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Create Focus Areas in Viva Glint

Review your Top Strengths and Top Opportunities, suggested action templates, and their resources before meeting with your team. Preparing for your team meeting is the best way to solicit insightful and productive Focus Areas to act on.

Tip

Work on one Focus Area at a time in order to ensure the maximum effort toward taking one step forward.

Prep for your team conversation

There are two ways to enter the Focus Areas section:

  • From your Viva Glint dashboard - Select the Focus Areas tab from the menu bar and then My Focus Areas on the page that opens.
  • From your Manager Concierge timeline, if enabled. In Step 4 - Select Choose a Focus Area. ​​​​​​

Review the Manager Quick Guide to Results and Conversation.

Select Focus Areas with your team

  1. From the Creating a New Focus Area page, review the items available for your team to work on.

    1. Select Choose to see suggested actions and resources for each Focus Area.
    2. Review and consider as many Focus Areas as you believe might be helpful and elicit support from your team. Preview Suggested Actions and Resources by hovering over the title and selecting it. Each Suggested Action has a default selection, listed first.
    3. When it's time to commit to a Focus Area and add actions and resources, attach as many as you would like onto your action plan.
  2. If your role has Manager Concierge enabled, in Step 3, select Download Presentation Kit. Your admin configured this kit to help you facilitate a meaningful and insightful conversation with your team.

    1. Customize the kit to get ready for your team meeting.
    2. Make notes on each slide to help your conversation move forward.

Commit to a Focus Area - Managers without Team Conversations

Once your survey is closed:

  1. Share survey results with your team, following your Presentation Kit guidance and using ACT best practices for extra support.
  2. Share your Creating a New Focus Area screen with your team. You can also customize the presentation kit to highlight these possibilities.
  3. Choose as many of Suggested Actions and Suggested Resources as desired. Select + Add to Focus Area for each.
  4. Save to your team's plan by selecting Create Focus Area. You now see your new plan on the Focus Areas tab.

Commit to a Focus Area - Managers with Team Conversations

Once your survey is closed, complete this task directly from your Presentation Kit, in real-time, with your team. There are two ways to begin this process:

  • In Step 3 of Manager Concierge, the link previously titled Download Presentation Kit is updated to Launch Team Conversation. Select Launch Team Conversation and then Get Started. Review the slides and when you're ready to present, select Start Conversation.
  • You receive an email stating that your interactive presentation is ready to share with your team. Select Get Started.

The Choose a Focus Area slide

Switch from Opportunities, Strengths, and Other to share possibilities for improvement with your team. Use the Choose button to cue up Viva Glint Suggested Actions and Resources.

  • Scroll down to see the suggestions.
  • Switch back and forth between drivers before settling on a Focus Area. Select Remove next to the item you're viewing, and then Choose next to another driver to consider.
  • When your team agrees on their next step, select + Add Action Item to add the actions and resources to the plan you're developing together.
  • Select Commit to Focus Area. This information becomes part of your Small Steps Forward slide. Step 3 on Manager Concierge indicates completion by displaying a checkmark. The link in Step 4 now reads View Focus Area. You can access the link at any time.

Edit a Focus Area plan

Update or edit a Focus Area by selecting the + New Focus Area button on the My Focus Areas page or View Focus Area (for managers with Team Conversations enabled). Select the Edit option next to the driver. Choose another driver by selecting Choose.

Remove a Focus Area by selecting Delete from the vertical ellipsis next to it on the My Focus Areas page.

View a Focus Area status

After a Focus Areas is chosen, its status can be seen on the My Focus Areas page. Select a detail from the Focus Area row to open the Viewing Your Focus Areas page. Detailed information is available here and editing can occur.

Change the Status of a Focus Area plan

Open the Viewing Your Focus Areas page in either of these two ways:

  • From your Viva Glint dashboard: Select Focus Areas and then My Focus Areas.
  • From the Viva Glint Team Summary dashboard, select View Focus Area from Step 4.

You can change the status of these items:

  • Focus Area Status Tracker
    • Indicate if Focus Area progress is Not Done, Off Track, On Track, or Complete.
    • Note: This area is updated manually. Even if a Focus Area isn't completed, a manager may decide to indicate Complete, indicating that the team is ready to move on to another opportunity.
  • Time Period
    • Indicates the start date for the time period assigned to work on the Focus Area.
  • Visibility
  • Action Items - After Suggested Actions are selected and appear in the Action Items section, keep track of team progress by activating the checkmark to indicate completion.
  • Comments - As a manager and their team work toward a Focus Area, they can make notes of progress or roadblocks.
  • Tag someone by name to get feedback or input from a specific person around a Focus Area. Tagging also alerts a specific manager to consider using this same Focus Area for their own team.

Reordering Focus Areas

To help focus and prioritize your attention, you can reorder focus areas from the My Focus Areas page. Hover over the card until a blue bar appears. Drag the blue bar to a new position.

Microsoft Viva People Science explains Focus Areas and Action Plans

The success of continuous conversations hinges on actions taken at the leadership and company levels and should be based on feedback collected from their employees. Many companies build excitement and energy around concepts like “We want to hear from you!” and “Thank you for the feedback!” However, the momentum often slows somewhere between “Here’s what we’re going to do about your feedback” and what actually gets done to make positive, incremental changes.

Initiating and managing action after a survey can be an unclear process. Focused and streamlined action planning is essential. An Action Plan is a written commitment to make incremental improvements to the employee experience and engagement in their work, on your team, and within the company.

Our approach to Focus Areas

The Microsoft Viva Glint Focus Areas module is designed to directly connect managers to recommended Focus Areas and resources for taking action based on their team’s results. Leaders are immediately able to see strengths and opportunities, review best practices, and select Focus Areas.

Managers receive recommended Focus Areas based on the scores and drivers most impactful to engagement within their team. The Viva Glint algorithm provides personalized recommendations based on score, comparison to Company Average, the selected benchmark, and the impact of particular areas on the outcome of interest.

Research shows that focusing on one area at a time maximizes the ability to achieve. While managers own and drive only one Focus Area for their team, they can also champion and support their roll-up teams' Focus Areas.

Move leaders from a ‘big event’ mentality around action planning.

Why develop Focus Areas?

Choosing Focus Areas demonstrates commitment to continually improving the employee experience and, ultimately, changing leaders’ habits. Partnering with employees in understanding feedback and taking action on that feedback makes this process meaningful and builds trust.

Action planning content is sourced from industry best practices and our experience across a wide range of organizations. Content is written to be attainable and easy to implement. Managers are guided through an intuitive framework to help build their own concrete action plans, using learnings from how other managers engage their teams.

  • An extensive resource library helps users understand why recommended Focus Areas are important and how to attain them.
  • An easy-to-use interface allows managers to choose, organize, and prioritize actions by adding suggested tasks or creating their own.
  • Prescribed actions include interactive and lightweight self-assessments, team discussion tips, and case studies.

Your organization can add custom content to use its own learning resources and to reflect company-specific values, initiatives, or strategies. You can add links to current content on internal and external sites to broaden educational opportunities.

Important

The biggest risk for an organization is sending out a survey, collecting feedback, and failing to act upon it. Viva Glint offers an array of support resources to ensure effective action planning, communication of progress, and a measurable boost to business outcomes.

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