Microsoft Viva was designed to enhance the workplace experience. From its announcement late in 2020, as a four-module employee engagement platform, it has evolved to become a hub for well-being, learning, collaboration, goal management, knowledge sharing, and more.
We wanted to explore Microsoft Viva in its entirety by providing an overview of the seven modules currently available. Here we look at the features and benefits of each. We hope you find this helpful.
Viva Insights
Insights reminds you to be mindful of your mental well-being in the work environment. Throughout the day, you can reflect on your mood, take breaks, and use Headspace guided meditations to reduce stress, increase focus and prepare for presentations.
The virtual commute function offers tools to maintain a good work-life balance – increasingly relevant with the rise of hybrid working. Users are prompted to assign ongoing work to a task list for the next day. Focus time improves productivity by allowing you to schedule time to work undisturbed. With Viva Insights, collaborative working is also promoted. You can show appreciation by sending praise to colleagues privately or on the main Teams channel.
The mood tracker detects trends within the working day and week. Insights analyses habits and patterns in the data. Too many meetings a day could be causing stress. Or you could benefit from focus time. These insights are completely private, but managers receive an anonymised overview with suggestions to improve the employee experience. Using Viva Insights helps create a company culture that values employee happiness and satisfaction.
Viva Connections
Connections integrates with the SharePoint intranet to efficiently display resources to employees. There are two components – the dashboard and feed.
Use quick-action cards on your dashboard to navigate to other apps or sites. Or easily check off your to-do list and view the outcome of holiday requests. This can be achieved in seconds compared to searching the intranet. Connections comes with prebuilt cards, but you can customise these to reflect your organisation’s needs too.
The feed is curated to show relevant, targeted content to the right people at the right time. This is a place for company news and community posts. Only content that’s new to the user is shown so it’s always up to date.
Viva Topics
The introduction of Viva Topics streamlines how employees search for information. AI-technology describes the topic and collates related resources such as pages and files. Topics are searchable and highlighted when mentioned or cited by an author. Subject matter experts who have contributed to the topic are also clearly identified.
The search process is less distracting because everyone knows exactly how to find the information they need, reducing the need for traditional meetings to share knowledge. Utilising Topics will boost your employee’s focus and creativity. Topics are also an excellent way to equip new starts with the tools needed to find answers or learn about previous projects.
We have implemented Viva Topics as a knowledge centre for an international consulting firm, you can read that case study here.
Viva Learning
Viva Learning is an education hub enabling you to invest in your employees’ professional progression from anywhere. Even third-party content like LinkedIn Learning can be accessed through Teams, meaning remote employees have full access to the content library too. There are opportunities for formal and informal training. The courses offered become tailored to the individual user as they develop their skills. The more learning completed, the better the recommendations become.
Viva Engage
Engage modernises employee connections using the storyline and story functions. Employees can develop strong personal networks by building common interest communities. These can be about anything that matters to them – hobby groups, leadership support, and more.
The newsfeed is a place to express your personality with images and videos. You can share your work and opinions and contribute to conversations. New starts can integrate into the community by viewing storylines to learn more about their colleagues. Using Engage to strengthen employee relationships will enhance collaboration across the organisation.
Viva Goals
Goals is a new module that helps everyone work in alignment with the business strategy through goal-sharing. Motivate your team by showing how their work makes an impact with accessible results data. Support them to work confidently and autonomously by automating deadline reminders. Viva Goals unites your employees with a shared mission and empowers them to assess how they’re meeting the organisation’s priorities.
Viva Sales
Viva Sales is the first module targeted to a specific role. It recognises that connecting with customers through interactions is at the centre of an effective sales journey. AI technology automates mundane tasks like updating customer records, so your sales professionals can dedicate their time to what matters – the customers. The module can also be harnessed for reminders and recommendations. Sales will be finalised faster as your customers receive more attentive and personalised service.
The latest updates to Microsoft Viva are transforming the way businesses function in and out of the office. Employees are empowered to monitor their well-being with Insights and take control of their development with Learning. There is a clear focus on collaboration; with Topics revolutionising knowledge-sharing, Connections keeping people up-to-date with the latest news, and Engage acting as a professional social network site. Organisational success is enhanced by making goals and outcomes accessible and directing employee time to where it’s most impactful with Sales.
To ensure you stay up-to-date with the latest Viva launches you can follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter, or you can subscribe to our monthly newsletter to get them delivered directly to your inbox. Or if you are keen to develop a deeper understanding of how the platform could transform employee engagement and experience within your organisation, book a call with one of our certified consultants.