Jared Spataro and Emma Williams, two corporate vice presidents at Microsoft, spoke at the Bloomberg Work Shifting 2.0 Summit to discuss facets of the modern work landscape. During their session, Spataro shared a bit of insight into Microsoft’s thought processes on the matter. He talked about his company’s mindset when it comes to designing spaces for people who aren’t physically there, which he boiled down to a “good, better, best” approach.
When discussing minimal changes that can be made to better accommodate hybrid workers, Spataro said “you can start with some great, y’know, fantastic software, cloud-based software. Pair that up with some really good hardware, and without changing anything else in the room, you’re already on your way.” That’s what he defined as a “good” approach. He then moved on to what constitutes a “better” approach for hybrid conferences, wherein a room’s furniture is arranged so that digital participants can see everyone with ease. And the “best” approach from Microsoft’s perspective, as told by Spataro, was to design rooms from the ground up with hybrid communication in mind, though he acknowledged that not every room in an organization would need to go this far.
Williams, meanwhile, discussed the digitization of modern workforces. “We saw 400% increase in Teams monthly usage since March 2020,” she said. She also noted that a third of frontline workers Microsoft surveyed said they “still don’t have the tech” to effectively do their jobs. That’s why Microsoft Teams has been putting an emphasis on services and utilities that can benefit frontline workers.
You can see the full talk over at Bloomberg, or read up on other work-from-home-related insights Microsoft has shared over the past year.
