A report in Harvard Business Review explored how thriving can be unlocked across different work locations and ways of working.
The researchers observed that employees who weren't thriving talked about experiencing siloes, bureaucracy, and a lack of collaboration. They were determined to find the secret of happiness. They looked at the people who were most positive about their work and life balance. There was a picture of a happy Microsoft employee. Those with the best of both worlds had five fewer hours in their workweek span, five fewer collaboration hours, three more focus hours, and 17 fewer employees in their internal network. They have fewer employees in their network. Is it possible that the teamwork slogan isn't working as well as it could? Collaboration may have become a cliché for a group that is more of a bureaucracy than a productive one. Collaboration is not bad in itself. They say it's important to be aware of how intense collaboration can impact work-life balance, and leaders and employees alike should guard against that. You can stop it if you are a leader. Not a lot if you're an employee.
The Microsoft researchers came up with a conclusion. The most common thread among those who were not thriving was a feeling of being left out of decisions to struggle with politics and bureaucracy.
Matyszczyk's conclusion? "It's heartening to learn, though, that perhaps the most important element to making an employee happy at work is giving them time to, well, actually work."
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