Microsoft unveils new Employee Experience Platform -- Microsoft Viva -- to help people thrive at work

Rhea-AI Summary

Microsoft Corp. has launched Microsoft Viva, an innovative employee experience platform aiming to enhance employee engagement, wellbeing, learning, and knowledge discovery directly within Microsoft Teams. Announced on February 4, 2021, this platform addresses the growing demand for cohesive employee engagement tools in a distributed work environment. Analysts estimate the Employee Experience Platforms market to be valued at $300 billion annually. Viva integrates various modules including Viva Connections, Viva Insights, Viva Learning, and Viva Topics, enabling organizations to empower their workforce effectively.

Positive

• Launch of Microsoft Viva positions the company in the growing Employee Experience Platforms market valued at $300 billion.
• Viva integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Teams, improving accessibility to resources for employees.
• Initial modules enhance employee engagement, wellbeing, learning, and knowledge discovery, driving productivity.

Negative

• None.

REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft Corp. on Thursday announced Microsoft Viva, the first employee experience platform to bring tools for employee engagement, learning, wellbeing and knowledge discovery, directly into the flow of people's work. Viva is designed to help employees learn, grow and thrive, with new experiences that integrate with the productivity and collaboration capabilities in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams.

"We have participated in the largest at-scale remote work experiment the world has seen, and it has had a dramatic impact on the employee experience," said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. "Every organization will require a unified employee experience from onboarding and collaboration to continuous learning and growth. Viva brings together everything an employee needs to be successful, from day one, in a single, integrated experience directly in Teams."

The announcement comes as economic and social trends are driving durable changes in workforce engagement. Amid the shift to an increasingly distributed and digital work environment, demand has grown for solutions that support corporate culture, knowledge discovery, on-the-job learning and employee wellbeing. Analysts size the nascent Employee Experience Platforms (EXP) category at $300 billion in annual spend. It spans what is today a fragmented market of services, infrastructure and hundreds of tools, many that go undiscovered and underutilized by employees at the companies that have invested in them.

"As the world of work changes, the next horizon of innovation will come from a focus on creativity, engagement and wellbeing so organizations can build cultures of resilience and ingenuity," said Jared Spataro, corporate vice president, Microsoft 365. "Our vision is to deliver a platform for the employee experience that helps organizations create a thriving culture with engaged employees and inspiring leaders."

Microsoft Viva builds on the power of Teams and Microsoft 365 to unify the employee experience across four key areas — Engagement, Wellbeing, Learning and Knowledge — in an integrated experience that empowers people to be their best. Today, Microsoft is announcing an initial set of modules in Viva that will provide built-in capabilities, integrations from a strong and growing ecosystem of Viva partners, and platform extensibility that will enable customers to integrate their existing employee experience systems and tools with Viva to make them more accessible and discoverable to employees:

• Viva Connections provides a personalized gateway to your digital workplace where employees can access internal communications and company resources like policies and benefits and participate in communities like employee resource groups, all from a single customizable app in Microsoft Teams. The Connections app for Teams will be available on desktop in public preview the first half of 2021 with a mobile app coming later this year.
• Viva Insights gives individuals, managers and leaders personalized and actionable insights that help everyone in an organization 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, as well as recommendations to better balance productivity and wellbeing. The insights are aggregated and deidentified by default to maintain personal privacy. In addition, a new dashboard allows organizations 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. In addition to using data and signals from Microsoft apps, customers will also be able to incorporate data from third-party services like Zoom, Slack, Workday and SAP SuccessFactors. The Viva Insights app in Teams and the new Glint and Viva Insights dashboard are now available in public preview.
• Viva Learning makes training and professional development opportunities more discoverable and accessible in the flow of work. It aggregates all the learning resources available to an organization in one place, including content from LinkedIn Learning; Microsoft Learn; third-party providers including Skillsoft, Coursera, Pluralsight and edX; as well as an organization's own content library. From traditional learning courses to microlearning content, users can discover, share, assign and track a wide variety of learning as a natural part of the workday. The Viva Learning app is now available in private preview, and starting later this year Viva Learning will offer integrations with leading learning management systems, including Cornerstone OnDemand, Saba and SAP SuccessFactors.
• Viva Topics delivers a knowledge discovery experience that helps people connect to information and experts across the company. Using AI to reason over a customer's Microsoft 365 data, and with the ability to integrate knowledge from a variety of third-party services such as ServiceNow and Salesforce, Viva Topics automatically surfaces topic cards within conversations and documents across Microsoft 365 and Teams. Clicking on a card opens a topic page with related documents, conversations, videos and people. Viva Topics is now generally available as an add-on to Microsoft 365 commercial plans.

"Microsoft Viva is a groundbreaking Employee Experience Platform, ushering in a new enterprise software category that focuses entirely on the daily needs of employees at work," said Josh Bersin, research analyst and noted expert on employee experience technology. "Viva will enable companies to integrate their fragmented workplace tools and provide them in the flow of work."

A global network of services partners, including Accenture, Avanade, PwC and EY will provide consulting and advisory services to help customers optimize their existing employee experience investments by bringing them together with Microsoft Viva.

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.

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SOURCE Microsoft Corporation

FAQ

What is Microsoft Viva and when was it launched?

Microsoft Viva is an employee experience platform launched by Microsoft on February 4, 2021, designed to enhance employee engagement, learning, and wellbeing.

How does Microsoft Viva integrate with Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Viva integrates directly into Microsoft Teams, providing tools for employee engagement, learning, wellbeing, and access to knowledge resources.

What are the key modules of Microsoft Viva?

The key modules of Microsoft Viva include Viva Connections, Viva Insights, Viva Learning, and Viva Topics, each aimed at improving different aspects of the employee experience.

What is the estimated market size for Employee Experience Platforms?

The estimated market size for Employee Experience Platforms is approximately $300 billion annually.

How does Microsoft Viva improve employee wellbeing?

Microsoft Viva offers tools like Viva Insights that provide employees with personalized insights to balance productivity and wellbeing.