It's one of the key challenges facing HR
Next week, New Zealand’s top HR leaders will converge on the Aotea Centre in Auckland for the 2021 HR Leadership Summit. As new technology and Covid-19 dramatically change the way people work, the risk of staff being left behind has never been higher, something HR leaders know all too well.
Microsoft’s new employee experience platform, Viva, adds valuable new functionality to the tools organisations already use to help alleviate the challenges that the modern workplace presents for HR professionals.
For years, technology has been changing the way we work. Video calling, real-time collaboration and workplace chat have all allowed people to work in new ways over the last decade. These solutions were nice to have before 2020, but when Covid hit, every workplace was forced to adapt and implement new ways of working. The benefits of this accelerated technology adoption are coming with us as we return to physical workplaces: flexible and remote working is now much easier, for example.
This sudden change in the way work happens has come with some challenges, as any HR professional knows. Staff wellbeing continues to be a concern: Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index shows that staff burnout has increased in the past year, workdays are getting longer, and staff who work remotely reported a lack of separation between work and life.
Addressing these issues will be key to ensuring that modern work is not only as productive as work in a traditional office, but also works well for employees. Microsoft’s new employee engagement platform, Viva, can help HR professionals manage these issues for their organisations. Viva works on top of existing productivity software to add important functionality for employee engagement, particularly in remote settings, and it will help physical workplaces, too.
The four key products within Viva are designed to alleviate headaches created by remote work for HR professionals, applying what we now know, over a year out from lockdown. Viva Insights provides personalised and actionable insights to individuals, managers, and leaders to ensure that everyone at all levels can thrive. Employees can protect time in their schedule for regular breaks, focused work, and learning, and to strengthen their relationships with colleagues, in a way which is visible only to them. That gives employees increased agency to create defined boundaries for their work-life balance.
Managers and leaders get visibility through Viva Insights of trends at a team and organisation level, alongside recommendations to better balance productivity and wellbeing. These insights are aggregated and deidentified, so that employees’ privacy is protected.
Viva Connections provides a personalised gateway to the digital workplace; creating a single location for employees to access internal communications, company resources and participate in communities within Microsoft Teams. Any unnecessary time spent digging through email chains or Teams threads isn’t just unproductive; it’s frustrating for staff who want technology to enable their work, not create barriers. Viva Connections provides a centralised system for those inquiries.
Viva Topics is a major step forward in creating visibility of relevant content, all in one place. Viva Topics allows organisations to create cards on topics or projects, which put relevant people, documents, and other information in the same place, and the cards follow staff in the apps they already use every day. Topics can be created manually, and AI will also generate them automatically. AI will also add additional content to Topics in context. Topics will eliminate unnecessary time spent figuring out where to find a certain document, or who to ask for information about a given project or topic, instead surfacing that information when needed.
Better still, Microsoft will ship a set of APIs this year which allows Topics to be shown in third-party applications, so organisations that work across multiple environments will be able to make use of Viva Topics everywhere they work.
Viva Learning will allow organisations to consolidate their learning resources in one place. Organisations can pull content from LinkedIn Learning and Microsoft Learn alongside courses from third party providers like Coursera and their own content library. Viva Learning will also offer integration with leading learning management systems like Saba and SAP SuccessFactors when it launches generally this year.
Getting remote work right is going to be key for organisations to attract and retain talent into the future. Employees expect to be able to work in flexible ways, but it’s important that this is achieved in a way that supports all parties, avoids productivity losses, and keeps employee wellbeing front of mind.
You can learn more about Microsoft Viva here.