New Microsoft research finds flexible ways of working in Qatar are here to stay
94 per cent of business leaders in Qatar believe that their organisations will adopt a more hybrid way of working for the foreseeable future, according the ‘Work Reworked’ Report. Commissioned by Microsoft and carried out by the Boston Consulting Group and KRC Research, this year’s edition of the annual Work Reworked Report aims to provide information to business leaders across the Middle East and Africa, to support navigating a new world of remote work.
Microsoft’s Work Reworked research provides insight into how companies can best support and empower workers as remote and hybrid working becomes the ‘new normal’. A survey of 600 leaders and employees in large enterprises within Qatar examined people’s experience since the beginning of the pandemic as remote ways of working became common, and also asked about expectations around the future.
Since the start of the great global work-at-home work experiment stemming from the pandemic, researchers have found that managers and employees in Qatar expect to spend over a third (35 per cent) of the work week outside of the traditional office setting. Though employees still see value in attending the office to maintain bonds with colleagues, they are looking for more flexibility from their organisations.
A more permanent change around ways of working is already evident, with a healthy majority (74 percent) of companies now having a set remote work policy in place.
Most Qatari business leaders (78 per cent) also reported additional cost benefits, such as the reduction in their office footprint and spend on business travel. However, remote work is not without its challenges. Research has found that many people feel disconnected from their teams, driving team cohesion is not as easy as before and more work is being done in silos. In fact, 83 percent of Qatari managers said that they had trouble creating a strong team culture.
“The pandemic has resulted in a dramatic impact on the employee experience, with by far the biggest shift to remote work we have ever witnessed, and the employee experience has become a priority for every business leader.” said Rami Azzi modern work business group lead, Microsoft Middle East cluster. “The Work Reworked research has come at a time when Microsoft has further enhanced the employee experience through Microsoft Viva, the first employee experience platform that brings tools for employee engagement, learning, wellbeing and knowledge discovery, directly into the flow of people’s work,”. “Microsoft Viva builds on the power of Teams and Microsoft 365 to unify the employee experience across four key areas — Engagement, Wellbeing, Learning and Knowledge — in an integrated experience that empowers people to be their best.”
The prioritization of innovation among hybrid teams can be seen in key traits amongst highly innovative companies. For example, 77 percent of Qatari employees working in innovative work environments said that they were happy in their job, as opposed to 63 percent in less innovative organisations. Protecting employee wellbeing can yield invaluable long-term benefits for organisations looking to thrive and grow.
Microsoft has established plans to deliver the intelligent and trusted Microsoft Cloud services from a new cloud datacenter region in Qatar, expanding Microsoft’s global cloud infrastructure to 57 Azure regions in 20 countries across the globe. The new region is anticipated to be available starting with Microsoft Azure in 2021, and Office 365, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform to follow.
