WHAT IS MICROSOFT VIVA?
A little over a year ago, during the heart of the global pandemic, Microsoft announced the start of its new workforce integration system Microsoft Viva. With such a large fundamental shift in how and where business is done, it is seen as a huge boon to WFH (work-from-home) and hybrid-based organizations. Viva is designed help address the problems that accompany working remotely while maintaining the merits that come with it.
The merits are clear: you get more time in your day with less time on the road, the comfort of working in your own home and the chance to spend more time with family; the drawbacks became increasingly clear, however: the line between workday and after-hours can quickly blur, your home might not have the necessary equipment and resources you’re accustomed to, and the home you used to look forward to returning to can quickly feel crowded while trying to focus amid your ongoing family life.
These issues, as glaring as they might have been, turned out to be less detrimental to the health and welfare of a business than the subtler ones. Information transmission, workflow speed and efficiency, communication, collaboration — while working from home is an answer to many of the dilemmas associated with modern office life, the submersion in remote work damaged the longstanding processes and protocols integral to many organizations.
Microsoft describes Viva as the first Employee Experience Platform built for the digital era. Viva brings together communications, knowledge, learning, resources, and insights into an integrated employee experience that builds on Microsoft Teams to empower people to be their best, from anywhere.
Microsoft Viva Key Features
Viva Insights “Balance productivity and wellbeing”
At best, it is difficult to gauge employee health and company morale remotely. Often, it is a reactive exercise because of dips in performance and productivity that an employee or team is struggling.
Viva Insights is designed to provide employees and employers objective metrics and feedback to help achieve balance, build better work habits, and find focus through actionable insights. Viva Insights is focused on privacy and are only visible to the individual, with safeguards like de-identification, aggregation, and differential privacy by default.
Viva Topics “Connect to knowledge and experts”
Viva Topics uses artificial intelligence (AI) to empower people with knowledge and expertise in Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft 365 apps they use every day and to connect, manage, and protect content across systems and teams. Think of it as an organizational wiki or knowledge base/information repository that continuously learns and detects what information users need. When accessing information within the platform, hovering over a keyword or term activates a “topic card” that immediately provides you with whatever information is deemed important or relevant to what you’re looking at.
This way, Viva Topics aims to minimize the information gap inherently facing workers working remotely who would otherwise, in the physical workplace, have the information closer at hand by way of colleagues and on-site resources.
Viva Learning “Make learning a natural part of your day”
An internal education tool that empowers skill enhancement and development through a centralized hub that also allows users to share courses and collaborate on education opportunities. There is a recommendations function that is designed to learn and detect skills that are relevant and promote position-specific educational tools to enhance knowledge and performance.
Viva Connections “Stay engaged and informed”
Connections are the “gateway for the customer experience” , offering a new way for leaders to shape culture and replicate, as much as possible, the experience of working face-to-face with colleagues. It centers around a personalized dashboard that brings together news, conversations, key resources, and tasks into a single employee home. It allows everyone to keep informed and connected daily.
Ultimately, engaged, healthy employees who feel a sense of ownership, purpose, and belonging have a greater impact on organizations than those who are not. Microsoft Viva helps enable individuals to prioritize wellbeing, empower managers to lead more effectively, and help leaders drive better decision-making across organizations. Contact Wellforce today to learn more about Microsoft Viva and how we can help you take your hybrid office to the next level!
