Remote, flexible, and hybrid working have become the norm for many office workers around the world. But one thing is clear: When it comes to productivity, everyone has a different perspective.

In Microsoft’s latest biannual Work Trends Index report, over 20,000 people surveyed around the world showed there is a big gap between workers’ perception of their own productivity since the pandemic started, compared to their business leaders. Eighty-seven percent of workers felt that their productivity had gone up, while only 12 percent of leaders had full confidence that this was the case.

“Before the pandemic, many ways in which people would measure productivity was to walk into an open office and see people. That was the gut check,” says Nick Hedderman, senior director of the Modern Work Business Group at Microsoft. The organizations that feel confident about productivity now, he explains, are ones armed with data and insight to communicate goals to their team so that “everyone understands how they contribute to those expectations.”

Tools like Microsoft’s Viva Goals do just that, Hedderman says, easily tracking goals against pre-agreed business targets. Microsoft Places, which will come out in 2023, will help people to plan in-office work sessions when the teams they collaborate with are also there, making face-to-face interactions more worthwhile.

“We measure the individual's productivity and impact against things that they’ve said they're going to do. We also look at how they are helping other people to be successful, and that encourages collaboration. And we also measure the impact of how the individual is leveraging the work of others,” says Hedderman. “They [the goals] really promote that sense of team and working together, helping other people and also learning from other people as well as doing your own work.”

Beyond software, leaders need to improve their hybrid working communication, Hedderman argues. They need to explain why people should attend in person meetings and clearly outline the objectives that they want to accomplish. “When you are physically together, creation and ideation flows in a more meaningful way than it does over a digital forum,” he says. “But what’s the agenda? What are the expectations of this moment being together? What are the outcomes we are expecting?”

These types of questions have caused managers and leaders to think of these moments more thoughtfully, whether they are big, broad-scale events that have production involved, or a team-level creative meeting, Hedderman says. “There’s a lot more effort, I think, in defining those ‘together’ moments.”

And they should remember that motivating a hybrid workforce can also be done remotely—Microsoft’s own ranks use Viva Learning to help people access “snackable” training sessions on demand and reach their career goals. This can also help with onboarding new employees in a hybrid environment, because managers can set specific training sessions for them to help them engage with the objectives of the business.

Business leaders should also not ignore the potential of the metaverse to bridge the gaps between fully remote and in-person collaboration—it can bridge language barriers, allow for collaboration across geographies, and help to alleviate video conferencing fatigue. “We will always agree as humans that being physically together in person is the premier experience, the one we would all ultimately seek,” Hedderman says, “But there is a gap between the two experiences of being together and the two-dimensional view. There is a role for the metaverse to go into that third dimension, to be physically present with someone even though they could be thousands of miles away.”

You can watch the full briefing here.

Nick Hedderman leads the Modern Work & Surface business for Microsoft UK, and is an expert at helping individuals and organizations to become more productive in a flexible work environment. In his role at Microsoft, Nick looks after a range of solutions for the modern era of flexible work including employee experience platform Microsoft Viva, and Microsoft 365, the Cloud PC, through to a range of stunning portfolio of hardware innovations under the Surface brand.

Microsoft was established in the UK in 1982 as the company’s second international subsidiary. Over the past 38 years, Microsoft has been a partner and catalyst in the growth of UK businesses and the national economy, working towards democratizing computing and helping to transform thousands of UK businesses and operations. Microsoft enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

This article was originally published by WIRED UK