26 Mar 2021
You’re on mute. Is your camera on? Can you see my screen? Words that we are all familiar with by now. The past year has brought about huge changes to the way we work. Not only have regular online meetings and working from home become the norm, but the list of challenges for organisations also keeps growing. So, how do you engage with and support a remote workforce? Technology is firmly at the heart of team working and it’s clear that we need new ways of supporting each other, building connections, and sharing knowledge around collaboration and training.
Enter Microsoft Viva, a brand-new solution to empower employees, support remote working and enhance wellbeing. This platform is yet another development in the future of the modern workplace. Bringing tools for employee engagement, learning, wellbeing and knowledge discovery directly into the Microsoft 365 apps your staff work with every day. Viva is embedded across the Microsoft 365 suite and is integrated with Microsoft Teams and SharePoint.
Split into four modules: Connections, Insights, Learning and Topics, Viva is geared at making teamwork better. Let’s take a closer look into each of the modules and how they work below.
Viva Connections is all about ensuring your employees stay engaged with your company. It has been described by Microsoft as the ‘gateway to a modern employee experience.’ Designed with the modern world of work in mind, it allows employees to stay informed no matter where they are working.
Available through Microsoft Teams, Connections is personalised to your organisation and tailored to each person. Powered by SharePoint, it gives people a curated, company-branded experience on a custom feed of news, announcements and conversations. The personalised dashboard connects individuals to company tools and resources across the digital workplace, keeping everyone in the company engaged.
With people adapting to new ways of working, the importance of organisations looking after their staff is paramount. After all, a happy team is a productive team. This is where Viva Insights comes in. Available to download as an app in Teams, Viva Insights gives individuals, managers, and leaders personalised and actionable insights that help them and their teams to be at their best at work. To protect privacy, personal insights are visible only to the individual.
For managers and leaders, the Insights dashboard will identify where teams may be struggling, provide visibility on work patterns, and share statistics on employee burnout; all of these can help lead to fostering a culture of wellbeing at work. In the coming months, Microsoft have shared their plans for additional ‘personal wellbeing experiences’ in Insights, including a virtual commute feature, and an integration with health and happiness app Headspace for meditation and mindfulness.
Gain new skills and contribute to the ongoing success of your organisation with opportunities provided by Viva Learning. It will aggregate lessons from sources around the web that your teams are already familiar with, like LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, and Coursera.
Individuals will be able to organise and share lessons as they would with any other type of content, in Teams chats, channels, and tabs, which they are already using to collaborate every day. Teams and groups of people can also organise their own learning tab with customised, relevant learning content.
With Viva Learning, managers and team leaders will be able to assign courses to certain individuals, promoting a culture of learning and growth across the company.
Empower your staff with knowledge and expertise, Viva Topics uses AI to provide relevant information on different subjects without the need for searching or switching between apps.
When Viva identifies a topic within a M365 app such as Teams, it automatically collects and curates content from across your systems into a Topics Page. Here, staff will be able to easily access information such as:
This information can be edited and updated. Viva Topics is a great way to connect with individuals and knowledge experts in their organisation, improving productivity and collaboration across an organisation’s teams.
While it’s still early days for Microsoft Viva, we’re excited to see what the future holds. It is clear Microsoft Viva is the next step in managing employee experience and a key element in building a modern intelligent workplace.
To see how Microsoft Viva could make a difference to your organisation, get in touch with a member of our team.
