Microsoft Viva: Changing responsibilities in a new world of work

Thamer Alharbi, President - Microsoft Arabia 

Both employees and employers have had to suddenly adapt to a new way of working as it became a necessity to conduct work outside of the physical workplace and from their homes. Learning and training has had to become digital, work processes have been changed, and communication has gone online. 

This new environment has also meant that many essential parts of day-to-day work had fallen away. No more social interactions with work colleagues about their weekends or a new television series, no ability to quickly pull colleagues aside to brainstorm a problem or quickly ask questions on work. In addition, the lines between the workday and time at home have been blurred. 

While the mass shift towards remote working was initially a temporary measure, the future will be a hybrid environment where employees will work remotely for a portion of the time and in the office for the rest. Microsoft’s Work ReWorked study has observed that everyone is looking for a more flexible future. After experiencing, and adapting to a remote life, many workers have developed an appetite for remote work post-COVID.  

With a remote future at hand, it is vital that organisations become more proactive in building an employee experience that enable their success, development and growth and innovative new platforms such as Microsoft Viva are endeavouring to help organisations achieve this. 

Making collaboration and employee interaction easier  

Communication plays a huge role in an organisation’s effectiveness. It is how leaders let their teams know what tasks are needed to be completed, it is how employees find answers to questions or gain help in solving a problem. 

But, the lines of communication have changed. Now, we can’t turn our chairs around to ask a colleague a question or run to a cubicle to lend the ear of a manager in assessing our work. Luckily, collaborative tools like Microsoft’s Teams have enabled real-time communication between teams. But, there is still room to enhance effective communication. 

One of the built-in capabilities of Microsoft Viva includes Viva Connections, which provides a personalised gateway to the digital workplace. This means employees can access internal communications and company resources and participate in communities like employee resource groups from a single customisable app within Teams. 

Improving on employees’ ability to communicate and collaborate quickly and authentically, while facilitating access to company-specific knowledge sources will be a key way for organisations to create a remote environment that is conducive to creativity and innovation. 

Meeting employee needs and preserving happiness 

While remote working offers substantial benefits for productivity and flexibility, it also introduces some difficulties for employees. While some people have found that they thrive within a remote environment, it has also been seen to have a negative impact on some employees’ wellbeing and mental health. 

The biggest concerns for employees are burnout, isolation, and a lack of motivation. Employers need to pay attention to employees’ challenges and needs and use relevant information and empathy to create tailored solutions for employees that ensure a happier work environment, enabled by the flexibility offered by remote work. 

The Viva Connections module offers individuals, managers and leaders personalised and actionable insights that help everyone in an organisation thrive.  

Personal experiences and insights, visible only to the employee, help individuals protect time for regular breaks, focused work and learning, as well as strengthen relationships with their colleagues. Managers and leaders can see trends at team and organization level, and are provided recommendations to better balance productivity and wellbeing.  

In addition, a new dashboard will allow organisations to combine employee feedback from LinkedIn’s Glint with collaboration data from Viva Insights, enabling leaders to more accurately identify where teams may be struggling, proactively adjust work norms, and then quantify the impact of those changes over time.  

Building a new culture of learning and knowledge transference 

Employees’ ability to learn new skills and develop competencies and experience is essential not only to the competitiveness of an organisation, but also to their personal growth thus motivating them and creating a sense of their value to the business. But, training can be a challenging undertaking in a remote world of work. 

Capabilities such as Viva Learning will help make training and professional development opportunities more discoverable and accessible in the flow of work by aggregating all the learning resources available to an organisation in one place. Employees will be able to discover, share, assign and track a wide variety of learning as a natural part of the workday.  

Additionally, Viva Topics helps deliver a knowledge discovery experience that helps people connect to information and experts across the company.  

The workplace isn’t changing, it has already changed, and employers must create a unified employee experience, from onboarding and collaboration to continuous learning and growth, that help employees learn, grow and thrive. Companies that are building positive employee experiences empower employees by putting their happiness first and supporting them, so they are able to do more.