Microsoft has released the first report based on data from their new Work Trend Index. The Index explores how people who are now working apart are learning to connect as a team. The Index was developed to measure how work is changing, especially amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Microsoft explains:
We’ve analyzed trillions of signals from meetings, emails, and chats to identify patterns and trends while safeguarding personal and organizational data. This data, alongside surveys and interviews with workers across the globe, provides insights about how productivity differs between industries and regions, remote work, AI, employee engagement, work-life balance, and more.
It’s an interesting report that reveals just how sudden and impactful the recent work from home transformation has been and will continue to be. Here are some of the highlights (directly quoted):
- Concerning Microsoft Teams – Microsoft saw a new daily record of 2.7 billion meeting minutes in one day, a 200 percent increase from 900 million on March 16. And as students and teachers turn to Teams for distance learning, there are 183,000 tenants in 175 countries using Teams for Education.
- People are turning on video in Teams meetings two times more than before many of us began working from home full-time.
- From March 1–
31, the average time between a person’s first use of Teams and last use of Teams each day increased by over one hour. This data doesn’t necessarily mean people are working more hours per day, rather that they are breaking up the day in a way that works for their personal productivity or makes space for obligations outside of work. - The number of weekly Teams mobile users grew more than 300 percent from early February to March 31. Some of [the] largest usage increases have been from customers in industries most impacted by the outbreak.
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