With the launch of Microsoft Viva as an Employee Experience Platform (EXP), Microsoft has acknowledged the importance of having a digital office space where employees can interact. This environment is invaluable for businesses, as it creates a network of collaborative support, while also fostering a workplace culture that is integrated throughout all levels of an organization.
When the world was forced to adapt to the pandemic and migrate office operations to digital spaces, the world was at risk of losing the important benefits of a unified workspace. Microsoft Viva addresses this challenge, providing a digital re-creation of the internal dynamics and processes of a physical office space.
In a blog post that coincided with Viva’s launch, leaders at Microsoft stated “the case for EXP.” This blog post challenges the traditional boundaries that confine an office to a physical “space,” highlighting how the development of EXPs can offer the same benefits of traditional workspaces and, furthermore, provide additional benefits only accessible on a digital platform.
This article highlights the benefits of three key features of Microsoft Viva that increase productivity across all levels of an organization while also enriching the employee experience.
What is Microsoft Viva?
The release of Microsoft Viva in February 2021 represented Microsoft’s greater efforts to create an EXP to ensure employees remain connected in an increasingly online world. Microsoft Viva’s EXP offers businesses a central place for employees to communicate and collaborate, providing new services to Microsoft users, and integrating interoperability with existing Microsoft 365 services, such as Microsoft Teams and SharePoint.
Three Key Features of Microsoft Viva
1. Viva Connections
Viva Connections is the central core of Viva’s EXP, a personalized hub of information and connection. In Viva Connections, employees can access news, conversations, internal communications, and critical tools to make sure they have both the collaborative support and resources they need to succeed. Viva Connections ensures your organization fosters a workplace culture that involves all employees. Visiting this digital space is just like walking into a physical office space, while simultaneously providing the benefit of connecting and collaborating with colleagues around the world.
Benefits of Viva Connections:
- Integrates Existing Services: Investing in a new service often brings the challenges of reconfiguring existing processes, infrastructure, and business management software. Viva Connections solves these challenges by providing full integration with Microsoft 365, meaning employees can access the unifying dynamics of Viva Connections while seamlessly communicating via Microsoft Teams.
- Curated, Customized Content: Viva Connections allows businesses to share news and internal communications with consistent quality control. Communications can be distributed according to their level of priority, making sure critical information is always accessible for employees, keeping them connected, informed, and aligned with the culture and goals of the organization. Furthermore, Viva Connections dashboards can be customized through services like Microsoft Power Apps, to align both the content and the aesthetic.
2. Viva Insights
Viva Insights provides data-driven evaluations, solutions, and processes to help organizations keep track of critical information, workflows, and databases with optimized accessibility, management, and security.
Benefits of Viva Insights:
- High-Level Insights for Management: By tracking real-time data such as email correspondence, content consumption, productivity levels, and engagement, Viva Insights provides management with a high-level view of how employees are operating and insights on how operations can be optimized. For example, Viva Insights allows you to view how many emails are being read by employees, what times of day they are most likely to read emails, and how long it takes to read them.
- Personalized Insights for Employees: Viva Insights also provides specific data-driven insights for all employees, providing suggestions to make sure they are achieving goals and completing deliverables. These personalized insights are not only structured to optimize efficiency, but also track user activity to identify potential patterns that may lead to employee burnout. Viva Insights suggests changes to your workday to achieve a balanced work schedule and offers tips for self-care and maintaining mental health.
3. Viva Learning
Viva Learning provides a time-effective method of making sure all information gaps can be filled in one space. If an employee needs a piece of critical information, they don’t have to connect with another employee to access this information—they can simply use the Viva Learning feature to make sure they have the information they need to succeed.
Benefits of Viva Learning:
- Consistent Onboarding and Training: By having a central space for employees to acquire work-related knowledge, Viva Learning ensures that all new or newly promoted employees have consistent materials to help them learn new tasks and processes.
- User-Specific Information: At times, an employee doesn’t need to know the general goals and/or processes of your organization. In Viva Learning, you can create customized modules that are tailored to each employee’s unique needs, allowing them to focus on acquiring only the information they need for their role.
If you would like to know more about you can take full advantage of Microsoft Viva’s features for your business needs, reach out to connect with one of our Microsoft consultants.
