As companies around the world digitally transform their business models, operations, and corporate cultures, many have rolled out cloud and mobile technologies that have also transformed the employee experience. For information workers, technology has created a more networked and open flow of information, made collaboration easier, and provided more flexibility in where, when, and how they work.
But there’s another large and important segment of the workforce that has been underserved by technology to date. These are the more than two billion Firstline Workers worldwide, who work in roles that make them the first point of contact between a company and its customers or products. Firstline Workers comprise the majority of the global workforce and play a critical role in the global economy.
At Microsoft, we believe it should be a top priority of company leaders to empower employees in all roles to do their best work, and that a digitally enabled workforce represents a true competitive advantage.
Firstline Workers outnumber other corporate workers 4–1 in industries such as hospitality, manufacturing, retail, and healthcare.
We recently commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a study on the potential impact of providing Firstline Workers with technology. The study, titled Equip Firstline Workers With Better Tools To Drive Engagement was released today.
Forrester surveyed 304 manager-and-above decision-makers and 301 Firstline Workers at companies in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, and Canada. The companies span the retail, healthcare, government, and financial services industries and range in size from 500 to more than 20,000 employees.
The study offers strong evidence that by empowering Firstline Workers with modern tools, businesses can improve the customer and employee experience, enhance workforce productivity, and improve the bottom line.
But while 77 percent of Firstline Workers agree or strongly agree that technology is important to their roles at work, this segment of the workforce is often left out of enterprises’ digital transformation investments. In fact, the study revealed sizeable gaps between the perceptions of management and the actual experiences of Firstline Workers.
Only 23 percent of Firstline Workers strongly agree that they currently have the technology they need to be productive, yet 50 percent of managers say they feel the tools they offer make employees’ jobs easier and/or more satisfying, enough to be considered a competitive perk.
Opportunities to empower Firstline Workers
The study uncovers several areas of opportunity for companies considering how technology can transform the way their Firstline Workforce operates, including the specific types of technology that are likely to have the most impact. The study brings to light a few recommendations in particular:
- Provide tools that support a mobile workforce. Firstline Workers such as retail associates, flight crews, and field service workers are mobile by nature of their jobs, but their most important tools often aren’t portable, and management doesn’t realize it. Less than half of the Firstline Workers surveyed agree that the tools they use do a good job of allowing them to be mobile, whereas 75 percent of managers feel the tools they provide do a good job of this.
- Enable digital communication and collaboration. Many Firstline Workers rely on their coworkers, managers, and even customers for information and guidance throughout the day. They need modern tools that simplify collaboration, communication, and access to information. Nearly half (46 percent) of Firstline Workers surveyed indicated the ability to work collaboratively with teammates as the primary capability required to do their job.
- Boost Firstline Workers’ access to data and artificial intelligence (AI). AI and business intelligence tools are increasingly being used by information workers to automate manual tasks and deliver data insights. But only 30 percent of Firstline Workers report having access to a predictive tool, and only 21 percent have access to a digital assistant. Such tools can help Firstline Workers do their jobs more efficiently and effectively and automate certain activities so employees can focus on higher-value work—like delighting customers and solving more complex business problems.
Involving every worker in digital transformation
At Microsoft, we have always believed in people’s ability to adapt and innovate. As part of our mission to empower people and organizations to achieve more, we also believe in the power of technology to amplify what humans can do. That’s why we are building new capabilities in Microsoft Teams that are tailored to helping Firstline Workers manage their workday, access information to do their job more effectively, and easily share insights and communicate with others.
Stay tuned for more from us on this front in the coming months. Learn more about how Microsoft 365 and Teams can help you maximize the impact of your Firstline Workforce and read the full Forrester report.
Power and simplicity: new Outlook mobile design helps you get things done faster
Today, we’re rolling out exciting updates to Outlook for iOS with recognizable avatars and optimized swipe and scroll usability that reflects the continuation of our design-driven journey and helps you connect, organize, and get things done. We’ve been meticulously tailoring both Outlook for iOS and Android, making it faster than ever to achieve your goals and maximize your time while on the go.
Design is becoming the heart and soul of Office, something reflected in the Office 365 user experience updates announced this summer and the new icons we revealed last week. Outlook mobile will be among the first app to adopt its new icon, and, much like the entire Office 365 suite, design thinking and craftsmanship have been driving Outlook mobile forward. It’s a key reason why we’ve exceeded more than 100 million iOS and Android devices and our app store ratings are consistently above 4.5.
Great mobile experiences don’t just shrink desktop designs, they rethink the process by understanding mobile’s unique design opportunities and constraints. Unlike a desktop, our phones live with us in our pockets and purses. This proximity and immediacy create the need for more personal, efficient, and even playful experiences that require a mobile-first approach.
Mobile productivity increasingly happens through a series of micro-tasks that take place in seconds, not minutes. This makes it vital to design experiences with less typing and taps, where your attention is brought to what matters most, and where key context is always available at a glance.
By creating resonant experiences that cater to these micro-moments, Outlook mobile offers delightful, simple, and powerful experiences that ensure you get in and out of the app quickly, gracefully, and with ease. We do this by following our core mobile-first design principles:
- Deliver uncompromised craftsmanship and attention to detail.
- Create fast and focused experiences.
- Provide key context at a glance.
Quality and delightful craftsmanship
Great experiences are felt as much as they are seen. When we craft them, we pay attention to the details that make Outlook mobile feel faster.
With the new design in Outlook for iOS, we’re introducing new sensory feedback to create a resonant experience with the device cradled in your hand. When you swipe right or left on an email, subtle changes in color, shape, and iconography unfold. The corners of the message transform from hard-edged to soft and round, metaphorically pulling that item away from the message list and sending it where you want it to go—with haptic feedback.
Delight is brought to you through moments that happen within milliseconds, like the new animated calendar icon that fans forward or backward as you scroll through your agenda, or the instant insight provided in your inbox by signaling a potential meeting conflict. This craftsmanship makes Outlook mobile a gratifying, powerful experience as you quickly move on with your day.
Fast and focused
The first thing most will notice as we roll out the Outlook for iOS changes over the next few weeks is the bold color that creates a more vibrant experience. We recognize that people use many apps on their devices and quickly switch between apps to complete tasks.
A strong app header with bold color and typography helps you easily find your way to Outlook while rapidly switching between monochromatic apps to quickly complete your task and get back to what matters. The experience is consistent across mobile email, search, and calendar; and for those who use Outlook on a large screen, the blue header connects you to your familiar inbox and calendar no matter which Outlook you use.
As a native app, we embrace the native font and use of typography, so Outlook feels perfectly at home on your device of choice. The bolder, larger iOS typography, however, shouldn’t compromise the experience, which is why as you scroll on your iPhone and iPad, the size of the header is dynamically reduced to maximize your message list to view and find what you’re looking for.
Contextually relevant
With the new iOS refresh, we improved the usability of more core experiences. The Focused Inbox toggle and message list filtering experience now orientate you to your content and accounts in a way that provides clarity and confidence.
If you’re a single account user, the app is personalized with your avatar. If you have multiple accounts and calendars added to the app, new account icon cues help you easily switch between them. Bright, bold avatars are also added to your contacts, so you’ll instantly recognize senders in the message, top contacts in search, and attendees in meeting invites.
In addition, did you know you can schedule an event when you know your team’s availability without typing a single letter? When designing the scheduling experience in Outlook mobile, we brought forward all people, dates, and place elements required into context so you could simply slide the options around the calendar to quickly find the time and place that works, no typing required. Through iterations on both iOS and Android, Outlook mobile delivers a powerful experience that helps you achieve your goals and save you time—so you can get back to what matters in your day.
Introducing Microsoft 365 freelance toolkit—a solution to launch and scale your freelance workforce
With increasing participation in the gig economy—the contingent labor market made up of independent workers who contract for short-term engagements—enterprises are beginning to test and include freelance talent to support projects. According to the Future Workforce Report, 47 percent of hiring managers at enterprise organizations utilized freelancers (up from 44 percent the prior year), while roughly 9 in 10 hiring managers say they are open to engaging freelancers rather than temporary workers through a staffing firm. To help enterprises digitally transform or complement their conventional contingent staff solutions, we’re launching Microsoft 365 freelance toolkit, a curated set of tools, templates, and best practices to help our customers launch, execute, and manage freelance programs at scale.
The gig economy, which includes freelancers, consultants, contractors, and solopreneurs, is on the rise. According to Staffing Industry Analysts, the total spent on gig work in 2015 was $792 billion. Experts believe that within 10 years a larger proportion of the U.S. workforce will participate in the gig economy. In addition, according to Field Nation, 86 percent of independent workers intentionally choose freelancing.
The implications for enterprise companies are profound. To thrive in a highly competitive environment with rapidly changing technology and customer needs, enterprises must be agile and adapt to new business models to get work done with external talent. While adding on-demand freelance talent to the mix offers measurable results in speed and efficiency, the path to transforming existing policies and processes is largely undefined.
Our launch partner for this toolkit is Upwork, one of the largest online global marketplaces with over 375,000 freelancers in over 180 countries. We specifically are partnering with Upwork Enterprise, their end-to-end compliance and freelance talent sourcing solution.
The Microsoft 365 freelance toolkit offers solutions for the main friction points enterprises encounter when deploying a freelance program, including: internal communications and awareness, team-wide collaboration, data analytics, and workflow automation.
Internal communications and awareness
One of the major challenges of launching an enterprise freelance program is driving awareness and education among internal stakeholders and adopters. Employees need a place where they can get started to learn how the program works, access required training, and review best practices for engaging with freelancers.
Microsoft 365 freelance toolkit solves for this with the SharePoint communication site template—a “one-stop-shop” for program details to help accelerate freelance adoption and onboarding, including:
- Repository for relevant documentation and presentations about the program.
- Use cases to show employees the kinds of projects they can get done with freelancers.
- FAQs seeded with the top questions from enterprise employees.
- An engagement template to help you connect with freelancers in the SharePoint expert talent pool.
Team-wide collaboration
The nature of enterprise freelance projects requires team members to collaborate on multiple files, manage varied tasks, and communicate across time zones. To keep cross-functional, multi-geographical teams moving in the same direction, the Microsoft 365 freelance toolkit provides guidance around using Microsoft Teams as a powerful hub for teamwork that brings chats, meetings, calls, files, and apps into one shared workspace.
With Teams, enterprises can manage their freelance communication and collaboration needs, specifically through:
- Communication—Public and private teams for members to engage in discussion.
- Task management—One place to track progress and align each team member’s workflow via integration with project management tools like Microsoft Planner.
- File storage—One place to store shared files and retrieve them through intelligent search.
- External guest access—The ability for external users worldwide to collaborate in all aspects of freelance projects through the free version of Teams.
- Security—External guest access to project-specific teams keeps your information safe without giving wholesale access.
Data analytics
A major challenge in scaling an enterprise freelance program is capturing, tracking, and communicating performance KPIs. The Microsoft 365 freelance toolkit leverages Microsoft Power BI, a business analytics service that deliver insights by collecting real-time data from multiple sources, simplifying data prep, and producing customized, easy-to-understand reports and dashboards.
Power BI helps enterprise program managers to:
- Make data-driven decisions.
- Compare freelance program results to conventional staffing solutions.
- Identify the teams within your organization currently leveraging freelance talent by discipline type to help identify future opportunities within your company.
To enhance the core functionality of Power BI for a freelance environment, the freelance toolkit offers:
- A Power BI template with sample visualizations.
- A Power BI connector to pull data from disparate sources into dashboards.
- An engagement template to help you connect with freelancers in the Power BI talent pool.
Workflow automation
An enterprise freelance program requires provisioning, compliance, and monitoring, all while providing a frictionless process for your employees. To reduce the need for manual completion of repetitive tasks, Microsoft 365 freelance toolkit uses Microsoft Flow to create automated workflows between apps and services that send notifications, synchronize files, and collect data.
For example, Microsoft Flow can help business decision-makers automate the following scenarios:
- Employee training and compliance. By visiting the freelance program SharePoint communication site, employees can sign up for the pilot by completing a compliance training video supported by Microsoft Stream.
- Internal community signup. After an employee completes the compliance training video, the employee is automatically added to an internal Teams channel where employees can collaborate with others who are part of the program and share experiences.
- Upwork account creation. After the employee is added to the Teams channel, their account information, which includes their name and email address, is sent to Upwork for account creation on their platform, so they can start posting jobs on the platform.
Our journey and what we learned
Like many of our customers, Microsoft is also in the process of navigating how to responsibly weave freelance engagements into our enterprise environment. Over the past year, we completed over 2,000 freelance projects across writing, research, video editing, translation, design, and data science—spanning 25 internal teams and hundreds of employees.
But getting to this point was not easy—we had to internally transform ourselves, and we needed to build an infrastructure that could support the complexities of an enterprise freelance program. This led us to develop the Microsoft 365 freelance toolkit, which combines our leading enterprise productivity apps with curated tools, templates, and best practices to address the specific needs of enterprise freelance programs. The work has paid off. To date, we’ve seen measurable cost and time savings.
Present more inclusively with Live Captions and Subtitles in PowerPoint
Live presentations can be thought-provoking, inspirational, and powerful. A great presentation can inspire us to think about something in an entirely different way or bring a group together around a common idea or project. But not everyone experiences presentations in the same way. We may speak a different language from the presenter, or be a native speaker in another language, and some of us are deaf and hard of hearing. So, what if speakers could make their presentations better understood by everyone in the room? Now they can with Live Captions and Subtitles in PowerPoint.
In honor of the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we’re announcing this new feature—powered by artificial intelligence (AI)—which provides captions and subtitles for presentations in real-time. Live Captions and Subtitles in PowerPoint supports the deaf and hard of hearing community by giving them the ability to read what is being spoken in real-time. In addition, captions and subtitles can be displayed in the same language or in a different one, allowing non-native speakers to get a translation of a presentation. At launch, Live Captions and Subtitles will support 12 spoken languages and display on-screen captions or subtitles in one of 60+ languages.
Live Captions and Subtitles in PowerPoint brings:
The power of AI to presenters, so they can convey simple and complex information across subjects and topics.
- Speech recognition that automatically adapts based on the presented content for more accurate recognition of names and specialized terminology.
- The ability for presenters to easily customize the size, position, and appearance of subtitles. Customizations may vary by platform.
- A peace of mind with security and compliance knowing that the feature meets many industry standards for compliance certifications.
Take your Microsoft 365 investments further with SharePoint customizations
Thanks to the work of thousands of developers around the world who use SharePoint Framework to deliver deep customizations and new application types, millions of SharePoint users now experience modern team and communication sites tailored with SharePoint Framework. Use of extensions created with SharePoint Framework continues to grow rapidly and is on pace to keep doubling every six months. These customized SharePoint sites provide the stage for your organization, department, and team to showcase your best work. And with new capabilities—now in preview—you can bring these experiences to Microsoft Teams. As developers and business leaders look to solve business problems with new applications and new customizations, we’re confident SharePoint Framework and the foundation of SharePoint will provide an attractive, friendly option to deliver tailored Microsoft 365 experiences.
The rapid growth of SharePoint Framework capabilities
Since its launch 20 months ago, SharePoint Framework has continually evolved to support an expanding set of use cases—such as business data dashboards and document integrations—and has delivered company-wide links and tools. Now in its eighth update after launch, SharePoint Framework has added new capabilities, including easier deployment options across your Office 365 sites, the ability to use Office 365 to host application elements, and built-in capabilities to work with a variety of web services. SharePoint Framework also works with on-premises SharePoint Server 2019, as well as SharePoint Server 2016 via Feature Pack 2.
Next stop: foundation for applications across Microsoft 365
The latest release of the SharePoint Framework may be the most significant. New capabilities, in preview, empower developers to create full application experiences built on Microsoft 365 components. Developers can create applications that are hosted in the familiar frame of SharePoint, which leverages infrastructure such as Microsoft Graph services, SharePoint lists, and document libraries—all in one centrally hosted application page.
SharePoint Framework is expanding to be a foundation for applications in Teams. Through recently announced interoperability, tabs from Teams now show up as web parts and applications in SharePoint, and web parts from SharePoint can show up in Teams. In addition, customizations to document libraries will also show in document libraries in Teams. Wherever teams collaborate, customizations built on the foundation of SharePoint pages and documents are close at hand.
Resources to get started with SharePoint Framework
Thanks to a strong community, there are a wide array of resources to get started with SharePoint Framework. The recently released SharePoint Starter Kit provides a fantastic foundation of web parts and extensions you can use in your SharePoint sites. In addition, the SharePoint Patterns and Practices community has delivered an amazing series of training and video content for learning the various capabilities of SharePoint. If you are a developer (or work with developers), you can build your first SharePoint Framework web part in under an hour. Investing now in new solutions for SharePoint will provide a great foundation for creating tailored experiences across Microsoft 365.
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