How Does Microsoft Viva Help Improve Employee Experience?

If you’re like most business leaders, you’ve embraced a hybrid or remote working model to some degree. At the same time, though, you’re probably concerned about your employees’ productivity and sense of culture while working from home. 

When your employees aren’t in the office, it can be more challenging to build feelings of connection and community. As a result, the employee experience may suffer, and you may find your people aren’t working to their optimum – or even hand in their resignations. 

In line with this, research shows that the biggest challenges of remote and hybrid working are ‘communication and collaboration’ and ‘loneliness.’

While you might be tempted to mandate employees come back into the office five days a week, this isn’t the way forward either. Further research shows that four in ten employees would quit if they weren’t given hybrid working options.

So, what’s a business leader to do? How can you create connection and boost the employee experience from a distance? The answer lies in Microsoft Viva. 

What is Microsoft Viva?

Microsoft defined Microsoft Viva as an ‘employee experience platform that brings together communications, knowledge, learning, resources and insights.’

The platform is a suite of applications designed to boost employee morale, productivity and wellbeing. Viva connects seamlessly to Microsoft 365 and can be found within Teams as an add-on.

Below, we’ll look at each of the features within Microsoft Viva in more detail, so you can gain a better understanding of how this amazing app can help your organization improve the employee experience. 

Connections

Viva Connections is an engagement portal that enables you to build your corporate culture and supercharge internal communications. The hub is a place where your employees can post company updates, event information and share resources. 

It can be helpful to think of Viva Connections like the best company Intranet you’ve ever seen, making it super easy for your employees to stay up-to-date on the latest internal news in a way that is genuinely engaging and enjoyable.

Insights

Viva Insights is an excellent data analytics tool that tracks your employees’ usage of Microsoft 365 applications to glean patterns into employee productivity and wellbeing. While it might sound slightly Orwellian, insights is actually there to help employees. The tool, in particular, has been designed to spot signs of overworking and burnout, so that managers can make informed decisions to ensure their employees stay healthy and live a balanced life. 

Insights also has great features employees can use to prevent workplace overwhelm. The virtual commute feature, for example, helps employees to switch off at the end of the working day when they are working from home. 

You can also integrate Insights with the well-regarded Headspace meditation app, which helps employees with mindfulness and disconnecting from work. 

Learning

Learning and development is crucial to employee retention and engagement. Research shows that 89% of employees want training available anywhere and anytime they need to do their job. That’s where Viva Learning comes in. This tool helps employees with personalized, in-depth learning and development training, tailored to their specific job role, goals and challenges. 

Viva Learning is a learning management system. Like the other Viva modules, it’s accessed in Teams, making it easy for your employees to learn on the job, without having to attend lengthy away days or move between different applications. 

Not only is learning great for your employees, it’s great for your business too. The more skills your employees have, the better they will be at their jobs. 

In terms of the resources available in Viva Learning, Microsoft has created a centralized hub of learning courses curated from Microsoft Learn, LinkedIn Learning, Coursera and more. You can also add your own unique content. 

Topics

Viva Topics is designed to make internal information sharing super easy, so that your employees can find what they need, when they need it effortlessly. Topics is centered around ‘topic cards’, which are small widgets that appear as employees move through different Microsoft 365 applications.

These widgets can have a variety of instructions, including how-to guides, jargon-busting sheets, related resources to click through and much more. 

You can even add widgets with contact details for internal experts on certain resources and applications, so employees can quickly send a message to someone should they have questions a card hasn’t been able to answer. 

Get Started With Microsoft Viva With Our Support! 

Microsoft Viva is a fantastic application that can help organizations of all sizes to boost the employee experience. Getting the most out of this application suite requires a deep understanding of the Microsoft technology stack. That’s where we come in. With our fantastic knowledge and experience of deploying Microsoft 365, we can help your Edmond area business to unleash the power of Microsoft Viva. 

Skyline IT Management can help your Oklahoma business with any questions about Microsoft Viva and get you started. Book a Call today to schedule a technology consultation.