Microsoft Viva will allow users to leverage tools for improving employee engagement and wellbeing, as well as productivity and collaboration.
With company employees being known to suffer pain points such as fatigue and lack of work-life balance while operating from home, Microsoft Viva looks to alleviate these obstacles, by launching the following modules:
- Viva Connections: A personalised digital gateway, through which employees can access internal communications and company resources, as well as participating in organisation-based communities such as employee resource groups. A public preview of this will be available as an app in Microsoft Teams for desktop in Q1 2021, with a mobile version set to be released later in the year.
- Viva Insights: An application that provides individuals, managers and leaders with insights based on internal operations and performance across the enterprise. While employees receive their own insights to help them dedicate time to focused learning and regular breaks, managers and leaders can see team and organisation trends, and receive recommendations for balancing wellbeing and productivity. Additionally, companies can combine collaboration data with employee feedback from LinkedIn’s Glint, and data can be incorporated from third party services such as Slack and Zoom. These aspects are now available in public preview.
- Viva Learning: A central hub that aggregates learning resources, such as content from the organisation’s own library; LinkedIn Learning; Microsoft Learn; and third-party providers such as Coursera and Skillsoft. Here, users can leverage a range of learning and microlearning courses during their work day. This is now available in private preview.
- Viva Topics: An application dedicated to connecting users with information and experts across the organisation. Using AI to reason over a customer’s Microsoft 365 data, and integration of information from third-party services such as ServiceNow and Salesforce, topic cards are automatically made available within conversations and documents. These cards contain topic pages with related documents, conversations, videos and people. This is available as an add-on to Microsoft 365 commercial plans.
How technology will shape the future of the workplace
“We have participated in the largest at-scale remote work experiment the world has seen, and it has had a dramatic impact on the employee experience,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.
“Every organisation will require a unified employee experience, from onboarding and collaboration to continuous learning and growth.
“Viva brings together everything an employee needs to be successful, from day one, in a single, integrated experience directly in Teams.”
Introducing Microsoft Viva. The new employee experience platform built to help organizations empower people and teams to be their best. https://t.co/Cgg9wDvBQY #MSFTViva #EmployeeExperience pic.twitter.com/38ZtezPToJ
— Microsoft 365 (@Microsoft365) February 4, 2021
Jared Spataro, corporate vice-president, Microsoft 365, commented: “As the world of work changes, the next horizon of innovation will come from a focus on creativity, engagement and wellbeing so organisations can build cultures of resilience and ingenuity.
“Our vision is to deliver a platform for the employee experience that helps organisations create a thriving culture with engaged employees and inspiring leaders.”
The new employee experience was announced by Microsoft today, via a press release.
