The philosophy and practice of our hybrid workplace

In the midst of numerous and difficult circumstances brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve made important observations about the future of work, and how and where our employees know they work best. What we’re learning and understanding has led us to use this period in time to grow and evolve our hybrid workplace, building additional capabilities to help our employees, customers and businesses continue to thrive.

In March last year, I sent an email to our employees worldwide, indicating we were instituting a mandatory work-from-home policy for our global work sites, excepting essential on-site workers. As of today, after over a year in which most Microsoft employees have worked remotely, several of our work sites around the globe have reached a stage that meets or exceeds government requirements to accommodate more workers, while many other employees will continue to work remotely. Currently, Microsoft work sites in 21 countries have been able to accommodate additional workers in our facilities – representing around 20% of our global employee population. On March 29, Microsoft will also start making this shift at our Redmond, Washington, headquarters and nearby campuses.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, our No. 1 priority has been the well-being and safety of our people. We have never stopped monitoring local health data and tracking government requirements to determine when our campuses could safely accommodate additional workers onsite. As some employees return to our global work sites and others prefer or need to work remotely, we are finding additional ways of putting our hybrid workplace into practice. At each of our global work sites, the hybrid workplace model strikes a balance, providing limited additional services on campus for those who choose to return, while supporting those who need to work remotely or feel more comfortable doing so. Our goal is to give employees further flexibility, allowing people to work where they feel most productive and comfortable, while also encouraging employees to work from home as the virus and related variants remain concerning.

Taking the example of our Redmond campus, we’ve been closely monitoring local health data for months and have determined that the campus can safely accommodate more employees on-site while staying aligned to Washington state capacity limits. As we watch for progress against the virus in the region and continue to evaluate our guidance, employees who work at Redmond work sites or nearby campuses have the choice to return to those facilities or to continue working remotely, and also have the flexibility to do a mixture of both.

Although we cannot predict everything the coming months have in store, we are prepared to face them with a growth mindset – learning, reevaluating and updating our response as needed.

The road to our evolved hybrid workplace

Flashing back one year, we were quickly learning that the virus and its impact were too complex to predict. While we initially tried to provide guidance anchored to specific timelines and the phases through which the pandemic would likely progress, we did not understand it well enough to accurately predict when each of those phases would occur. We soon discovered that we needed to develop a return-to-work site strategy that could account for constantly changing public health conditions and government guidance in order to keep our employees and communities safe. We also needed to drive a consistent approach across geographies, creating a unified COVID-19 response effort within the company.

With this in mind, we developed a Hybrid Workplace Dial that anchors to six defined stages – rather than specific timelines – and allows us to quickly adjust our work sites depending on health conditions, while also staying data-driven in our decision-making. The dial helps us assign a stage to each of our work sites depending on the current local health data and government guidance. The dial can go in both directions – moving a work site forward when local disease burden improves, and also dialing back when we observe declines in progress. Each stage is defined by a set of data-driven criteria (e.g. trends in cases and deaths and government guidelines) as well as site readiness assessments, and carries with it a set of prescribed policies and actions.

For example, while Stages 4 and 5 offer limited or augmented options for workers who choose to be on-site, employees are encouraged to work remotely while their site remains in Stages 1-5 and should not feel they need to return. In Stage 6, COVID-19 is no longer a significant burden on the local community and presents itself more like an endemic virus such as the seasonal flu. In this final stage of the dial, most pandemic-specific work site requirements and prevention measures are removed, enabling nearly all campus services to return. In the case of the Redmond campus, the shift planned for March 29 will represent a move on the dial from Stage 3 to Stage 4.

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Six stages of the COVID-19 hybrid workplace
For example, while Stages 4 and 5 offer limited or augmented options for workers who choose to be on-site, employees are encouraged to work remotely while their site remains in Stages 1-5 and should not feel they need to return. In Stage 6, COVID-19 is no longer a significant burden on the local community and presents itself more like an endemic virus such as the seasonal flu. In this final stage of the dial, most pandemic-specific work site requirements and prevention measures are removed, enabling nearly all campus services to return. In the case of the Redmond campus, the shift planned for March 29 will represent a move on the dial from Stage 3 to Stage 4.
Six stages of the COVID-19 hybrid workplace
For example, while Stages 4 and 5 offer limited or augmented options for workers who choose to be on-site, employees are encouraged to work remotely while their site remains in Stages 1-5 and should not feel they need to return. In Stage 6, COVID-19 is no longer a significant burden on the local community and presents itself more like an endemic virus such as the seasonal flu. In this final stage of the dial, most pandemic-specific work site requirements and prevention measures are removed, enabling nearly all campus services to return. In the case of the Redmond campus, the shift planned for March 29 will represent a move on the dial from Stage 3 to Stage 4.