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Viva Topics will be phased out on February 22, 2025, with no additional feature enhancements after February 22, 2024, as Microsoft redirects its attention to Copilot.
In a team, you’re always on the lookout for optimal tools, processes, and applications to enhance operations and foster employee growth. Recently, there has been a heightened emphasis on employee experience and development within the workforce. While this idea is admirable in principle, implementing it can pose challenges. Those assigned to lead these changes often find themselves overwhelmed or lacking the expertise needed for effective change management and training. This can result in disorganized document management, with resources scattered across various locations and accessed by different users on others equipment.
This is where Microsoft Viva steps in. It provides a holistic solution for workforce development, seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Teams. This employee experience platform consolidates communication, knowledge, learning, resources, and insights, making them accessible anytime, anywhere. This article aims to give a short overview of Microsoft Viva and its four essential components.
Microsoft Viva was developed to help organizations enhance their culture in the context of remote work. As tools like SharePoint and Teams have become vital for many businesses, Microsoft has expanded on this idea, positioning Viva as a solution to the challenges posed by remote work while retaining its benefits.
While remote work provides advantages such as reduced commuting time, location flexibility, and increased family time, it also introduces issues like heightened distractions and diminished communication among colleagues. As an employee experience platform, Microsoft Viva aims to assist businesses in navigating remote work and addressing these challenges. Though it primarily targets HR and Internal Communications, it offers valuable applications across various management styles. Viva integrates effortlessly with Microsoft Teams and Outlook, enabling organizations to utilize existing tools with minimal training needs.
Regarding purchasing options, you have couple of choices. Microsoft 365 comes with Viva Connections by default. However, to access the additional three modules, you can either buy the Microsoft Viva Suite or purchase each module individually. When bought separately, Viva Learning, Viva Insights, and Viva Topics are each priced as per-user, per-month licenses. Alternatively, when acquired together in the Microsoft Viva Suite, all four modules are included at the same per-user, per-month rate.
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The initial component of Microsoft Viva we’ll examine is Viva Insights. Its purpose is to help individuals and organizations flourish by offering data-driven insights and recommendations that prioritize privacy while enhancing productivity and well-being. Viva Insights builds upon the features of individual analytics, Manager Insights, and Leader Analytics. For instance, as a team leader, you can monitor how many employees are working beyond regular hours or the amount of time spent in meetings, providing valuable insights into their work habits to encourage a healthier work-life balance. Supporting employee well-being is crucial for boosting productivity, making this balance essential.
Here are some features offered by Viva Insights:
Viva Insights delivers three types of insights:
Personal Insights are available with any Microsoft 365 license, while Manager and Leader Insights require a Viva Insights license. By analyzing data from Microsoft 365, Viva Insights reveals valuable information to improve employee experience and streamline work processes, addressing the challenges of remote work.
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Biggest challenges of remote work is the feeling of disconnection. Although the social aspect of work is enjoyable, it also significantly contributes to enhancing productivity. Having a space where employees can freely communicate and brainstorm ideas is essential for a productive work environment.
Viva Connections helps create a supportive community by bringing people together. It offers everyone a personalized hub to access relevant news, conversations, and tools they need to succeed. It also provides employees with a platform to voice their opinions and share fresh concept.
Viva Connections allows users to build a customized employee dashboard for easy access to company resources and fosters connections through communities where employees can contribute and engage.
Here are a few key uses for Viva Connections:
With Viva Connections, staying connected remotely is no longer a challenge.
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The upcoming module in Microsoft Viva is Viva Topics, a knowledge discovery platform aimed at linking individuals to pertinent information, promoting collaboration, speeding up problem-solving, and maintaining team connectivity.
Viva Topics automatically showcases topic cards throughout Microsoft 365 applications, enabling users to uncover knowledge seamlessly within their workflows. With integrated security and compliance, it utilizes AI and machine learning to highlight expertise in the applications that employees use every day. Here are several ways Viva Topics can enhance your organization:
Microsoft Viva Topics categorizes and safeguards organizational knowledge and expertise, disseminating it throughout Microsoft 365. This accelerates learning, fosters innovation, and streamlines information discovery. In a remote work environment, Viva Topics facilitates seamless knowledge sharing by transforming content into actionable insights through AI-driven topic pages and cards.
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The final module in Microsoft Viva is Viva Learning, a centralized learning hub that gathers resources from various sources such as LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, and third-party platforms like Skillsoft and Coursera.
Within Microsoft Teams, users can share, recommend, and access content libraries, making learning a seamless part of everyday work. Employees can also directly access courses, view details, and bookmark them for future learning.
Viva Learning empowers employees by providing access to diverse resources within Microsoft 365. Continuous learning is vital, whether working remotely or in the office, and this tool fosters a growth-oriented culture to help employees reach their full ability.
Key benefits of Viva Learning include:
With Viva Learning, you can discover, share, recommend, and track learning content all in one place, promoting skills development across your organization.
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Viva Engage is a social platform aimed at helping employees strengthen their relationships, fostering a culture of engagement in today’s hybrid and remote work settings.
Its main goal is to foster human connections, which have become more challenging due to the reduced in-person interaction in the post-Covid world. Viva Engage addresses these challenges by helping employees feel a deeper sense of belonging and purpose within their company.
Through open communication, discussions, community building, and sharing personal stories and interests, employees can feel more empowered, valued, and heard. This feeling of connection leads to improved work quality and a more positive impact on the work environment.
Key benefits of Viva Engage include:
Viva Engage is designed for all employees, encouraging participation from those who may feel disconnected or isolated from their co-workers. It’s a simple yet effective tool to help employees get involved, break out of their comfort zones, and contribute more actively.
By adding Viva Engage to Microsoft Viva, organizations gain new ways to tap into their employees’ skills and improve the quality of work delivered.
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In addition in popular module in Microsoft Viva is Viva Goals. It enhances the employee experience by promoting empowerment, visibility, and alignment with individual, departmental, and organizational goals. Viva Goals enables you to track progress through Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), ensuring these goals align with strategic goals.
Managing employee progress has never been simpler, as you can create goals, assign owners, and use tracking metrics to ensure both individual and company objectives are met. It also fosters collective accountability and sets checkpoints to keep everyone on track and aligned.
By empowering employees and uniting them around a common mission, Viva Goals encourages greater effort and delivers lasting impact.
Viva Goals is accessible to anyone in the workplace, allowing employees, peers, and managers to track progress and achieve objectives together.
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Viva Sales is a seller-experience application crafted to enhance and simplify the often tedious tasks involved in the sales process, allowing your sales team to dedicate their efforts to more meaningful activities, thereby conserving both time and energy.
While Viva Sales is designed to empower sales teams, other departments like marketing and operations can also gain valuable insights from it. In fact, anyone can use Viva Sales to get a better understanding of overall business performance.
This AI-powered platform automates tasks like call summaries, action items, follow-up reminders, and status reports. With Viva Sales, employees can spend more time closing deals, keeping clients satisfied, and nurturing strong customer relationships.
By speeding up the sales process and improving the quality of work, Viva Sales helps you close deals faster and keeps customers happy—making it a valuable tool for streamlining transactions on both sides.
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Next, we have Viva Pulse, which is now available globally. This employee experience application is designed to regularly check in with employees to better understand their feelings and thoughts. Its anonymous features protect users’ privacy, encouraging honest feedback and providing managers with genuine insights into their team’s sentiments. With accurate, data-driven insights, Viva Pulse enables leaders to implement meaningful changes to enhance the workplace.
Some key features of Viva Pulse include:
Viva Pulse is intended for employers, managers, and leaders who seek to understand their employees’ true feelings, whether it’s about work-life balance, task expectations, or other concerns.
Gaining insight into how your employees are feeling no longer requires a reality show approach! Viva Pulse empowers employees to express their thoughts and opinions freely, without fear of repercussions. It fosters an environment of growth, improvement, and mutual respect, ensuring that everyone in the organization has a voice and feels heard.
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Viva Amplify enhances communication by helping your team effectively share its voice across various channels. This module serves as a central hub for communication and supports users in building meaningful connections.
The main goal of Viva Amplify is to simplify communication with large groups. It offers writing guidance and transforms messages into campaigns that can engage broader audiences, fostering stronger and more lasting connections.
You can also track the engagement, reach, and effectiveness of your campaigns, distributing them through channels like SharePoint, Outlook, and more.
While Viva Amplify is available to all employees, it significantly improves corporate communications, especially for those who find it challenging to connect with large audiences.
This module represents a significant advancement in distributed communications, helping organizations amplify their message. Be sure to watch for the anticipated release of Viva Amplify, expected in early 2023!
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Lastly, we are excited to introduce the newest addition to the diverse suite of applications offered by Viva: Viva and Glint. This integration allows employees to express their preferences and connect them to company information, workplace insights, knowledge, and learning resources through Microsoft Teams.
The aim of Viva and Glint is to enhance the interconnectedness among team members, alleviate burnout, and promote well-being in response to the ongoing digital transformation that organizations are experiencing.
You can empower your employees to take action by:
In essence, Viva and Glint are designed to transform the employee experience, making it more connected, aligned, and engaging. When fully utilized, Glint becomes a crucial part of the decision-making process.
Furthermore, since Glint is integrated within Viva, your team can seamlessly incorporate feedback and action-taking into their workflow, providing the organization with a deeper understanding of employees’ experiences.
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Microsoft is preparing to launch a new Viva feature called People in Viva
This AI-powered tool is designed to help employees discover new connections, enhancing collaboration, team-building, and goal achievement within your organization.
Key benefits include:
People in Viva is suitable for everyone in the organization, especially for those looking to foster stronger relationships with peers and improve team dynamics. This feature enables employees to form meaningful connections, discover shared interests and goals, and ultimately boost communication and teamwork in the blended workspace.
Every module in the Microsoft Viva Suite is thoughtfully designed to address common challenges that employees and organizations encounter in a remote work setting. These modules also integrate seamlessly with each other and with your existing M365 license.
We’re eager to hear about how you’re using these Microsoft Viva tools. And stay tuned—here’s a little secret—we’re thrilled about the innovative technology on the horizon from Microsoft, especially the upcoming Viva module, Microsoft Places, launching in 2023!
We can’t wait to hear about your experience with these Microsoft Viva resources. And make sure to stay tuned in because—a little secret between us—we’re super excited about the new technology coming from Microsoft, especially the soon-to-be-released Viva module, Microsoft Places, coming out in 2023!
