Hybrid Work and Microsoft Viva

On Thursday, Microsoft released their new Work Trend Index Pulse report that looks at the rise of hybrid work and how businesses are adjusting. The report found that hybrid work is becoming the new normal, but businesses are struggling to keep up. The biggest victory for remote work in the pandemic has been the death of the "presenteeism" culture that required employees to be physically present in the office even when they weren't productive. Coinciding with this report was the announced expansion of Microsoft Viva, which we will talk more about in this post.

What is Microsoft Viva?

Microsoft Viva is first integrated employee experience platform for the hybrid work era that was built around the ethos. It was built to help businesses connect their employees to company culture and business goals. Since its launch last year, it has helped customers reduce on-boarding time by half the time, improve worker productivity with three-quarters reduction in search time, reduce employee attrition by 20 percent, and showing an overall ROI at three times the investment, according to their Forrester study.

The platform includes these different modules: Viva Connections, Viva Insights, Viva Topics, Viva Learning, Viva Sales, Viva Goals, Viva Amplify, and Viva Pulse.

Viva Connections

This is a social intranet that helps employees connect with each other and find the information they need. It can be company-branded and set up as a destination where employees will find news, engage in conversations, and connect with others across the organization in the apps and devices they use all the time. Viva Connections is included in Microsoft 365 plans with SharePoint Online.

Viva Insights

Insights uses Microsoft 365 data to provide employees with personalized recommendations and tips. Viva Topics helps employees discover and curate personalized recommendations to improve their work and well-being. Tap into moments of gratitude, reflection, and mindfulness. Take regular breaks and learn about how and when the br4eaks will work for you. Viva Insights is $4.00 per user/month or included in Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plans for enterprise.

Viva Topics

The simplest of the apps, it brings together relevant content, conversations, links, and expertise across your organization. Viva can automatically organize knowledge while your team can revise topics, pin resources, and identify other experts while Viva Topics learns and makes updates. You can even use topic cards with an easy hover feature to see a brief description, along with the relevant experts and resources. The goal is to make it easy for people to find information and put knowledge to work. Viva Topics is $4.00 per user/month or included in Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plans for enterprise.

Viva Learning

Viva Learning provides employees with a central place to find and follow learning content from Microsoft and third-party providers. Viva Learning is $4.00/user per month or included in Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plans for enterprise. and can be seamlessly integrated into Microsoft Teams as another tab or in Microsoft 365.

Viva Sales

Announced earlier this year and will become generally available on October 3rd. It is their first role-based employee experience app that can automate things like customer relationship management (CRM) data entry and taking notes in order to effectively report intel back to the seller in the tools they’re using to connect and close deals through Microsoft 365 and Teams.

Viva Goals

One of the newest members of the platform, a goal-setting and objectives and key results (OKR) management solution that helps organizations align everyday work to business outcomes. They recently added an enhanced Microsoft Teams app to check-in and collaborate on OKRs within the Teams activity feed, an extension in Azure DevOps to complete work items, a connection to Power BI datasets to track key performance indicators (KPIs) and key results, and integrations with Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Project for automatic project management updates.

Viva Amplify 

A new app that was just announced by Microsoft. It empowers communication by giving teams and leaders a way to elevate their message and energize their people. The app centralizes communication processes in a single space and offers writing guidance to help messages from every part of the organization—leaders, corporate communications, and HR—resonate with employees.

Viva Pulse

The other new expansion to the Viva platform for managers and team leads to seek regular and confidential feedback about their team’s experience, right in the flow of work in Teams. Using smart templates, research-backed questions, and analytics, Viva Pulse encourages team members to help managers pinpoint what’s working well and where to focus by safely providing regular feedback that can be more reliable as a project progresses. Pulse can also suggest learning resources and actions on relevant topics, making it even easier for managers to address team needs as they evolve.

 

Whew! That was a lot! The Viva platform is built on the Microsoft 365 platform and leverages the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to provide a personalized employee experience and Microsoft have continued to raise the bar on the hybrid mindset. It's a sign that the great, "return to work" is hazy nowadays because the dual mode of work is here to stay and they are banking on it! We hope to bring you more insight on the Viva platform as the apps become more available for general use. So, why don't you subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date on the latest and greatest in CSW Solutions and the world of software and cloud!