Challenges and Gratitude: A Diary Study of Software Engineers Working From Home During Covid-19 Pandemic

Covid-19 dramatically changed how organizations worked. Microsoft was one of the first to ask employees to work from home (WFH). We developed an anonymous nightly diary study with 435 participants and learned about their experiences over the first 10 weeks of the WFH directive. We found the largest challenges were having too many meetings, feeling overworked, and physical and mental health. However, engineers reported gratitude for family, increased flexibility, being employed, and team support. We also learned that the simple act of reflecting nightly during the study could be helpful: people who reported no gratitude were 22% (p-value=.000007) less likely to report being satisfied that day. Our management used the anonymized, aggregate data to create new programs (such as No Meeting Friday) to address these challenges. We then saw immediate feedback on these programs in the diaries and used that to inform future decisions.