Despite the current economic and geopolitical uncertainty, three out of four business leaders feel hopeful about the future of their organisation, according the Irish Management Institute.

However, levels of optimism have fallen by 11 points from 86% optimistic a year ago, says the Organisational Resilience Pulse Survey carried out by IMI and Cork University Business School.

Staff engagement remains one of the main concerns among executives, with just one in three saying they feel their colleagues are fully engaged.

The IMI-CUBS research polled the views of 254 C-Suite executives.

However, Simon Boucher, CEO at the Irish Management Institute, noted that four out of five senior executives feel there are high levels of trust between senior managers and staff.

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Meanwhile, research by Microsoft has found that 85% of business leaders globally say the shift to hybrid work has made it challenging to have confidence their employees are being productive, while three out of four employees say they need a better reason to go into the office besides company expectations.

The Work Trend Index Pulse report makes clear that hybrid work has created a growing disconnect between employees and their managers.

They’re at odds about what constitutes productivity, how to maintain autonomy while ensuring accountability, the benefits of flexibility, and the role of the office.

Microsoft said the concerns feed into features the company is adding to its employee experience platform, Viva.

It’s adding four new apps to the platform, and a Leadership Corner to Viva Engage as a space to invite employees to interact directly with leadership, share ideas and perspectives.

• Pulse “will enable managers and team leads to seek regular and confidential feedback on their team’s experience”.
• Amplify centralises communications campaigns, offers writing guidance to improve messaging, enables publishing via multiple channels and distribution groups in Microsoft 365, and provides metrics for improvement.
• Answers will use AI to match employee questions to answers and experts across the organisation to help put collective knowledge to work for all employees.
• People in Viva is a new capability that will use AI to “create rich profile cards with details on an employee’s interests, knowledge, and team goals to help colleagues easily discover connections, experts and insights across the organisation”.

All of these and more will be introduced from early next year.

Microsoft recently launched Viva Engage, which “fosters digital community building through conversations and self-expression tools, with stories and storylines”.

Photo: IMI boss Simon Boucher.