Microsoft Viva: A Guide to Enhancing the Employee Experience

Alan Bryan

March 27, 2023

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Introduction:

Microsoft Viva is the latest offering from Microsoft, aimed at revolutionizing how we work and enhancing the employee experience. With increasing businesses adopting hybrid and remote work models, employee engagement and well-being have become key focus areas. In this article, we’ll look at Microsoft Viva and explore how it can help organizations create a more productive and fulfilling work environment.

What is Microsoft Viva?

Microsoft Viva is an employee experience platform that integrates communications, learning, resources, knowledge, and insights into Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams workflow. Viva features connection, insight, learning, and user selectable topics, enabling individuals and teams to achieve their full potential. Let’s look at each component quickly to see how it fits into the bigger picture:

1. Viva Insights

Collects statistics and data while you work, analyses them, and makes recommendations to help teammates use their time more effectively. It also aims to boost their productivity and satisfaction.

Viva Insights has three main components and benefits:

1. Improve employee well-being
2. Understand employee engagement
3. Analyze engagement data

2. Viva Engage

Microsoft Viva Engage is a part of the Microsoft Viva platform, which is a set of tools and services designed to help organizations enhance employee engagement, well-being, and productivity. Specifically, Viva Engage is a tool that enables organizations to create a more connected and engaged workforce by providing employees with the opportunity to share feedback, ask questions, and provide suggestions.

Viva Engage offers a range of features that can help organizations improve communication and collaboration among employees, such as live polls, surveys, and sentiment analysis tools.

3. Viva Connections

Provide a personalized view of news, conversations, and communities through the apps and devices your staff is already familiar with and uses daily. This single outlet is ideal for bringing together news, conversations, and resources. Employees can stay connected even when they are in a remote location. The following are some key features of viva connections:

1. Dashboards- Surface company resources, such as calendars, wellness and health reminders, and holidays, making them centrally and easily accessible.
2. Dashboard Cards- The building blocks of the dashboard.
3. Feed- Helps to share important messages with the employees directly.

4. Viva Learning

Your team can use Viva Learning to discover, share, recommend, and gain knowledge from your organization’s and your partners’ content library resources. Viva Learning makes it simple to create learning and growth opportunities for your organization without leaving your existing communication tools.

5. Viva Topics

Is an artificial intelligence-powered solution for discovering, organizing, and surfacing what matters. It automatically categorizes and organizes content and expertise across your systems and teams into topics such as projects, processes, products, and customers. People don’t need a separate app or search; knowledge appears in the apps they already use. Experts can quickly curate and share knowledge through simple, fully configurable web pages.

Use cases for Microsoft Viva

1. Enhanced Onboarding Experience:

With Viva Connections, new employees can be provided with a personalized onboarding experience that provides them with all the information they need to get started. This can include company policies, culture, job-specific training, and more. By providing a centralized platform for onboarding, Viva Connections can help reduce the time and resources required for new employee training.

2. Improved Employee Training and Development:

Viva Learning provides employees with a centralized hub for training and development, making it easier to find and enroll in courses that are relevant to their job. Organizations can create custom courses and training programs that are tailored to their employees’ needs, which can help increase the effectiveness of employee training and development initiatives.

3. Employee Well-being and Burnout Prevention:

Viva Insights can help employees manage their work-life balance and avoid burnout by providing them with insights and recommendations based on their work patterns and preferences. For example, Viva Insights can help employees set boundaries around their work hours and schedule breaks to avoid overworking. It also includes features like a virtual commute, which can help employees transition between work and home life.

4. Knowledge Discovery and Sharing:

Viva Topics can help employees find relevant information and expertise within their organization, reducing the time and effort required to search for information. For example, employees can use Viva Topics to find information on company policies, procedures, and best practices, or to connect with subject matter experts within their organization.

5. Centralized Employee Communication:

Viva Connections can help organizations streamline employee communication by providing a centralized platform for news, events, and other important information. This can help ensure that employees are informed and up-to-date on company news and initiatives.

Implementing Microsoft Viva:

Microsoft viva can benefit your enterprise by consolidating, supporting and enriching the employee environment. It’s time to consider some crucial aspects to bear in mind while implementing Viva:

1. Consider the Use Cases

Understand your organization’s priorities, key pain points, and the subject areas, training programs, or concerns that are most important for your employees to be aware of. Viva AI is powerful and will likely generate more Topics than expected, so having a sense of what is most important to you from the start will help you curate the AI outcomes.

2. Selecting the right Components

Each component of Microsoft Viva has its own benefit and purpose, and going back to the use case will maintain focus of the project goals. Create a brief plan about the goals you need to achieve, and which component would help you achieve it.

3. Ensure Employee Engagement

Your Microsoft Viva implementation is of lower value if your employees are unwilling or able to adopt the system and its features. Elaborating to your staff the benefits of using Viva, and why the organization is adopting this tool. Plan training sessions for the employees to help them transition to utilize the tool.

Microsoft Viva and the Future of Work:

Business leaders work to understand the new workplace and how to make it “work” for their employees, organizations, and themselves. Hybrid working is becoming more popular across industries, or where you work is becoming less important. Work has grown increasingly digital, and business is perpetually accelerating. A successful organization should incorporate employee well-being, team unity, and trust. These changes have also highlighted the importance of providing employees with a positive experience to be productive. Microsoft Viva is a strategic solution for organizations looking to improve employee engagement.

Conclusion:

Microsoft Viva is a powerful tool for organizations looking to enhance employee experience and create a more productive and fulfilling work environment. By leveraging Viva’s capabilities, businesses can improve engagement, foster learning, and enhance well-being, all while staying connected in a remote or hybrid work environment. As we look to the future of work, Microsoft Viva is set to play a key role in helping organizations drive success and stay competitive in an ever-evolving business landscape.