Folks proceed to need flexibility at work—our analysis reveals that almost half (48%) of worldwide staff are prone to ask their direct supervisor for a extra versatile work schedule or location within the subsequent yr.1 However sustaining connection in versatile work takes work. Organizations that don’t actively convey folks collectively for moments that matter put connection in danger: 43% of staff really feel disconnected from their firm.1 The strain between flexibility and connection at work isn’t new and subsequently requires an revolutionary answer. AI innovation is already bettering how you’re employed; bettering the place you’re employed is the following alternative. With Microsoft Locations, an app that reimagines versatile work, AI could make coordinating in-office time and connecting with coworkers even simpler.
Microsoft Locations
Be a part of the Public Preview program for the brand new linked office app that reimagines versatile work.
Along with fostering improved coordination and connection, Locations optimizes the effectiveness and engagement of the office. Importantly, Locations options are accessible throughout surfaces you recurrently use for coordination and collaboration, like Outlook and Microsoft Groups, so versatile work coordination and connection can occur inside your regular movement of labor.
Coordinate when and the place you come into the workplace
Scheduling in-office time with coworkers and planning forward to guide rooms and a desk are recurrently cited challenges for versatile groups. When staff get to the workplace, they don’t need to be greeted by a sea of empty desks—they need facetime with their supervisor and the coworkers they collaborate with most ceaselessly. Practically half (49%) of worldwide data staff have struggled with this case over the previous yr.1
With Locations, you possibly can extra simply coordinate throughout coworkers and areas within the workplace. Locations location plan means that you can set and share your proposed location schedule with coworkers whereas additionally viewing their plans.
Updating or adjusting your location is at all times accessible throughout the Locations app, but it surely’s additionally accessible inside your common movement of labor within the Outlook Calendar. With a click on, you possibly can modify your schedule and entry the peek card—which reveals your closest collaborators who plan to come back in and permits fast entry to house reserving—for extra info. There may be additionally a hyperlink on the peek card that means that you can see all coworkers schedules within the Locations app.
Along with coordinating schedules with coworkers, you possibly can simply see your supervisor’s schedule expectations too. With workforce steering in Locations, managers talk which days their workforce ought to plan to be within the workplace and what the priorities are for every in-office day. Offering a function for workforce days within the workplace provides you one more reason to come back into the workplace.
The mixing of Locations knowledge into Microsoft Copilot will make coordination even simpler. Coming within the second half of 2024, it is possible for you to to make use of Copilot to perceive which days are finest to come back into the workplace. Copilot will even share the reason why sure days are finest to come back in, highlighting issues like in-person conferences, your supervisor’s deliberate attendance, or if most of your coworkers are planning to be within the workplace. It is possible for you to to ask Copilot to regulate your schedule primarily based on this info—altering your work location to the workplace on really useful days and rescheduling in-person conferences.
After you’ve determined which days to come back in, you’ll want to seek out the proper areas on your conferences and centered work. From software program to {hardware}, Microsoft provides an end-to-end reserving answer that gives an improved office expertise. Beginning with the Locations finder, accessible in Outlook, now you can seek for rooms and desks and obtain extra info to information your reserving resolution. Locations finder reveals photographs of the room or desk pool, features a map of the place the house is within the workplace, and provides particulars about accessible expertise or different facilities. Locations finder may be enhanced when mixed with different office experiences from Microsoft and our gadget companions. With Groups, customers can reap the benefits of bookable desk capabilities that permit customers to stroll as much as a shared work desk, join their laptop computer to the monitor, and reserve the spot mechanically.
In your Calendar, Locations additionally gives useful reminders if no rooms or desks have been booked for an in-office day. You possibly can click on on the situation pin in Calendar to convey up the peek card and browse ideas for desks and rooms that finest meet your wants for the day.
Finish-to-end reserving shall be additional enhanced with Copilot within the second half of 2024. Constructing on reserving ideas Copilot managed reserving will discover and guide the proper house for the wants of your assembly for recurring conferences the place one room may not be accessible week-to-week.
Allow extra in-office connections
One of many perks of being within the workplace is an impromptu dialog with coworkers. With expanded presence, a brand new Locations function that seems throughout Microsoft 365 apps, you possibly can see coworkers who’re close by. With consciousness of who’s round, fast chats can occur in-person or an overdue lunch may be scheduled. By adjusting presence to point when an worker is within the workplace or which constructing they’re in, coworkers simply see once they’re close by.
In Groups group chats, coworkers can see participant places or sort @close by to inform these round them about an exercise or change within the assembly room.
It’s necessary to notice that in ensuring versatile work ‘works,’, all location knowledge assortment adheres to Microsoft stringent privateness requirements. Decide-in and opt-out controls for expanded presence can be found at each the tenant admin and consumer ranges, are restricted to indicators about in-office places, and shall be aggregated and anonymized in reviews about workplace occupation traits.
Confidently optimize the effectiveness of the office
IT Admins and Actual Property and Services (RE&F) professionals have encountered challenges in versatile work too. Static buildings haven’t stored tempo with the evolving nature of how and the place staff work. AI can play a job in bettering the administration of house by actively highlighting areas of alternative for optimization.
Any resolution about optimizing the office should begin with an understanding of what areas can be found and the way they’re getting used. Combining intent and precise occupancy patterns accessible in Locations permits directors to see a clearer image of the house accessible and what’s really wanted.
Utilization of areas is one other necessary enter in managing the office. With extra built-in check-in performance for convention rooms and desk swimming pools, directors can modify insurance policies to mechanically launch unused rooms or desks which were booked—creating readability on precise utilization of bookable areas. Microsoft delivers utilization insights and analytics throughout office merchandise. Along with gadget deployment and administration capabilities, Microsoft Groups Rooms Professional Administration gives priceless house and gadget utilization knowledge for assembly and collaboration areas and shared desks that may assist validate intent knowledge in Locations.
Coming within the second half of 2024, the information from Locations will allow Copilot to supply extra intelligence to information IT admins and RE&F professionals on easy methods to handle and adapt house, like ideas about consolidating flooring on days with low occupancy, adjusting meals companies to keep away from waste, or including extra huddle rooms to help new methods of working. Directors will be capable of run extra evaluation on the linked office knowledge they’ve collected to make much more knowledgeable selections or higher perceive patterns and traits that exist. Changes can have a cloth impression on a corporation’s working price range and sustainability objectives.
Get began at present
As we proceed to construct options throughout the linked office, we’re actively partnering with corporations throughout this market. With Microsoft Locations, we’re beginning with a subset of ecosystem of companions (listed under) who will construct on high of the Locations platform with new and present options, leveraging and enhancing knowledge associated to folks, location, and house. As Locations capabilities develop and increase, so will the accomplice ecosystem.
Locations shall be licensed as a part of Microsoft Groups Premium, contributing to the Groups imaginative and prescient to construct a sensible office. Get began at present with Locations coordination and connection options and join entry to extra options. Copilot integrations shall be accessible within the second half of 2024—bettering the place you’re employed.
For the newest analysis insights on the way forward for work and generative AI, go to WorkLab.
1Might 2024 Work Pattern Index survey, Microsoft.
