When COVID-19 struck overnight, thousands of organizations were forced to begin working remotely. Many struggled with preserving their company’s culture, promoting learning and engagement, and maintaining overall employee satisfaction in the new distant working environment. Microsoft’s new Viva application is just what companies have needed to overcome these hurdles.

Viva is more than just an application. It is a suite of tools that integrate with the Microsoft 365 Teams application to offer organizations an easier way to promote their company’s culture, reemphasize learning, and uphold their remote workers’ overall well-being. The application will initially be broken down into four modules that may be integrated ad hoc. These modules include Connections, Insights, Learning, and Topics, with Microsoft’s promise that more is to come. Here is an overview of the first four: 

Viva Connections:

The Viva Connections module offers organizations an opportunity to bring their office culture to a virtual environment. It is designed to host internal communications, including company news, policies, benefits, and resource groups or clubs. A Viva Connections page may be created to serve the entire organization or customized to suit specific roles or departments. The Connections module isn’t available quite yet but should become available to consumers soon.

Viva Insights:

Viva Insights was created to promote productivity and employee well-being. The module will offer various features such as a virtual commute, integration with Headspace, which is an app that can remind employees to take short breaks throughout their day. It even allows managers to track their employee’s overall well-being by helping them predict and prevent burnout and reminding them to schedule one-on-one time with their staff. Interested in testing it out? Viva Insights is available to be integrated now to Microsoft Teams.

Viva Learning:

Viva Learning will be a customizable place for companies to organize and assign training content to their employees. Trainings can be created by the organization or integrated from LinkedIn or Microsoft Learning using AI. This module will offer a new way to promote ongoing employee development and assist in the employee onboarding process. The Viva Learning module is not available just yet but is coming soon.

Viva Topics:

Last but not least, Viva Topics is a tool that will give organizations space in Teams to create an informative catalog about topics such as projects, products, processes, or customer. The catalog consists of Wiki-like pages that can include links to documents, videos, and lists of staff members who know more about the subject. The different topic pages may then be linked in Microsoft Teams posts as a reference for other staff members to use. The Viva Topics module is available now for purchase at $5 per user per month.

To learn more about the new Microsoft Viva platform, we suggest that you check out Microsoft’s announcement video here.