What is Microsoft Viva – the four modules explained

As an organization, you’re constantly?looking for the best?tools,?processes,?and applications?available?to better yourself and your employees.?The?employment?world is all about employee experience and growth lately, after all!?And in theory,?this??is?a great?concept.?However,?one?issue is that,?sometimes,?it?can be challenging to put in place.?The staff responsible for implementing the change?is?often?busy,?or?lacks?the expertise to address the change management?and?training side of things. On the document management side, it can?lead to clutter and disorganization?with?assets?located and accessed in different places, by different people, from different devices.??

Enters?Microsoft Viva. It’s?everything??you need?to grow your people,?surfaced in Microsoft Teams.?This?employee experience platform brings together communications, knowledge, learning, resources, and insights that can be accessed wherever, whenever. The goal of this article is to provide a brief introduction to Microsoft Viva and its four modules. ?

What is Microsoft Viva??

Microsoft Viva was designed?to assist?organizations in their?culture in the?remote work?era. In this new?hybrid office, applications such as?SharePoint?and?Teams?have become staples in many?businesses’?lives.?Microsoft wanted to?build?off?this idea, and they have pitched Viva?as a way to?solve the problems that accompany working remotely while preserving the merits that come with it.??

Remote work means less commuting, not being tied to a single geographical location, and more family time. However, as we all know, many drawbacks come with remote work as well such as greater distractions and a lack of communication between co-workers. As an employee experience platform, Microsoft Viva is designed to help businesses adjust to a work-from-home environment and help overcome these drawbacks. It’s primarily geared toward HR and Internal Communications; however it has many other uses for any management style. Viva primarily integrates with Microsoft Teams and Outlook meaning that you can take advantage of applications you already have in place, with little to no training required. ?

Microsoft Viva?Pricing?

When it comes to purchasing,?you have a?couple of?options. Microsoft 365 comes with Viva Connections by default. However, if you are looking to obtain the additional three modules you will need to?purchase the Microsoft Viva?Suite or?purchase the specific modules you would like individually.?When purchased individually, Viva Learning, Viva Insights, and Viva Topics are?prices individually as a per user per month license. When purchased together in the Microsoft Viva Suite,?all four modules?are included?in the same per user per month?manner.?

Viva Insights?

The first module of Microsoft Viva?we will be looking at is?Viva Insights.?The purpose of Viva Insights is to help people and businesses thrive with data-driven, privacy-protected insights and?recommendations to improve productivity and wellbeing.?With Viva Insights you can discover new?findings?that build on the capabilities of?Personal?Analytics,?Manager?insights?and?leader?Analytics.?For example, as a people leader, you can find out how many of your employees are working outside of designated work hours, and?how many hours are spent in meetings. You can get a sense of your employees’ days and?help give them a better work-life balance.?To thrive at work, employees need to take care of themselves – this all comes back to balancing productivity and well-being.?Here are some?options that Viva Insights presents you with:?

• Improve employee well-being:?Identify opportunities to create better work habits and?provide?recommendations. For?example,?reserving time for focused work, taking regular breaks, or practicing?mindfulness.??
• Take advantage of tools:?Address?complex challenges and use advanced tools such as a library of prebuilt analysis accelerators, visualizations, and interactive reports.?
• Analyze data:?Identify where your business is experiencing elevated risk and follow the personalized recommendations.?

Viva Insights offers?Personal, Manager, and Leader?Insights.??

Personal Insights?are provided privately to?everyone?to identify opportunities to modify how they do work, with the main emphasis being on boosting wellbeing and?productivity.??

Manager Insights?offer managers visibility into work norms that can lead to burnout and minimal focus, among other problems. Manager insights have built-in safeguards to protect personal privacy.?Finally,??

Leader Insights?provides visibility into how work happens to create a positive culture.?Personal Insights are available with any Microsoft 365 license, Manager and Leader Insights require a Viva Insights license.? ?

By?crunching?your Microsoft 365 data,?Viva Insights?can?unlock valuable information to?improve?your?employee?experience?and?the way that work gets done.?The added structure?helps to eliminate the barriers that are often present in a remote work environment.??

Viva Connections?

One of the toughest challenges when working remotely is the lack of connection. The social aspect of work is not only enjoyable, but it helps?when it comes to?productivity as well. Having an outlet to speak freely and bounce ideas off one?another?is crucial in?the?workspace.??

Viva Connections creates a community for individuals to come together?and?support one another. Within?Viva Connections, everyone has?access?to a personalized destination to discover relevant news, conversations, and the tools they need to succeed. It gives employees a voice to express their opinions and share?new ideas.??

Viva Connections allows members to create a customized employee dashboard to provide easy access to company resources?and to?build connections via?communities. These communities?empower employees to contribute ideas.??

Here are some common uses for Viva Connections:?

• Discover communities for employees to engage with each other. These can be work related, or hobby related. Whatever?you feel fit your people and your culture.?
• Provide access to employee resources such as policies?and HR documents?
• Share information more efficiently??

Staying connected remotely no longer?has to?be an issue?with Viva Connections in your corner.??

Viva Topics?

The next module offered in Microsoft Viva is?Viva Topics. Viva Topics?is a knowledge discovery platform that?helps to?connect people with knowledge, build on ideas, find solutions faster, and stay connected as a team.??

Through Viva Topics, you can automatically display topic cards across Microsoft 365 apps to discover knowledge in the context of your work. With built-in security and compliance features, Viva Topics uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to surface expertise in the apps used every day by individuals. Here are some examples of how Viva Topics can help you:?

• Improve business productivity such as speed-up time to onboard new employees??
• Use AI to reason over your organization’s content and automatically identify, process, and organize it into easily accessible knowledge??
• Reduce duplication of effort by making knowledge available in the flow of work??
• Find information easier and people quicker?
• Prevent knowledge loss due to employees retiring or leaving??

Microsoft Viva Topics connects, manages, and protects knowledge and expertise from your organization and delivers them across Microsoft 365.?This helps enable faster learning and fosters innovation as information is easier to find. When people work together and share their knowledge they can achieve more.??

When in a remote environment, Viva?Topics is an outlet that can help you do just that – share your knowledge. Turn content into?knowledge?with?AI, build topic pages and topic cards,?and?make it easy to?discover?new findings.?

Viva Learning??

The last element of Microsoft Viva is?Viva Learning.?Viva Learning is a learning hub that collects learning resources from a variety of different sources including LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, and popular?third-party providers?such as?Skillsoft?and?Coursea.??

In?Microsoft?Teams,?people can share, recommend, and learn from content libraries to empower?groups?and individuals to make learning a natural part of their day.?There is also the?option to access courses directly, see course details, and bookmark courses for later.??

It empowers employees to?engage with?a variety of resources in Microsoft 365.?Learning is a never-ending process, regardless of whether you’re in an office or at home, it's important to be consistently trying to expand your?staff’s?knowledge. Viva Learning?encourages?a culture of growth that helps people reach their potential.??

Here are some benefits of Viva Learning:??

• Holistic view of learning from multiple sources?
• Ensures learning is accessible?
• Brings learning into the daily flow of work?
• Focuses on the digital employee experience??
• Empowers employees to take control of their learning?

Discover and share skills,?recommend?and track learning content,?and?access all learning content in one place with Viva Learning.??

Each module within the Microsoft Viva Suite is specifically crafted to cater?to?the common issues that employees and organizations often face in a remote environment.?They also work great together as a sum, and with the rest of your M365 license.??

Viva Insights collects and analyzes your data to provide recommendations to improve productivity and well-being. Viva Connections?mimics?a social environment where?conversations?and resources can be?posted.?Viva Topics is an outlet to discover and share new ideas. Finally, Viva Learning provides a hub of resources to?grow your knowledge. The combination of these modules can?help you foster a culture where people and teams are empowered to be their best from anywhere.?All in all, Microsoft Viva is a great way to start your business transformation process, learn more about business transformation by downloading our free?eBook!?