Microsoft Finds Working From Home Makes Employees Busier

This month in the Harvard Business Review Microsoft released the results of a study it conducted on how its workforce has performed during the first four months of the Covid-19 pandemic. This is a little off topic for Litigation Support Tip of the Night, but given how much disruption has been caused to the workplace by the coronavirus it's good to see the results of a study by Microsoft that gives us idea of how we're all managing separated in our homes.

A key finding is that people have actually been working four more hours per week than before pandemic.

Workers whose managers who checked in with them frequently spent less time collaborating with their co-workers than employees who had managers with a more hands-off approach.

The overall trend is for employees to be available for work for a greater portion of the day. "A new 'night shift' has taken root, which employees are using to catch up on work — and not only focused individual work. The share of IMs sent between 6 PM and midnight has increased by 52%."

Employees who had previously only averaged 10 minutes of work on the weekends, have seen their weekend work triple.