Microsoft Workplace Analytics: Engine oil for your business

Microsoft Workplace Analytics: Engine oil for your business

How Microsoft Workplace Analytics Can Power Your Business Decisions

 

What’s going on under the bonnet of your business? With hundreds or even thousands of things going on day-to-day, where do you begin? What should you measure? And it’s all very well gathering data, but it’s what you do with it that counts. Otherwise, it’s like running a survey and doing nothing with the results.

 

Enter Microsoft Workplace Analytics, which not only collects information on your business; it presents it in meaningful ways to help inform change. Join Jon Nish, one of our principal consultants and a Microsoft Workplace Analytics expert, for a quick spin of this business intelligence tool.

 

What is Microsoft Workplace Analytics?

For context, let’s kick off with Microsoft MyAnalytics. So much of what we do in our personal lives is measured – from the calories we eat to the steps we walk. MyAnalytics (MA) drills into how you spend your working life, helping you to become more productive.

 

But it’s not all about getting stuff done; one of the cool things about MA is that it guides you towards a better work-life balance. For example, by flagging when you’re spending a disproportionate amount of time answering emails out of hours, and by identifying quiet focus space.

 

Microsoft Analytics

Image courtesy of Microsoft

 

And as a manager, MA benefits you by equipping your team with individual, personalised insights that will nudge them to work smarter.

 

Microsoft Workplace Analytics is MyAnalytics big brother, but not in the Orwellian sense. Workplace Analytics aggregates and anonymises the personal data of everyone in your organisation. The analytics enable you to monitor the health of your business – take your people’s collective temperature if you like – and see the impact of change programmes over time.

 

What does Microsoft Analytics tell me?

Let’s take a quick tour of three core topics Workplace Analytics (WpA) can tell you about: meetings, working hours and teamwork. To show WpA in action, I’ve included graphs spanning these topics.

 

The effectiveness of your meetings

WpA will give you insights into meetings that are significantly longer than others, or those with a high level of attendees, especially if they occur regularly. WpA also identifies disengagement in meetings, e.g. participants sending emails during them.

Analysing Meetings Graph

Analysing Meetings by Attendees and Duration. Att’s = number of attendees

 

The example above shows challenges with meetings. 29% had more than 51 attendees, and some lasted longer than two hours. There’s also a problem with ‘bloated’ meetings – 15% of them had between 19 and 50 attendees present and lasted up to two hours. More coffee, anyone?

Workload meetings graph

Identifying who is generating the most meetings

 

And above, Microsoft Workplace Analytics is telling you that 20% of staff are generating more than 80% of meetings.

 

How are your people managing their time?

WpA also tells you how your people are using their time. Of course, you’d expect people to be busy during regular working hours, but excessive activity late in the evening or over weekends may indicate a broader issue needing attention.

 

Collaboration scatter graph

Analysing multitasking and collaboration

 

Multitasking here is where people are sending emails during 25 to 50% of meeting time. And the dots in the top right corner of the chart show incidences of staff collaborating between 40-60 hours a week.

 

How different teams perform and compare

Which teams are high functioning? Well supported teams with good one-one coaching typically enjoy more efficient meetings and demonstrate better sales or productivity metrics.

 

The workplace intelligence can reveal surprising new insights about the way work gets done, empowering you to explain and even predict the impact of everyday actions.

 

 

How does Microsoft Analytics work?

When your people use collaboration tools like chat, email, and calendar, they generate digital footprints that are captured in the Microsoft Graph. Microsoft Workplace Analytics applies intelligence to the data behind the Microsoft Graph so you can turn the insights into action.

 

As a business leader, you can explore opportunities to impact business results using aggregated, de-identified data. You can use these insights to:

 

  • Simplify human processes and complexity
  • Develop better managers for higher staff engagement and retention
  • Build effective sales teams and strategies
  • Measure the actual costs of business activities and relationships
  • Identify bloated meetings and time-saving opportunities
  • Compare manager effectiveness by division
  • Understand how after-hours collaboration impacts employee wellness
  • Measure the impact of change over time and adjust and recalibrate as necessary

 

Ultimately, by using Workplace Analytics, you’ll gain more control over business outcomes.

 

How do I get Microsoft Workplace Analytics?

Microsoft Workplace Analytics is a premium feature which requires configuration by a Microsoft partner. Content+Cloud is proud to be a Microsoft Content Services Preferred Partner. We work with our customers to onboard the tooling and bring their data to life with analysis and interpretation.

 

Through regular reviews and tailored employee plans, we’ll collaborate with to you identify opportunities and share best practice. And we can evidence how organisations not dissimilar to yours are saving money and making their employees and happier and healthier.

 

Where can I learn more about Workplace Analytics?

Join us over 10 and 11 November for Digital Revolution Live 2020. Our packed event includes a session hosted by our Jon Nish and Chris Brown of Microsoft, called Microsoft workplace analytics: understand employee motivation, performance and wellbeing.

 

You’re welcome to join Jon, Chris and the rest of our team, alongside a dynamic line up of guest speakers. Register for this free event by clicking the button below.

 

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