Hybrid work has become the new norm. Organizations today must balance business outcomes with employee wellbeing, which is particularly difficult now that more people are regularly working inside and outside the office, and budgets are tightening. The consequences of this shift are many: organizations are struggling to set the right team goals, maintain culture, as well as recruit and retain the best people.

Microsoft Viva, the first employee experience platform (EXP) built for the hybrid era, can help organizations address these challenges. Viva uniquely taps the power of AI and Microsoft Graph, engages people naturally within the flow of their work, and is built on the secure, extensible platform of Microsoft 365. A single, integrated EXP is even more essential now that there are economic uncertainties. Viva can help organizations do more with less by ensuring their people and projects are aligned to the most important business priorities and that they are empowered and supported to achieve them. In fact, 96 percent of employees who use objectives and key results (OKRs) understand how their work ties into broader goals, feel aligned, and have a sense of purpose within their organization.¹

Enhance the employee experience to boost business outcomes

When people are happy and inspired, they create their best work. They think and perform better, collaborate more, and deliver results that help the organization grow and flourish. Research shows that when companies invest in their people and focus on improving the employee experience and engagement, they can directly Excellerate retention and profitability. In fact, highly engaged employees are 12 times less likely to leave their company than those who are not engaged,² and organizations with highly engaged employees have 23 percent greater profitability.³

A new Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Viva study by Forrester Consulting, commissioned by Microsoft, shows additional benefits. It found that a composite organization based on interviewed customers using Microsoft Viva realized a three-year 327 percent return on investment (ROI) with payback in less than six months. The study details five ways Viva can help organizations save time and money while improving business outcomes:

1. Improved productivity from content and expert discovery: Viva enabled a 75 percent reduction in search time for the composite organization. Forty-three percent of leaders say relationship building, which can impact efficient content discovery, is the greatest challenge in remote and hybrid work.⁴ Through virtual communities and resource groups, Viva helps employees reestablish connections with mentors, coaches, and subject matter experts. It also facilitates content discovery in the flow of work so that employees spend less time searching for what they need to be their best.
2. Improved employee retention: Using Viva, the composite organization experienced a 10 percent reduction in employee attrition in year one, increasing to 20 percent by year three. There are lots of factors that influence employee satisfaction. Taking suggestions for improvement (and acting on them) is one of them, but only 43 percent of employees say their company solicits feedback at least once a year.⁵ Viva gives leaders the tools to create a continuous feedback loop that highlights opportunities to drive change and build a healthier workplace. It also provides employees better access to knowledge resources, expert colleagues, and OKRs, all of which boost their sense of belonging and accomplishment.
3. Time savings for operations teams: Operations team members from the composite organization who used Viva recouped 20 percent of their weekly time spent helping employees source relevant content. Viva streamlines many of the time-consuming but necessary activities that people from departments like HR, learning and development, corporate communications, and IT handle every day. By helping employees manage their own goals, learning courses, and content discovery, operations can refocus the time saved on more strategic priorities.
4. Faster onboarding process: Viva enabled a 50 percent reduction in full onboarding time for the study’s composite organization. Onboarding and productivity are directly related: the longer it takes to onboard, the longer it also takes to realize full productivity from new hires and internal transfers. Viva centralizes the tools employees need to reach time-to-value and connect with the right people for development and visibility into team priorities.
5. Improved business outcomes: Every Viva app adds to employee competency, engagement, and motivation, which in turn leads to better productivity development, greater innovation, and increased revenues from faster time-to-market. These benefits are even more pronounced when using Viva to align individual actions to business outcomes: employees who report having clarity about their work priorities are four-and-a-half times as likely to say they’re happy at their current company—and people who are satisfied at work are also more productive at work.⁵

Hear from Microsoft Viva customers

In addition to the quantifiable benefits listed, Viva customers interviewed for this study experienced improved employee satisfaction and wellbeing, easier security and compliance, enhanced analytics and insights, and interoperability with other Microsoft solutions. “Implementing Viva was the fastest and easiest project ever. This is the highest-value implementation for our money we’ve seen thus far,” says the Chief Operating Officer of an electronics company. While the product owner of a consumer packaged goods (CPG) company shared, “Viva is a front door to everything. We’ve realized improvements to employees’ personal well-being, their ability to deliver, and company outcomes overall.”

Viva now has more than 20 million monthly active users and more than 1,000 paid customers—including Cricket Australia, RealFoundations, Music Tribe, Orkla, and U.S. Bank who are using Microsoft Viva to Excellerate their employee experience. “With Viva Insights, we’ve found that more employees take focus time seriously. We started with 30 percent of employees practicing focus hours—and we’ve already seen that grow to 40 percent,” says Saumil Gandhi, Senior IT Director, PayPal. “Ten percent is a significant bump.” Similarly, employees at Music Tribe are now spending an average of 10 hours per month on learning—up from 0 hours—thanks to Microsoft Viva Learning. “We have an obligation to help upskill our employees,” says Lorna Stubbs, Chief Human Resources Officer, Music Tribe. “We needed to invest in career planning, succession planning, and learning if we were going to help our employees grow along with us.”

Visit our customer stories site to read more examples of the impact Viva is having on employees across industries.

Learn more

Download the Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Viva study now to learn more about the measurable impact Microsoft Viva can deliver for your employees and organization. Contact your Microsoft account team to inquire about Microsoft Viva.

¹The 2021 Goal Management Report, Ally.io. June 2021.

²What is Employee Engagement?, Glint. 2022.

³How to Excellerate Employee Engagement in the Workplace, Gallup. 2022.

⁴Great Expectations: Making Hybrid Work Work, Microsoft. March 16, 2022.

⁵Hybrid Work Is Just Work. Are We Doing It Wrong? Microsoft. September 22, 2022.

Established in 1959 as Leonard Light Industries, the Keegor Group of companies manufactures fire assay and gold plant furnaces, machinery and requisites. The Keegor brand is world renowned in the precious metals assaying and refining sectors, with equipment operating and consumables used in mines, laboratories and refineries in various countries across six continents.

The Keegor Group needed an integrated ERP solution to address challenges such as insufficient inventory and operational controls, outdated processes and delays between quoting customers and delivering product, which made it difficult to provide the desired levels of customer service.

A long-term SYSPRO client, Keegor initially selected the SYSPRO solution in 2011 based on its position as a leader in manufacturing software as well as its cost-effectiveness and ease of use. Further critical factors influencing the decision included strengths in inventory reporting and job shop manufacturing. Keegor’s SYSPRO solution is integrated with Microsoft ODBC and GreenLine general ledger reconciliation software.

Keegor has transitioned away from a largely manual system, which was vulnerable to error, towards a fully integrated solution with high levels of automation, efficiency and accuracy.

“Before implementing SYSPRO, we were concerned about insufficient controls particularly in the warehouse, inaccurate costs and the possibility of fraud as a result of manual systems which extended from our cash books to the annual stocktake. With SYSPRO, and particularly since upgrading to SYSPRO 8 in 2019, we have been able to achieve 157% revenue growth.”

“With SYSPRO, and particularly since upgrading to SYSPRO 8 in 2019, we have been able to keep pace with revenue growth of 157%. Our profit before tax has increased by 864% and sales per employee have risen 111%.” – Michelle Austin, Financial Director, The Keegor Group

Download case study here.

Over two years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a seismic shift in the bedrock of our society. Today, the aftershocks continue to exact a mental and emotional toll on employees and their families. What began as a viral contagion has become a mental health crisis. accurate surveys report that:

In their accurate study on The C-Suite’s Role in Well-Being, Deloitte shared, “The pandemic has worsened everyone’s health, but executives don’t realize how much their employees are struggling. While nearly 70% of the C-suite are seriously considering quitting for a job that better supports their well-being, more than eight out of 10 global executives believe their people are thriving in all aspects of their well-being.”

Leaders can no longer use this ostrich strategy of burying their heads in the sand when it comes to addressing well-being. Between ‘The Great Resignation’ and ‘Quiet Quitting’, people are voting with their feet. In their 2022 global Work Trend Index, Microsoft found that 53% of over 31,000 global employees said they’re more likely to prioritize health and well-being over work than before the pandemic.

It’s time for business leaders to catch up and do what science already knows. There’s a growing body of scholarly evidence-based research, based on three decades of study, that confirms that health and well-being is not just good for people, it’s good for the bottom line.

Dr. Ken Pelletier, a consultant to the World Health Organization, has spent his career studying the link between employee well-being and business performance. At the inaugural FTR3 conference in Nashville two weeks ago, Dr. Pelletier shared a study that vividly demonstrates this link. The study compared the stock market returns of companies who were C. Everett Koop National Health award winners to the stock market average performance of the S&P 500 over the time period between 2000-2014. The Koop award winners averaged a stock value appreciation of 325%. The S&P 500 average appreciation during the same period was 105%.

The Framework for Well-Being

Last month, United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a new Surgeon General’s Framework for Mental Health & Well-Being in the Workplace. The report highlights the connection between work and well-being. It states, “With more than 160 million people participating in the United States workforce and with the average full-time worker in the United States spending about half of their waking life at work, workplaces play a significant role in shaping our mental and physical well-being.”

“A healthy workforce is the foundation for thriving organizations and healthier communities,” states Surgeon General Dr. Murthy. “As we recover from the worst of the pandemic, we have an opportunity and the power to make workplaces engines for mental health and well-being.” Dr. Murthy shared five essentials “to help organizations develop, institutionalize, and update policies, processes, and practices that best support the mental health and well-being of all workers.”

If an organization wants to Excellerate in the future, its leaders need to know where it stands in the present. As you review the framework and each of its five essentials, pause and reflect: How is your company doing? What’s working well? What could be better?

The Five Essentials

1. Protection from Harm

• Prioritize workplace physical and psychological safety
• Enable adequate rest
• Normalize and support mental health
• Operationalize Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Accessibility norms, policies, and programs

2. Connection and Community

• Create cultures of inclusion and belonging
• Cultivate trusted relationships
• Foster collaboration and teamwork

3. Work-Life Harmony

• Provide more autonomy over how work is done
• Make schedules as flexible and predictable as possible
• Increase access to paid leave
• Respect boundaries between work and non-work time

4. Mattering at Work

• Provide a living wage
• Engage workers in workplace decisions
• Build a culture of gratitude and recognition
• Connect individual work with organizational mission

5. Opportunities for Growth

• Offer quality training, education, and mentoring
• Foster clear, equitable pathways for career advancement
• Ensure relevant, reciprocal feedback

Reviewing the five essentials and their components may be overwhelming. They’re a gold standard for well-being. You may recognize strengths in some areas, weaknesses in others. Implementing a comprehensive plan to meet all of these needs might seem impossible.

Yet, what do these five essentials have in common? They’re all things leaders significantly influence, for better or worse. When it comes to well-being, leaders make a huge difference, both in what they do and what they don’t do.

You can’t do everything, everywhere, all at once. But in a crisis, it’s crucial to act. So get started.

Don’t Make Well-Being A Guessing Game

Where should leaders start? By taking time to listen to employees. There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution to well-being. For example, one subset of ‘Work-Life Harmony’ is “making schedules as flexible and predictable as possible”. Flexibility and predictability will mean different things to different people.

This is why the Surgeon General’s Framework places “Worker’s Voice and Equity” at the center of the model. Leaders need to slow down, focus, and truly listen to the people they lead. While work in our digital age may travel at the speed of light, human mental health and well-being needs to move much slower. We have to lead at the speed of humanity, by being exceptionally human ourselves.

As Dr. Murthy states, “The most effective leaders express compassion, empathy, and generosity; communicate openly, often, and clearly; and practice human and wellness-centered leadership by recognizing the connection between individual strengths, growth, and organizational change.”

If a well-being program is going to be effective, it has to meet the needs of the end-user. Well-being isn’t something you go off and heroically figure out in isolation. It needs to be co-created through connection, communication, and collaboration. Well-being, like leadership itself, isn’t about you. It’s about the people you lead.

Faced with an onslaught of malware-less attacks that are increasingly hard to identify and stop, CISOs are contending with a threatscape where bad actors innovate faster than security and IT teams can keep up. However, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are proving effective in strengthening cybersecurity by scaling data analysis volume while increasing response speeds and securing digital transformation projects under construction. 

“AI is incredibly, incredibly effective in processing large amounts of data and classifying this data to determine what is good and what’s bad. At Microsoft, we process 24 trillion signals every single day, and that’s across identities and endpoints and devices and collaboration tools, and much more. And without AI, we simply could not tackle this,” Vasu Jakkal, corporate vice president for Microsoft security, compliance, identity, and privacy, told her keynotes’ audience at the RSA Conference earlier this year.

AI helps close skills gaps, growing the market  

2022 is a breakout year for AI and ML in cybersecurity. Both technologies enable cybersecurity and IT teams to Excellerate the insights, productivity and economies of scale they can achieve with smaller teams. 93% of IT executives are already using or considering implementing AI and ML to strengthen their cybersecurity tech stacks. Of those, 64% of IT executives have implemented AI for security in at least one of their security life cycle processes, and 29% are evaluating vendors. 

CISOs tell VentureBeat that one of the primary factors driving adoption is the need to get more revenue-related projects done with fewer people. In addition, AI and ML-based apps and platforms are helping solve the cybersecurity skills shortages that put organizations at a higher risk of breaches. According to the (ISC)² Cybersecurity Workforce Study, “3.4 million more cybersecurity workers are needed to secure assets effectively.”

CISOs also need the real-time data insights that AI- and ML-based systems provide to fine-tune predictive models, gain a holistic view of their networks and continue implementing their zero-trust security framework and strategy. As a result, enterprise spending on AI- and ML-based cybersecurity solutions are projected to attain a 24% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2027 and reach a market value of $46 billion.

AI’s leading use cases in cybersecurity 

It’s common to find enterprises not tracking up to 40% of their endpoints, making it more challenging because many IT teams aren’t sure how many endpoints their internal processes are creating in a given year. Over a third, or 35%, of enterprises using AI today to strengthen their tech stacks say that endpoint discovery and asset management is their leading use case. Enterprises plan to increase their use of endpoint discovery and asset management by 15% in three years, eventually installed in nearly half of all enterprises. 

It’s understandable why endpoint recovery and asset management are highly prioritized due to how loosely managed their digital certificates are. For example, Keyfactor found that 40% of enterprises use spreadsheets to track digital certificates manually, and 57% do not have an accurate inventory of SSH keys. 

Additional use cases revolve around cybersecurity investments related to zero-trust initiatives, including vulnerability and patch management, access management and identity access management (IAM). For example, 34% of enterprises are using AI-based vulnerability and patch management systems today, which is expected to jump to over 40% in three years. 

Who CISOs trust to get it right 

Over 11,700 companies in Crunchbase are affiliated with cybersecurity, with over 1,200 mentioning AI and ML as core tech stacks and products and service strategies. As a result, there’s an abundance of cybersecurity vendors to consider, and over a thousand can use AL, ML or both to solve security problems.

CISOs look to AI and ML cybersecurity vendors who can most help consolidate their tech stacks first. They’re also looking for AI and ML applications, systems and platforms that deliver measurable business value while being feasible to implement, given their organizations’ limited resources. CISOs are getting quick wins using this approach. 

The most common use cases are AI- and ML-based cybersecurity implementations of transaction-fraud detection, file-based malware detection, process behavior analysis, and web domain and reputation assessment. CISOs want AI and Ml systems that can identify false positives and differentiate between attackers and admins. That’s because they meet the requirement of securing threat vectors while delivering operational efficiency and being technically feasible. 

VentureBeat’s conversations with CISOs at industry events, including RSA, BlackHat 2022, CrowdStrike’s Fal.Con and others, found several core areas where AI and ML adoption continue to get funded despite budget pressures being felt across IT and security teams. These areas include behavioral analytics (now a core part of many cybersecurity platforms), bot-based patch management, compliance, identity access management (IAM), identifying and securing machine identities, and privileged access management (PAM), where AI is used for scoring risk and validating identities. 

In addition, the following are areas where AI and ML are delivering value to enterprises today:

Using AL and ML to Excellerate behavioral analytics, improving authentication accuracy. Endpoint protection platform (EPP), endpoint detection and response (EDR) unified endpoint management (UEM), and a few public cloud providers, including Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and others, are combining AI techniques and ML models to Excellerate security personalization while enforcing least-privileged access. Leading cybersecurity providers are integrating predictive AI and ML to adapt security policies and roles to each user in real time based on the patterns of where and when they attempt to log in, their device type, device configuration and several other classes of variables. 

Leading providers include Blackberry Persona, Broadcom, CrowdStrike, CyberArk, Cybereason, Ivanti, SentinelOne, Microsoft, McAfee, Sophos, VMware Carbon Black and others. Enterprises say this approach to using AI-based endpoint management decreases the risk of lost or stolen devices, protecting against device and app cloning and user impersonation.

Discovering and securing endpoints by combining ML and natural language processing (NLP). Attack surface management (ASM) is comprised of external attack surface management (EASM), cyberasset attack surface management (CAASM), and digital risk protection services (DRPS), according to Gartner’s 2022 Innovation Insight for Attack Surface Management report (preprint courtesy of Palo Alto Networks). Gartner predicts that by 2026, 20% of companies will have more than 95% visibility of all their assets, which will be prioritized by risk and control coverage by implementing CAASM functionality, up from less than 1% in 2022. 

Leading vendors in this area are combining ML algorithms and NLP techniques to discover, map and define endpoint security plans to protect every endpoint in an organization. Leading vendors include Axonius, Brinqa, Cyberpion, CyCognito, FireCompass, JupiterOne, LookingGlass Cyber, Noetic Cyber, Palo Alto Networks (via its acquisition of Expanse), Randori and others. 

Using AI and ML to automate indicators of attack (IOAs), thwarting intrusion and breach attempts. AI-based IOAs fortify existing defenses using cloud-based ML and real-time threat intelligence to analyze events at runtime and dynamically issue IOAs to the sensor. The sensor then correlates the AI-generated IOAs (behavioral event data) with local events and file data to assess maliciousness. CrowdStrike says AI-powered IOAs operate asynchronously alongside existing layers of sensor defense, including sensor-based ML and existing IOAs. Its AI-based IOAs combine cloud-native ML and human expertise on a common platform invented by the company more than a decade ago. Since their introduction, AI-based IOAs have proven effective in identifying and thwarting intrusion and breach attempts while defeating them in real time based on genuine adversary behavior. 

AI-powered IOAs rely on cloud-native ML models trained using telemetry data from CrowdStrike Security Cloud combined with expertise from the company’s threat-hunting teams. IOAs are analyzed at machine speed using AI and ML, providing the accuracy, speed and scale enterprises need to thwart breaches.

“CrowdStrike leads the way in stopping the most sophisticated attacks with our industry-leading indicators of attack capability, which revolutionized how security teams prevent threats based on adversary behavior, not easily changed indicators,” said Amol Kulkarni, chief product and engineering officer at CrowdStrike. 

“Now, we are changing the game again with the addition of AI-powered indicators of ttack, which enable organizations to harness the power of the CrowdStrike Security Cloud to examine adversary behavior at machine speed and scale to stop breaches in the most effective way possible.” AI-powered IOAs have identified over 20 never-before-seen adversary patterns, which experts have validated and enforced on the Falcon platform for automated detection and prevention. 

AI and ML techniques enrich bot-based patch management with contextual intelligence. One of the most innovative areas of cybersecurity today is how the leading cybersecurity providers rely on a combination of AI and ML techniques to locate, inventory and patch endpoints that need updates. Vendors aim to Excellerate bots’ predictive accuracy and ability to identify which endpoints, machines and systems need patching when evaluating the need to take an inventory-based approach to patch management. 

Ivanti’s accurate survey on patch management found that 71% of IT and security professionals found patching overly complex and time-consuming, and 53% said that organizing and prioritizing critical vulnerabilities takes up most of their time.

Patch management needs to be more automated if it’s going to be an effective deterrent against ransomware. Taking a data-driven approach to ransomware helps. Nayaki Nayyar, president and chief product officer at Ivanti, is a leading thought leader in this area and has often presented how the most common software errors can lead to ransomware attacks. During RSA, her presentation on how Ivanti Neurons for Risk-Based Patch Management provides contextual intelligence that includes visibility into all endpoints, including those that are cloud- and on-premises based, all from a unified interface, reflects how advanced bot-based match management is coming using AI as a technology foundation.

Using AI and ML to Excellerate UEM for every device and machine identity. UEM platforms vary in how advanced they are in capitalizing on AI and Ml technologies when protecting them with least-privileged access. The most advanced UEM platforms can integrate with and help enable enterprise-wide microsegmentation, IAM and PAM. AI and ML adoption across enterprises happens fastest with these technologies embedded in platforms and, in the case of Absolute Software, in the firmware of the endpoint devices.

The same holds true for UEM for machine identities. By taking a direct, firmware-based approach to managing machine-based endpoints to enable real-time OS, patch and application updates that are needed to keep each endpoint secure, CISOs gain the visibility and control of endpoints they need. Absolute Software’s Resilience, the industry’s first self-healing zero-trust platform, is noteworthy for its asset management, device and application control, endpoint intelligence, incident reporting and compliance, according to G2 Crowds’ crowdsourced ratings. 

Ivanti Neurons for UEM relies on AI-enabled bots to seek out machine identities and endpoints and automatically update them unprompted. Ivanti’s approach to self-healing endpoints is also worth noting for how well its UEM platform approach combines AI, ML and bot technologies to deliver unified endpoint and patch management at scale across a global enterprise customer base. 

Additional vendors rated highly by G2 Crowd include CrowdStrike Falcon, VMware Workspace ONE and others. 

AI and ML are core to zero trust 

Every enterprise’s zero-trust security roadmap will be as unique as its business model and approach. A zero-trust network access (ZTNA) framework needs to be able to flex and change quickly as the business it’s supporting changes direction. Longstanding tech stacks that sought security using interdomain controllers and implicit trust proved too slow to react and be responsive to changing business requirements. 

Relying on implicit trust to connect domains was also an open invitation to a breach. 

What’s needed are cloud-based security platforms that can interpret and act on network telemetry data in real time. CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform, Ivanti’s approach to integrating AI and ML across their product lines, and Microsoft’s approach on Defender365 and their build-out of the functionality on Azure, are examples of what the future of cybersecurity looks like in a zero-trust world. Gaining AI and ML-based insights at machine speed, as CrowdStrike’s new AI-powered IOA does, is what enterprises need to stay secure while pivoting to new business opportunities in the future.

The MarketWatch News Department was not involved in the creation of this content.

Dec 13, 2022 (The Expresswire) -- 360 Research Reports added a research report on the global “Workflow Orchestration Market". The report includes an extensive analysis of the market’s characteristics, COVID-19 impact, size and growth, segmentation, regional and country breakdowns, competitive environment, market shares, trends, and strategies. In addition, it traces the development of the market over time and projects regional market growth. It compares the market to other markets and situates it in relation to the larger market.

Workflow Orchestration Market Size is projected to Reach Multimillion USD by 2028, In comparison to 2023, at unexpected CAGR during the forecast Period 2023-2028.

Workflow Orchestration Market Research Report is spread across 98 Pages and provides exclusive data, information, vital statistics, trends, and competitive landscape details in this niche sector.

The MarketWatch News Department was not involved in the creation of this content.

SAO PAULO - Brazilian miner Vale said on Tuesday it has signed agreements with local authorities and clients to look at developing so-called "mega hubs" in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

The mining giant said in a securities filing that the industrial complexes in the Middle East would be focused on low-carbon steelmaking products such as hot briquetted iron to supply both local and foreign markets.

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Vale is expected to build and operate iron-ore concentration and briquetting plants within the hubs, the company said, while local parties are seen building the required logistics infrastructure.

Investors and clients would construct and operate the direct reduction iron plants and be off-takers of hot briquetted iron for either the export or domestic markets, it added.

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"We see a great potential in the direct reduction route, with the seaborne demand for these high-grade agglomerated products growing 100 million tonnes in the next 15 to 20 years," Vale's head of iron-ore Marcello Spinelli said.

The agreements include a memorandum of understanding signed with Saudi Arabia's National Industrial Development Center (NIDC) for them to study developing a mega hub in Ras Al Khair.

Vale has also signed an MoU with the UAE's Emirates Steel Arkan for a plant at the Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi and a cooperation memorandum with Oman's Commerce Ministry for a mega hub to be implemented in Duqm, it said.

The Department of Health is working with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to conduct a feasibility study on the rollout of solar panels in critical areas in health facilities.

According to a statement released by the department on Monday, the move is part of the energy mix to mitigate the impact of load shedding and overstraining backup generators in hospitals.

This comes after the Health Minister, Dr Joe Phaahla, announced government's plan to shield public health facilities from the devastating power outages.

"The Department of Health is on the right track with efforts to ensure the priority hospitals are excluded from load shedding as part of plans to minimise the disruptions on the provision of essential health services during power outages," the statement read.

The department and Eskom have since implemented the long-awaited exemption of North West hospitals, which include Taung Hospital and Ganyesa Hospital, pushing the total number of exempted health institutions from 72 to 77.

"This is a work in progress, and the inclusion of North West hospitals is part of the commitment made by Minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla that no province will be left behind," the department said.

"Although, due to technical challenges, some health facilities will take time to be exempted."

The department said it will keep the public abreast of the progress made regarding hospital exclusions around the country.