Prevent costly mistakes with Microsoft Productivity Score

The idea of a four-day week or working remotely by a beach may sound bliss. 

But it wasn’t practical for many businesses until we found ourselves locked down.

Businesses and employees adapted quickly to remote working and using digital tools.

And suddenly, doing a Zoom meeting from a cafe in Kew or talking to coworkers on a walk around Albert Park lake was the norm.

As Melbourne workplaces adjusted, managers started to look for ways to measure productivity. 

How do you know how effective they are using the tools? 

How can you enable your team to adopt best practices and new habits?

And getting it wrong can ruin employee engagement and empowerment. 

The thing is, remote and hybrid working is here to stay. 

So measuring employee outputs can outweigh the time spent logged on. 

But your role as a business is to look at what may be getting in the way of great employees doing great work. So it’s not as simple as switching to cloud and collaboration tools and hoping it works.

Technology tools can slow down committed employees if they’re unfamiliar with them. 

Most people will keep doing the things they have always done until shown there is a better way. 

Even if it’s quicker, employees need help adapting to new habits.

And addressing productivity concerns can be tricky, even for the most seasoned manager. But your role as a people leader is to coach your employees to be their best.

You don’t need to be Alastair Clarkson, David Parkin or even Norm Smith to be a coach.

Coaching your team to greatness doesn’t start with tracking their every keystroke.

All you have to do is use Microsoft Productivity Score, which comes with Microsoft 365.

(and it’s not Big Brother either.)

What is Microsoft’s Productivity Score?

Microsoft Productivity Score gives valuable insights into how work gets done. And provides insights into improving your employee’s experience so they can be their best. 

MS Productivity Score determines where productivity gains can be made in minutes or hours. In addition, it helps Melbourne businesses understand what skills and systems need to be updated to achieve better outcomes. 

And the best thing is the insights are aggregated. 

You are removing any perceived privacy issues your employees could have. 

The tool provides helpful insights that you can share with your team. Understanding these insights can boost performance like your footy team’s post-match review. 

You can see what tools are making it harder for your employees. 

So let’s see what areas MS Productivity Score can help your business. 

 

People Experiences

In this category, the score looks at people’s work practices.

Are they using best practices for collaboration, or are they working in an unproductive manner? 

Do meetings go on and on and on? 

Are employees still emailing attachments instead of using shared cloud storage links?

Below is an example of People Experience insight. Each employee can save an average of 100 minutes per week by collaborating with online files. 

Imagine your business saving 100 minutes per week – that’s 86 hours annually or two working weeks.

One simple change can transform your Melbourne workplace’s productivity.

All Productivity Score images are from Microsoft.

The subcategories within People Experiences:

● Communication

● Content Collaboration

● Mobility

● Meetings

● Teamwork

 

Technology Experiences

Technology experiences look at the health and performance of your devices: 

● Do you have hardware and software on endpoints that are causing issues? 

● Is it slowing your team down? 

● Are there network connectivity problems? 

● Are apps updated as they should be?

You can identify any risk areas with your current technology. And when technology is not functioning well or isn’t secure, it can slow your business down.

These are the subcategories in the Technology Experience:

● Endpoint analytics (You need Intune for these)

● Network connectivity

● Microsoft 365 apps health

Special Reports

Microsoft Productivity Score provides special reports on business continuity. 

For example, Melbourne businesses have faced transitions like remote and on-site working. 

Employers can better support employees through changes with special reports. 

The report shows how employee collaboration and other activities are changing.

And how these changes are impacting your team’s productivity.

How Microsoft Productivity Score Helps Your Business

 

Automatic Metrics Tracking

Microsoft Productivity Score automatically tracks your team’s use of Microsoft 365 applications.

It will then provide helpful information on how staff use their digital tools.

These metrics give a good picture of whether employees have adopted new habits.

And this is where you, as a coach, can offer guidance to help them work efficiently.  

Insights to Understand the Data

You’ll find the most meaningful way to understand the insights is by their context. Then, once you know, you can educate your employees to help them improve workflow and save time. 

For example, getting a response quickly to a question saves time. 

But you may not realise that using @mentions is the quickest way. 

MS Productivity Score tells you how many people use @mentions in team communications.

By improving the use of @mentions, your business will increase the response rate. 

 

Take Action

Digital transformation in Australian workplaces has been challenging over the last few years. 

But instead of making assumptions, your business can make data-driven decisions with Microsoft Productivity Score, helping to improve your employee’s digital experience. 

It will give you recommendations to take action to improve a metric. 

By taking action, you can improve productivity for your business.

And help improve your team’s engagement at work.

Do you want to improve productivity and employee engagement?

We can help you get started with Microsoft Productivity Score. Our team can show you how to get the most out of the tool and see productivity gains.

Give us a call, and let’s chat!