Microsoft released its Work Trend Index Pulse report, “Hybrid Work is Just Work,” on Thursday. Could it be that we’re doing it wrong? Microsoft’s Viva employee experience platform, new features have been open to empowering workers despite an uncertain economic climate.
The data show that the mixed nature of employment has led to a widening gap between employees and their bosses. They have different ideas about what is productive, how to balance autonomy and accountability, the value of mobility, and the place of work. Keeping workers engaged and connected no matter where they are requires a new strategy that recognizes that work is no longer just a place, but an experience that must transcend time and geography.
The Microsoft CEO and Satya noted, “Successful employees will give businesses a competitive advantage in today’s dynamic economic landscape.” To complete production, rebuild social capital, and re-hire and reinvigorate employees, Microsoft today announced a new promotion of its employee experience platform, Microsoft Viva.
Paranoia of ultimate productivity: While 87% of employees believe they are productive at work, 85% of managers find it difficult to trust that their staff is doing so because of the rise of hybrid work. Most often or never, gather employee feedback, emphasizing the need for leaders to establish clarity and alignment of company goals, minimize tedious work that doesn’t serve those goals, and listen to their people.
Accept that people come for each other: 84% of employees believe they would be more motivated to come to work if they had the opportunity to interact with colleagues, And eighty-five percent would have to work to rebuild team relationships if they had the opportunity to do science and managers viewed communication as the most critical ability critical to success in their positions in 2019.
Retraining to rehire employees: Fifty-five percent of employees believe that changing jobs is the best way to advance their careers. On the other hand, if they had more opportunities for greater professional development and advancement within the organization, 76 percent would stay longer.
Microsoft is expanding its Microsoft Viva employee experience platform to help businesses meet these challenges and give their employees an experience that fits well with the way people work today. Microsoft announced many updates and additions to Viva today.
Managers and team leaders can now use the new Viva Pulse app to get accurate information about how their teams are performing. To help managers determine what’s working and what needs attention, Viva Pulse provides them with research-based templates and questions.
A new app called Viva Amplify will help leaders and communicators improve the impact of their messages and reach their teams more effectively, wherever they are. The app serves as a hub for all communications initiatives, provides feedback on content creation to increase the impact of messages, facilitates publishing across multiple channels and Microsoft 365 distribution groups, and tracks progress toward goals.
A new feature, Answers in Viva, will use artificial intelligence to connect employees with answers and experts.
Viva’s new People feature will use artificial intelligence to create comprehensive profile maps that include information about the hobbies, knowledge and goals of the employee team. The new application and Ad profile maps in Microsoft 365 will provide access to these insights.
Microsoft’s new Viva Engage platform encourages the growth of online communities by empowering users to have meaningful conversations and express themselves through sharing stories.
The upcoming Viva Engage Leadership Center will provide a forum where employees can have candid conversations with company leaders, voice their opinions and engage in strategic projects.
Viva Goals is a tool to help companies better align employee efforts with strategic goals. Connecting to Roshog BI datasets to track KPIs and key deliverables, integrating with Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Project for automatic project management updates, and more are all examples of how the new Viva Goals connectors will integrate goals into the work flow.
People can access the LinkedIn Learning Hub without interrupting workflow in teams improved interfaces between Viva Learning and LinkedIn Learning. LinkedIn Learning Hub data, including their unique content, individual learning paths and completed courses, will be displayed in real time within Viva. The integration can be set up by administrators without the need for third-party APIs in the LinkedIn Learning Hub settings.
The first role-based application, Viva Sales, will be released Oct. 3.
Viva Sales combines Microsoft 365 and Teams with the salesperson’s CRM to simplify the sales process and runs on AI without requiring the salesperson to switch between apps. With Seismic, Microsoft will be able to improve consumer engagement on a large scale and on an individual basis by using AI to provide content recommendations.
The new home experience in Viva Connections will centralize all Viva apps in one place, and improvements to the Viva newsletter will provide more personalized productivity tips to help employees get back to tracking contract work, Meetings and training after a slow start to the day.
In the first few months of 2023, users will begin receiving brand new Viva features. The new Work Dynamics Index report and Microsoft’s official blog are great places to start. Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) supports digital transformation for the era of the smart cloud and smart edge. Its goal is to help everyone and every group on Earth achieve more. An analysis of trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals, LinkedIn labor market trends and Glint Workers Science showed that the Workforce Pulse Index report was based on data from an external survey of 20,000 people in 11 countries.
