Anyone starting 2019 with a promise to improve their work-life balance will find themselves helped in no small part by a Microsoft feature aimed at helping prevent burnout.
MyAnalytics is a tool aimed at providing workers with a comprehensive itinerary of how they spend their days – including the time spent in meetings, answering emails and working late. The tech giant, which is rolling the feature out across its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Business suites (including Exchange Online), hopes it will better equip users to manage their time effectively – by showing in real, numerical terms how long they spend on each facet of their work.
In its first iteration the program was limited to those on an Enterprise E5 plan or as an add-on to E1 and E3 plans. However, its success has prompted Microsoft to offer it out significantly wider.
MyAnalytics uses a dashboard to display how a worker’s time is allotted between tasks. It also uses artificial intelligence to remind users of promises or commitments they may have made via email. To ensure there are no data protection issues, users can only see their own dashboards – meaning managers will not have access to employee data.
In a blog post explaining the reason for creating MyAnalytics in the first place, Microsoft’s Natalie McCullough noted that technological developments – though positive in the main – have made the lines between work and home life more blurred than ever. As such, two-thirds of full-time employees say they experience burnout at work – according to a report by Gallup.
McCullough continued: “Our customers tell us they’re looking for ways to address these challenges by helping employees find time to focus, improve work-life balance, build better meeting habits and create deeper connections with their colleagues.
“By making MyAnalytics features more broadly available to our millions of customers, it is our goal to make work days around the world a little more balanced and fulfilling.”
