Microsoft expands Microsoft Viva platform to
connect employees to company culture, business goals and one
another
REDMOND,
Wash., Sept. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On
Thursday, Microsoft Corp. released a Work Trend Index Pulse report,
"Hybrid Work Is Just Work. Are We Doing It Wrong?" The company also
announced new capabilities in Microsoft Viva, its employee
experience platform, designed to help empower and energize
employees in a time of economic uncertainty.
The data makes clear that hybrid work has created a growing
disconnect between employees and leaders. They're at odds about
what constitutes productivity, how to maintain autonomy while
ensuring accountability, the benefits of flexibility and the role
of the office. To bridge this gap, a new approach is needed that
recognizes work is no longer just a place but an experience that
needs to transcend time and space so employees can stay engaged and
connected no matter where they are working.
"Thriving employees are what will give organizations a
competitive advantage in today's dynamic economic environment,"
said Satya Nadella, chairman and
CEO, Microsoft. "Today, we're announcing new innovations
across our employee experience platform Microsoft Viva to help
leaders end productivity paranoia, rebuild social capital, and
re-recruit and re-energize their employees."
To help leaders navigate the new realities of work, the Work
Trend Index Pulse report1 points to three urgent pivots
every leader should make:
- End productivity paranoia: 87% of employees report they
are productive at work, but 85% of leaders say the shift to hybrid
work has made it challenging to have confidence their employees are
being productive. Leaders need to create clarity and alignment
around company goals, eliminate busywork that doesn't support those
goals and listen to their people — 57% of companies are rarely, if
ever, collecting employee feedback.
- Embrace that people come in for each other: 73% of
employees say they need a better reason to go into the office
besides company expectations — but they would be motivated to go in
if they could socialize with co-workers (84%) or rebuild team bonds
(85%). Digital communication will be crucial to keep people
connected inside and out the office — both employees and leaders
rank communication as the No. 1 most critical skill needed to be
successful in their roles this year.
- Re-skill to re-recruit your employees: 55% of employees
say the best way to develop their skills is to change companies.
However, they also say they would stay longer at their company if
it was easier to change jobs internally (68%) or if they could
benefit more from learning and development support (76%).
To address these challenges, Microsoft is expanding its employee
experience platform Microsoft Viva to help companies deliver an
employee experience optimized for the way people now work. Today,
Microsoft is announcing several new and enhanced capabilities
coming to Viva:
- Viva Pulse is a new app
that will enable managers and team leads to seek regular and
confidential feedback on their team's experience. Viva Pulse uses smart templates and
research-backed questions to help managers pinpoint what's working
well and where to focus, and also provides suggested learning and
actions to address team needs.
- Viva Amplify is a new app that will empower leaders and
communicators to elevate their message and reach employees where
they are with consistency and impact. The app centralizes
communications campaigns, offers writing guidance to improve
message resonance, enables publishing across multiple channels and
distribution groups in Microsoft 365, and provides metrics for
improvement.
- Answers in Viva is a new capability that will use AI to
match employee questions to answers and experts across the
organization to help put collective knowledge to work for all
employees.
- People in Viva is a new capability that will use AI to
create rich profile cards with details on an employee's interests,
knowledge and team goals to help colleagues easily discover
connections, experts and insights across the organization. These
insights will be available through Microsoft 365 profile cards and
as a new app.
- Microsoft recently launched Viva Engage, which fosters digital
community building through conversations and self-expression tools
with stories and storylines. Leadership Corner is coming to Viva
Engage as a space to invite employees to interact directly with
leadership, share ideas and perspectives, participate in
organization initiatives, and more.
- Viva Goals helps organizations align employee work to business
outcomes. New integrations in Viva Goals will bring goals into the
flow of work including a richer integration with Microsoft
Teams to check in on OKRs, an extension in Azure DevOps
to complete work items, a connection to Power BI datasets to
track KPIs and Key Results, and integrations with Microsoft
Planner and Microsoft Project for automatic project management
updates.
- Enhanced integrations between Viva Learning and LinkedIn
Learning will make it even easier for people to access content
from LinkedIn Learning Hub right in the flow of work in Teams.
Learners will see all their LinkedIn Learning Hub content synced,
including custom content, curated learning paths and the courses
they have already completed, all reflected directly within Viva.
And administrators will be able to set the integration up directly
within their settings on LinkedIn Learning Hub — no APIs
needed.
- Viva Sales, the first
role-based experience app in the platform, will be generally
available Oct. 3. Viva Sales brings together a seller's CRM with
Microsoft 365 and Teams to provide a more streamlined and
AI-powered selling experience — right in the tools they're using
every day to connect with customers and close deals. Microsoft is
announcing a partnership with Seismic to personalize and scale
customer engagements through AI-generated content
recommendations.
- To streamline access to Viva and help employees start their day
on track, a new home experience in Viva Connections will
bring all the Viva apps together in one place, and updates to
the Viva briefing email will provide more personalized
productivity recommendations to help employees catch up on work,
meetings and learning.
The new Viva capabilities will begin rolling out to customers in
early 2023.
To learn more, visit the Official Microsoft Blog, Microsoft 365
Blog and the new Work Trend Index Pulse report.
Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) enables
digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and
an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and
every organization on the planet to achieve more.
1 The Work Trend Index Pulse report is based on an
external study of 20,000 people in 11 countries, along with
analysis of trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals,
LinkedIn labor trends and Glint People Science insights.
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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.