I realize Generative AI is all the rage now with your feeds flooding by all things ChatGPT, OpenAI, and the shiny new and very cool Microsoft Copilot (which I think should have a capital “P”), but let’s make one thing clear: Your flesh and blood employees still matter as well and some of them are probably freaking out a bit right now.
So, let’s take a quick break from AI and go back to talking about creating a better experience for all those hardworking folks out there with their noses to the collective grindstone making sure you’ve got time to read blogs like this instead of putting out fires.
Microsoft Viva (Microsoft’s Employee Experience Platform) has been out for a couple of years now with some organizations embracing it, while others are more skeptical. A lot of the skepticism comes from common misconceptions though. From cost concerns to flat-out “not getting it”, there are a lot of organizations that need Microsoft Viva but can’t see the forest for the trees. Well, as I’ve said before: I love a good list… So, let’s tackle the top Ten Microsoft Viva Myths:
1. Viva Connections requires us to update our Intranet
There is a common misconception that in order to take advantage of the awesome personalization and engagement features of Viva Connections you’ll need to redesign your intranet (which you just modernized a few months ago). Nothing could be further from the truth. Viva Connections does NOT replace your intranet; you could deploy Viva Connections right now without making any changes to your intranet other than adding a dashboard web part and configuring global navigation. And actually, with the new Viva Home experience in Teams, you don’t even have to do that! You can be using Viva Connections today and not touch your current intranet. Viva Connections Is the EVOLUTION of your intranet, not its replacement.
Viva Connections is my favorite Viva component and I could talk about it for hours… Every organization should be using Viva Connections today. Maybe I’ll do another top ten post devoted to Viva Connections. hmmm… Where was I?
2. We don’t need Viva Learning because we already have an LMS
Some organizations dismiss Viva Learning immediately with comments like “We already have an LMS that we are happy with” or “We’re too invested in our current LMS”.
Guess what though? Viva Learning is NOT an LMS (Learning Management System by the way)! Viva Learning was never meant to be a full-blown LMS and replace your current systems. It was meant to support and integrate with your current LMS and help your employees find and experience training in a better more personalized way. Viva Learning is able to integrate with most LMSs and extend the experience within Microsoft Teams to all employees to more easily view and track their training progress.
In fact, with Viva Learning you can aggregate training from multiple LMSs to give your employees ONE place to go for all their training. How great is that? How many employees would do their training on time if it were easier to access and track progress?
3. Viva Insights is just a way for my company to spy on me
Viva Insights can tell you how productive your work week was. It can tell you how much time you spent in meetings and collaborating. It can even tell if you were paying attention in meetings or browsing the web. Do you know what it CAN’T do though? It can’t tell that information to your boss. Viva Personal Insights is meant to help YOU and give YOU insights into your time to help you be more effective. It does NOT tattle on you. What it can do is use Manager insights to tell your Manager how productive the team as a whole is.
Manager Insights tells your manager if your team is overloaded and gives insights into how the team is doing, but all of the data is anonymized. There is NO WAY to extract any information that would identify an employee or what a specific person is doing. In fact, as a Manager, you can’t even get access to Manager Insights unless you manage at least 10 people.
To be clear, even if your organization WANTED to use Viva Insights to keep tabs on you, it is simply not possible… by design.
4. I should only work with IT to get Viva deployed
We are used to engaging with IT to deploy new technology and you may be tempted to just have IT turn on the various Viva components and work with them to get things deployed. I mean, it’s relatively easy to deploy every Viva component, however, to be effective you need to be reaching out and working with the people that are affected by Viva (while keeping IT in the loop, they will still need to turn it on).
Employee Experience is not an IT problem to solve. Viva Connections and Viva Engage need to be deployed with the involvement of Corporate Communications. Viva Learning needs Training involved. Work with HR on Insights, etc… etc… etc… Effective use of Viva requires internal change and cooperation within your organization to ensure it succeeds and your organization reaps the benefits.
5. Engage is just a rebrand of Yammer, there’s no compelling reason to use it
Show of hands, how many of you roll your eyes when you hear “Yammer”? It’s okay, be honest. I was once one of those people who thought Yammer just muddied the water and confused people. Why do we need Yammer when we have Teams? How frustrating was it to have to go to multiple platforms for the same type of functionality? I’ve seen way more poor implementations of Yammer than successful ones. I get it.
That being said… Viva Engage is my third favorite Viva Component. Yes, it was announced recently that Yammer was rebranded as Viva Engage, but Engage is so much more than Yammer was. All your Yammer content is still there for those of you that love Yammer, but now with Engage you can “follow” people in your organization, post updates (including video stories), and “engage” with people in your organization like never before. What’s more (and my favorite part) is that all of this Engage content is available in your Viva Connections newsfeed! So, now you can read those posts and stories from Engage, like them, comment on them, and share them – all from within the same context of Viva Connections without having to switch communities, log into a different app, or wade through the content you don’t care about. It’s truly a fantastic experience and I’m converted.
Plus, with more and more features coming for Engage like Viva Answers and Leadership Corner, we’ll be able to do even more with Viva Engage.
If you gave up on Yammer, I urge you to give Viva Engage a shot.
6. There’s no direct ROI embracing Viva
Beyond the warm fuzzies and making high-maintenance employees lower maintenance, there’s no “real” ROI embracing Viva is there? That’s simply not true. Beyond the low-hanging fruit of replacing expensive OKR tools with Viva Goals, pricey survey tools with Glint and Viva Pulse, and the uber-expensive corporate communication tools with Viva Amplify (my 4th favorite Viva component), if you retain one employee by embracing Viva, then it’s probably worth it.
The cost to replace a single employee is 6-9 months’ salary, and that’s just the cost of hiring and training – not to mention the tribal knowledge lost. Plus, sometimes a single employee leaving can cause a chain reaction. There is absolutely ROI for ensuring your employees feel supported and heard and have better tools for doing their everyday tasks.
7. Viva is expensive
The first thing a lot of organizations think when they hear Microsoft Viva is “yay, more licensing costs” and then when they see the price tag of $9 per user per month for the full Viva Suite they do the math and don’t prioritize it.
What many organizations don’t realize is that there are MANY amazing features of Microsoft Viva included in their current Microsoft 365 subscription. Like:
- Viva Connections – seriously… what are you waiting for?
- Personal Viva Insights – Go set up “Focus Time” right now and thank me later
- Viva Learning – Start using it right now for content from Microsoft Learn, LinkedIn Learning, and training materials you store in SharePoint.
- Viva Engage – Licensed for Yammer? You already have Viva Engage!
There is so much value you can get from Microsoft Viva today without spending an extra penny.
8. We don’t have time to deploy Viva
Everyone is overwhelmed right now, trying to do more with less. Believe me, I get it. The thing is, you DON’T need to spend a lot of time and effort to deploy most Viva Components.
Viva Insights is likely already running and giving your employees personal insights (unless you turned it off, you big ol meanie).
Viva Connections can be up and running in just a few days. Plus, if you take the time to work with corporate communications, you can revolutionize your company news within a few weeks!
Likewise, Viva Engage is simple to set up. If you are an active Yammer user, just deploy the Viva Engage app in Teams.
Viva Topics? Flip the switch and watch the magic happen.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the tools require more time and planning (like Viva Goals), but the effort (especially the IT effort) is less than you think.
9. Viva Topics is just a solution in search of a problem
This brings me to my SECOND favorite component (how many of you were wondering?): Viva Topics. On one hand, Viva Topics sounds like a mad scientist’s idea that doesn’t really solve any real problems. On the other hand, it is an exceptionally effective Knowledge Management tool that is ahead of the curve.
Understanding Viva Topics is probably its biggest hurdle. Without going into way too much detail, you turn on Viva Topics and it starts mining content in your organization. You have millions and documents and Terabytes of data though?? Even better… Viva Topics mines this data and looks for common themes and well… “topics” and suggests them to you. “Hey, I see a lot of content everywhere about ‘Project XYZ’ I think this is a topic”. Once you have identified a valid topic (and there will be MANY) you can refine the content for that topic, give it acronyms, “also known as”, specify people that know about the Topic (Topics will suggest these too), review the documents found (secured of course), and so much more.
Once you review and refine your Topic you are ready to use it. You can now reference that Topic on your SharePoint Pages, Teams messages, Outlook Emails, and more… and when a user hovers over the topic they see a “Topic Card” that gives a brief summary of what the Topic is and who the people are associated with that topic.. from there a user can click on a Topic and get to all the information about it…
Was that succinct enough? Here’s the thing though… The use of Topics is expanding… You’ll be able to tag a Question in Answers in Viva to a Topic (that can show up on the Topic page) and the soon-to-be-coming (and already my 5th favorite Viva component) People in Viva will show the Topics an employee is associated with.
Viva Topics is the ultimate Knowledge Management tool that will help you understand all the crazy acronyms your company uses, quickly find the people you are looking for, and consolidate all of the critical information in one place… Did I say my second favorite?? Give it a couple of years…
10. Employee Experience is important, but not THAT important
The Great Resignation is over, Quiet Quitting is a thing of the past; we are now experiencing layoffs and people having problems finding jobs. Employees are happy to just be… employed… so we can put employee experience on the back burner and move on to other things now? right… I mean… ChatGPT is the only thing that matters?!!
Wrong, ever since the work-from-home revolution started, employees have been overwhelmed like never before. Working long hours without that morning/evening commute to collect their thoughts and bang their heads to their favorite music, stuck in virtual meetings all day, and having lost all of that water cooler time. And now? They are being asked to do more and more as employers are putting the burden of “doing more with less” on an already overburdened workforce.
It’s not a great time to be part of an organization that’s NOT invested in employee experience. Even if your employees aren’t leaving in droves, are they being as effective as they could be? Do they care enough to be?
If you are still having a hard time believing employee experience is worth it, maybe some numbers will help:
- 83% of employees would be motivated to come into the office by the promise of socializing with coworkers
- 75% of employees (and 80% of managers) think their company does not solicit feedback often enough
- 81% of employees say that it’s important that their managers help them prioritize their workload
- 76% of employees say they’d stay at their company longer if they received learning and development support
- 34% of companies have invested in six or more tools for employee experience goals
- 68% of employees find these current tools outdated or irrelevant
- 94% of business leaders want one comprehensive system
(sources: Hybrid Work Is Just Work. Are We Doing It Wrong? (microsoft.com) & New Workforce, New EX Technology (microsoft.com))
And when you look at Microsoft Viva Specifically:
- 327% total ROI, with payback in less than six months
- 50% reduction in time to full productivity from faster onboarding
- 75% reduction in search time
- 20% reduction in employee attrition
(source: The Total Economic Impact Of Microsoft Viva)
Employee Experience is a real issue with a real solution.
What are the key takeaways?
I guess you could ask ChatGPT to summarize this lengthy post, but hopefully, you took the time to read, think, and ponder how maybe you have some misconceptions about Microsoft Viva. Hopefully, you realize it’s worth taking a look at Viva to improve the experience for all of your employees (and yourself, self-care is important you know).
It’s simple when you break it down: It’s easy to get started with Microsoft Viva right now… without spending any more money on licensing… and creating a better environment for your employees… I mean, what’s the alternative? Maybe check with Stuart Smalley?