them stop working.
Speaker 1: And watch the Netflix. Of course they did. You know what,
Speaker 1: It helped them to be more productive, and it was
Speaker 1: probably the office that they watched. Indeed, they were running
Speaker 1: the fields. All right, We're gonna run, Hey, Jared, Thanks
Speaker 1: so much. Looking forward to your involvement once again with
Speaker 1: one of our Bloomberg Live events. We've got Workshift coming
Speaker 1: up on Wednesday. Jared's Pitaro, corporate vice president over at Microsoft,
Speaker 1: through on the phone from Redmond, Washington,