- Microsoft’s New World of Work Study for Enterprises shows that only 40 out of 100 respondents in Malaysia rated themselves highly in embracing new People, Place and Technology principles
- Organizations in Malaysia need to transform to enable employees to be more productive and competitive in today’s modern workplace
- Malaysian Enterprises leveraging NWoW principles are reaping benefits and staying ahead of the competition
KUALA LUMPUR, 11 January 2016 — Microsoft has unveiled the results from its recent New World of Work (NWoW) study, which showed that large enterprises with more than 250 employees were lagging behind expectations to be more productive, collaborative and innovative in today’s modern workplace.
While 64% of the 200 enterprise employees surveyed in Malaysia[1] considered themselves to be mobile workers, the study also unveils what workers feel they need to succeed in today’s digital, fast-paced, modern workplace. Microsoft’s NWoW Study also generated insights on their current work and life needs and the gaps that exist between them.
The NWoW Index was derived from respondents who rated themselves highly in three key pillars – people (whether today’s employees have the capabilities to work flexibly and productively in the digital modern workplace, and are supported by leaders and cultures that help them succeed in this dynamic environment), place (whether employees can work flexibly – anywhere at any time – and if their workplaces support a collaborative, dynamic design with the ability to work at work, home or with customers) and technology (whether employees are empowered with technology to enable them to succeed in this environment, allowing collaborative work wherever they may go).
In Malaysia, only 40 out of 100 respondents rated themselves highly in embracing new People, Place and Technology principles, placing the country ninth amongst the 12 markets involved in the study.
The findings clearly showed that the traditional notion of work is changing, even within enterprises in Malaysia:
- The responsive organization: 56% of respondents said that they were required to respond to internal stakeholders within four hours; while 54% said that they were required to respond to external customers within four hours.
- Work doesn’t end at 5.00pm: A majority (77%) said that they were still required to be contactable outside of work in order to complete their work effectively.
- Limited mobile productivity in a highly mobile workforce: 5% of respondents said they needed to be in the office to access special equipment or tools that are only available in the office.
- Bring-your-own-device and Bring-your-own-service culture is increasingly pervasive: Employees in Malaysia were using more personal devices (48%) to get work done. 62% were also using online tools that go beyond just email – document & file sharing, storage, virtual meetings and social.
- Achieving work life balance is challenging: 82% of respondents said that work life balance was a very important aspect of their job, but only 57% felt that they had adequate balance today.
“Over the last decade, globalization and technological innovations have made today’s workplace increasingly modern and mobile – bringing the world closer and changing the way people live and work. This study helps us better understand how work and life has changed for Malaysian employees – to determine how well supported they are from their workplaces, or from a technological standpoint, in being enabled to succeed,” said Michal Golebiewski, Chief Marketing & Operations Officer, Microsoft Malaysia.
“While technology plays a key role to enable ‘work from anywhere’ scenarios and higher productivity, there are other aspects such as organizational culture, policies, infrastructure, enabling collaboration or the ability to break down barriers to innovation which are becoming increasingly important for an organization to be competitive, especially when many are undergoing digital transformation of their businesses today,” he added.
Malaysian Enterprises Leveraging NWoW Principles
When companies adopt the NWoW principles, they are able to gain new business insights, realize greater operational efficiency, communicate and collaborate in real time.
In fact, the top three benefits cited by respondents were:
- To be able to work productively from anywhere (58%)
- To share ideas, documents and information with colleagues instantly (57.5%)
- To have better insights and data analysis (45%)
Maxis Berhad (“Maxis”), Malaysia’s leading communications and Internet service provider was one such organization which successfully leveraged the NWoW principles and have been reaping its benefits since. As a modern company that is embracing digitalisation, the telco leverages on technology by using Yammer and SharePoint for new ways of collaborating and to share information amongst employees.
“We’re proud and excited that Maxis had chosen our two social tools – Yammer, which is akin to Facebook for enterprises, and SharePoint, which provides employees with a platform to collaborate and engage with one another by creating, sharing, managing and organizing data,” said Golebiewski. “Today’s digital world is driven by the cloud and mobility, and the ability to stay connected and productive when you’re on the go. Both Yammer and SharePoint allows the user to do just that – in an effective and seamless manner. We’re happy to see that Maxis was able to leverage these two platforms to increase employee engagement and collaboration in such a short period of time.”
Yammer and Sharepoint are components of Microsoft’s Office 365 productivity suite for commercial customers. Commercial customers can get the latest productivity tools and resources through Office 365 E5, which was recently launched. Office 365 E5 SKU includes Skype for Business with support for features including Cloud PBX and Meeting Broadcast; new analytics features, like Power BI Pro and Delve Organizational Analytics; and new advanced security features, such as eDiscovery, Customer Lockbox, and Safe Attachments.
For more information on Microsoft’s Office 365 E5, visit https://products.office.com/en-my/business/office-365-enterprise-e5-business-software.
[1] The Microsoft Asia Pacific New World of Work Study was conducted in September 2015 with 5,000 respondents working in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with less than 250 employees and employees working in larger organizations (Enterprises) with more than 250 employees in 13 Asian markets including Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. The data in this release refers to the Enterprise cut of this survey which considered polling data from respondents working in companies with more than 250 employees.