Inclusion and Employee Happiness

This blog is about a project I took on as an individual contributor at Microsoft to support the culture and inclusion on my growing team. I utilized mixed methods (survey and interview) in this project, and the impact was uncharacteristically positive — 42% improvement in employee satisfaction in my grow between spring and fall 2022.

Note: due to non-disclosure agreements with my former employer, some metrics of this project have been omitted.

Identifying the Opportunity

In the spring of 2022, the results of Microsoft’s twice-annual employee satisfaction survey were released. The data for my broader team of 16 (my skip-level manager and all employees) indicated a clear opportunity for improvement in the area of Work-Life Balance.

Results of the employee survey showed lower satisfaction in Work-Life Balance compared to other areas of job satisfaction. Upon seeing this, I knew I could step up and help the team improve.

I immediately knew I wanted to support team leadership in improving this aspect of working life, so I asked if I could investigate further. With their blessing, I dove in to understanding the problem.

Gathering Data

I took a two-part approach to data gathering: an anonymous survey to gather quantitative insights, and 1:1 interviews to gather qualitative insights.

For the survey, I discovered HR research which reported that employees need to feel challenged and fulfilled by their work and by non-work initiatives (i.e. “life”). The article identified 4 types of energy that a person can have: physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual. The article supposed that employees must feel all four types of energy in both work and personal life in order to feel a balanced and fulfilled life. If one or more areas is missing, the employee may not feel fulfillment and may lead to burnout.

Areas of Energy

• Physical energy: being physically present; ability to complete tasks
• Emotional energy: feeling engaged and connected to task and those around you
• Cognitive energy: thinking, analyzing, and making decisions about tasks
• Spiritual energy: feeling a sense of purpose and alignment of values

I created a survey to evaluate if employees had the support to have energy of all types, both at work and at home. The survey contained 23 questions in multiple-choice, yes/no, and Likert formats.

A few questions from the survey. I intentionally paired questions by context (work, home) when evaluating the same area of fulfillment.

I issued the survey first, and used the results to drive areas of focus in the interviews. Based on the results of the survey, it became clear that the team was experiencing scope-creep of work and life boundaries — team members were doing work while at home, and home tasks were creeping into the work day! I created an interview template for the 1:1 interviews which focused on this pattern and dug deeper into the “why”.

For the 1:1 interviews, I used the same interview questions for each person in order to reduce bias in the interview process. The interviews focused on employees’ personal productivity patterns, and at the end solicited recommendations for team practices which might improve balance.

Some of the questions which were used in employee interviews.

Reporting Insights

The interviews led to 4 major qualitative insights:

1. A strong majority of the team felt their workload was too much to manage, but they didn’t feel empowered to offload to a teammate because they knew others’ backlogs were just as full.
2. Leadership’s meeting style led to many employees feeling a lack of balance. Specifically, a tendency to invite entire teams instead of the specific employees needed; and the tendency to send invites at the last-minute for meetings not during regular work hours.
3. Though the team had an identified “no meeting” day each week for learning, ad-hoc meetings and collaboration often happened during that day, which limited employees time for focused, solo work.
4. These insights were relatively consistent regardless of employee level, working style, or demographic.

I created a briefing for leadership which contained visual displays of quantitative data and highlighted key quotes from employee interviews to demonstrate the 4 key findings. I made the following recommendations for the team:

1. Employees should discuss with their managers their priorities and projects-in-flight, to identify areas where focus could be shifted of offloaded.
2. Meeting invites should include an agenda or list of key attendees. Employees should feel empowered to skip meetings that don’t pertain to them. Meetings should be recorded and notes shared, so non-attendees can reference as needed.
3. Meetings should not be scheduled outside of working hours or during no-meeting days, unless business needs necessitate.

Outcomes

Leadership agreed to the recommended changes in summer of 2022. The next employee satisfaction survey was issued in the fall, and the team showed an improvement of 17 points in the Work-Life Balance category, an improvement of 42%.

A later survey showed that employee Work-Life balance score increased by 17 points, or 42%. It was the largest improvement area for the team, in terms of employee satisfaction.