Microsoft Viva
Microsoft is planning to launch a new intranet-like platform, Viva. The platform will help people, who work from home, to feel more engaged by providing them with better communication, knowledge and resources.
Like most Microsoft products, Viva will be integrated and have collaboration capabilities with Teams and Microsoft 365. Therefore, a familiar design and Microsoft’s trademark user friendliness is likely to come with the new platform.
The platform will be rolled out in different stages. At the time of writing, the first stage was already launched.
“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 CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella, as cited by a Microsoft news report.
Even after the pandemic ends, companies may not return to the old ways of working from office. Microsoft thought about the new challenges that the work from home environment has created. As a result, the company came up with Viva, a new enterprise software that focuses entirely on the daily needs of employees.
“Every organization 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,” Nadella said.
What exactly is Viva?
Viva has four modules: Connections, Insights, Learning and Topics. Users can access all four modules through Teams.
The first module, Connections, brings together all corporate communications, policies, and employee resources. Connections serves as a place for employees to put information about their ongoing work projects. The module is similar to a social media feed, albeit focused on corporate news.
The second module, Insights, collects employee productivity data, analyze it and then offers solutions on how to improve work productivity. Interestingly, the module provides different information to employees and their managers. That is why, employees see only their personal information, whereas managers see anonymized and aggregated trends.
This will help employees to plan their workday better, give suggestions when it is best time to plan lunch or even start and finish one’s work. Managers, on the other hand, will plan better the workload of their employees. They can also see when their employees reach their full capacity working in different projects. As a result, managers may decide to hire more workers or postpone some projects.
Viva Learning is an integrated learning space for employees. The module will put together content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, Coursera and some other educational providers. This will be a great help for employees, who look to improve their skills and pursue more challenging opportunities within a company.
Finally, the Topics module gathers information about specific topics that were discussed across the company in one place. Employees can click on a topic in Teams and the module will bring up an information card with a summary of the topic. Topics can also suggest experts in the issue and provide all documents related to the discussion topic.
New times call for new products
Overall, it looks like Viva will be a great product in this day and age. Experts predict that the future workplace will be very different from what it was a year ago. And this means we’ll need new policies, new strategies and, of course, new employee engagement programs.