Digital Employee Experience: Building a Strategy with Microsoft Viva

Digital Employee Experience (DEX) describes how well the technology an organisation provides helps employees do their best work. A strong DEX means employees can find information quickly, collaborate without friction, learn and grow within their tools, and feel connected to the organisation's purpose wherever they work. A poor DEX leads to shadow IT, low Microsoft 365 adoption and higher attrition.

What are the four dimensions of DEX?

ThinkShare measures DEX across four dimensions, each mapped to tools in the Microsoft Viva suite:

• Productivity: can employees complete their tasks efficiently without workarounds?
• Communication: are people informed, connected and able to reach colleagues easily?
• Learning: can employees grow and develop within their existing tools?
• Wellbeing: does technology support employee health and work-life balance rather than get in the way of it?

Why is employee engagement a business issue?

The business case for investing in digital employee experience is well established. Gallup's long-running State of the Global Workplace research has found year after year that only a minority of employees worldwide are engaged at work, and Gallup's meta-analysis of engagement data links higher engagement with higher profitability and lower staff turnover, both of which have a direct effect on recruitment and onboarding costs.

A poor digital employee experience is a direct driver of disengagement. When employees cannot find the information they need, cannot collaborate easily across locations, or feel disconnected from the organisation's purpose, engagement suffers. Microsoft 365, when properly implemented and adopted, addresses each of these pain points directly, so the useful question is how to sequence the investment for the most impact.

What is Microsoft Viva?

Microsoft Viva is Microsoft's suite of employee experience tools, built into Microsoft 365 and surfaced mainly within Teams. It covers all four DEX dimensions in an integrated way. Viva Connections delivers a personalised intranet experience within Teams, giving employees a single, reliable destination for news, tasks and quick access to resources. Viva Engage builds communities and social connection across the organisation. Viva Learning brings skills development and training directly into Teams. Viva Insights provides productivity and wellbeing analytics for both individuals and managers.

A Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Microsoft, The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Viva, identified four business impact categories: reduced labour costs through improved employee retention and faster onboarding; reduced IT administration costs from consolidating onto a single employee experience platform; increased revenue through better collaboration, focus and goal alignment; and higher employee engagement driving better customer satisfaction and experience outcomes.

How do you build a DEX strategy?

A DEX strategy is a change programme in which technology plays a supporting role, rather than a technology deployment plan. ThinkShare works with organisations to assess current DEX maturity, identify the highest-impact gaps, and sequence Microsoft Viva deployments to deliver measurable improvements. We typically begin with Viva Connections, establishing the intranet as a reliable, personalised information hub within Teams, before layering in Viva Engage for community building and Viva Insights for data-driven wellbeing decisions.

Sequencing matters. Deploying several Viva modules at the same time without a clear adoption plan typically results in low uptake across all of them, whereas a phased approach, backed by a champions programme and clear communication about what each tool does and why it matters to employees, consistently does better in terms of sustained adoption and measurable impact on employee experience scores. Our guide to Microsoft 365 change management covers the adoption side in more detail.

How do you measure DEX progress?

DEX improvement should be measured, not assumed. ThinkShare recommends establishing a baseline using employee surveys, Microsoft 365 usage analytics and Viva Insights data before any programme begins, then tracking against that baseline at 90-day intervals. Key metrics include intranet monthly active users, Teams active usage rates, time-to-information scores from employee surveys, and attrition rates segmented by department and location. Tracked consistently over time, these metrics provide the evidence needed to justify continued investment and show where additional intervention is required to keep momentum going.

Frequently asked questions

What is digital employee experience?

Digital employee experience is how well the technology an organisation provides helps people do their work. It covers how easily employees can find information, collaborate, learn and stay connected, and how much the tools support their wellbeing rather than add to their workload.

Where should a DEX strategy start?

Start with a baseline: employee surveys, Microsoft 365 usage analytics and Viva Insights data. From there, ThinkShare typically starts with Viva Connections and the intranet, because a reliable place to find news, resources and tasks underpins everything else, then adds Viva Engage and Viva Insights in later phases.

Do we need a new intranet to improve DEX?

Not necessarily. Viva Connections surfaces your SharePoint intranet inside Teams, so if the intranet already holds reliable, well-owned content, the work may be more about how it is presented and adopted than about rebuilding it.

How do you measure the impact of a DEX programme?

Track intranet monthly active users, Teams active usage, time-to-information scores from employee surveys and attrition rates by department and location. Review them against your baseline every 90 days so you can see which changes are working.

Plan your digital employee experience strategy

If you want to assess where your digital employee experience stands and which improvements will make the biggest difference, get in touch or read more about our intranet strategy work.