Incorporate learning into your organization with Viva Learning

Keep your employees engaged and up to date with necessary skills by creating opportunities for learning. By using Microsoft Viva Learning you can integrate learning opportunities with your organization's day-to-day operations.

In this solution:

• Get started planning for specific scenarios like new employee onboarding and upskilling current employees.
• Understand technical and license requirements before getting started.
• Learn how to create, manage, and maintain a learning culture over time.
• Discover other Viva experiences to help with your organization's learning goals.

Step 1: Identify your learning needs.

Step 2: Get Viva Learning.

Step 3: Choose content providers.

Step 4: Distribute and promote courses.

Step 5: Create a learning culture.

Step 6: Consider adding additional Viva experiences.

Step 1: Define learning needs and goals for your organization

Start by defining the learning needs of your organization. Common learning goals include new employee onboarding, routine training, and upskilling. Here are some examples of how you can use Microsoft Viva for these common goals.

New employee onboarding

Create customized content for your organization, such as PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and videos, and store this content in SharePoint. New employees can access this content in curated playlists through Viva Learning. Learn how to use SharePoint as a content source for Viva Learning

Routine training

Routine training can include D&I, policy updates, technical training, and anything else your employees may need to complete on a regular basis. You can create customized content for your organization, such as PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and videos, and store this content in SharePoint. Your employees can access this content through Learning tabs, in Teams chat, or by browsing Viva Learning. Learn how to use SharePoint as a content source for Viva Learning. Managers can recommend this content to specific employees and track if it’s been completed Learn how to recommend content in Viva Learning. Employees can also access required trainings from connected learning management systems and get notified of what's upcoming and overdue. Learn how to add required training from a learning management system.

Upskilling

Enable your employees to develop new skills with Viva Learning by encouraging learning discovery and social learning. You can create customized content for your organization, pull content from a third-party provider or learning management system, or both together. Employees can access all of this content through Viva Learning, so they never have to leave Microsoft Teams to visit different platforms or websites. Managers can recommend content to employees, or employees can search for content that matches their interests.

Step 2: Get Viva Learning

Once you've identified your organization's learning goals, you'll need to deploy Viva Learning.

First, you'll need to choose your license type.

Viva Suite	Viva Learning	Microsoft 365
Empower people and teams to be their best from anywhere with the full employee experience suite, including Viva Learning, Viva Insights, and Viva Topics.	A Viva Learning license allows you to use all Viva Learning features, including integration with third-party content providers.	Basic Viva Learning features are included with your Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plans for enterprise.

Learn more about licensing

Learn how to set up Viva Learning

Step 3: Choose and curate your learning content

Content from Microsoft, as well as select content from LinkedIn Learning, is available by default in Viva Learning. Depending on your organization’s needs, you may not need to source additional content. However, what makes Viva Learning so powerful is that you can pull content from many different sources to be accessible all in one place. Some content is available in Viva Learning by default, whereas other content sources will need to be configured by an admin. You can choose one content source, or any combination that suits your needs. Learn more about how to manage content sources.

Note

Content sources other than Microsoft and LinkedInLearning require a Viva Suite or Viva Learning license.

Content provider type	Description	Requirements
Learning management systems	Learning management systems are comprehensive platforms that deliver, document, track, and manage content. Viva Learning currently supports integration with Cornerstone OnDemand, Saba, and SAP SuccessFactors. When you integrate your learning management system with Viva Learning, your employees can access everything they need from within Microsoft Teams. Learn more	Viva Suite or Viva Learning license Subscription to your chosen learning management system(s)
Third-party content provider	Viva Learning also supports integration with third-party content providers. These providers deliver content but don’t track and manage learning the way learning management systems do. When you integrate a third-party content provider with Viva Learning, employees can search, access, and share courses through Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365. Learn more
LinkedIn Learning	Select content from LinkedIn Learning is available in Viva Learning by default. However, you’ll need a LinkedIn Learning Enterprise subscription to access the full range of LinkedIn Learning content through Viva Learning.	No additional requirements for LinkedIn Learning free courses LinkedIn Learning Enterprise subscription to access the full course catalog
SharePoint	You can integrate SharePoint to surface your own custom content in Viva Learning. Learn more about integrating SharePoint.	No additional requirements
Microsoft content	Content from Microsoft is available by default in Viva Learning.	No additional requirements.

Example scenarios using different content provider types

New employee onboarding

1. First, create custom content in SharePoint that teaches new employees the basics of working in your organization. This content could include presentations about goals, lists of resources, and welcome videos. If your employees need to use internal tools, create and host instructional content for these on SharePoint.
2. Next, determine which technical and business skills your new employees will need to succeed. Choose which additional content providers to integrate based on the relevant courses available or integrate content providers that your organization already uses.

Routine training

1. First, determine whether the routine training you want your employees to undertake is specific to your organization, general business and technical skills, or a combination of both.
2. If your training needs to be specific to your organization, host custom content in SharePoint. For technical and business skills, choose which additional content providers to integrate based on the relevant courses available or integrate content providers that your organization already uses.

Upskilling

Choosing additional content providers (content not created and hosted by your organization) provides employees with extensive opportunities to improve their business and technical skills without the need to continuously create your own content. Using content from different providers also allows your employees to pursue a broader skill set and develop unique abilities within your organization.

Plan for content maintenance

Microsoft content and external content sources don’t require maintenance besides keeping your license up to date. However, if you’re using custom content from SharePoint, you’ll need to regularly update the content to align with any changes in your organization. Create a plan or schedule for your designated content creators to regularly update this content. Content hosted on SharePoint is accessible through Viva Learning until it’s deleted from the folder, so it’s important to make sure that your learning content repository stays up to date. Learn more about hosting content in SharePoint.

Step 4: Distribute and promote learning content

Once you've identified your learning goals and chosen your content providers, you'll need to get this content out to users in your organization.

Role: Managers You can recommend learning content to members of your team from within the Viva Learning app. Use this feature when you want to target a specific module to a specific user based on their learning needs. Employees can also recommend courses to each other.

Role: Corporate communications specialist Spread the news about learning opportunities.

1. Post in Microsoft Teams channels and teams about learning opportunities. Highlight when required trainings are due and share courses relevant to specific teams.
2. Share learning opportunities and engage with your users on Viva Engage.
3. Spread the news offline with town hall meetings and posters.
4. Create a SharePoint news post. You can use audience targeting to show the news to specific groups, such as new hires or frontline workers. If you’re using Viva Connections, this post will show up on the dashboards of targeted users. Learn more about how to spread news within your organization.

Read the adoption guide to learn more about how you can get your users to take up Viva Learning.

Step 5: Create and maintain a culture of learning

Maintain a culture of learning and growth by making sure your employees have adequate time for learning, training, and skilling. You can also incorporate [Viva Insights](link to modules section) to understand your organization’s work patterns and create time for your employees to learn.

1. Set aside time for learning: Designate regular time for your employees to spend training and upskilling. If the learning goals you defined in step 1 focus mainly on required trainings, you can designate time for your employees to spend completing these before they’re due. If your learning goals focus on upskilling or skills maintenance, you can set aside weekly or monthly time. Designating specific time blocks for learning and training encourages employees to prioritize these activities rather than rushing to complete them before a due date. Employees can also use Viva Insights to schedule their own learning time.
2. Designate Viva Learning champions: Leverage champions to promote training and skilling within your organization. These champions can be leaders, corporate communications specialists, or employees who are enthusiastic about learning. These champions can share new learning opportunities, hold learning sessions, and encourage others to participate in learning.
3. Create space for feedback: Create a Teams channel or send out surveys to get feedback on learning content. Receiving feedback is especially important if your organization is using custom content from SharePoint. However, receiving feedback on content created outside your organization can also help you make sure that the content sources you’ve chosen are serving the needs of your organization.

Train your users

Make sure your users are familiar with Viva Learning. Share the Viva Learning end user training with your organization to enable everyone to get comfortable with using the app and engaging in self-help.

Step 6: Consider adding other Viva experiences

Viva Insights

Use Viva Insights to help create and manage time for learning.

• Personal insights help employees structure their time by helping them reserve time for learning and training.
• Manager insights show how manager habits affect teams, while providing suggestions on how to foster team culture. Managers can use these insights to better understand what types of learning content can benefit their team members.
• Leader insights show business leaders a snapshot into how their organization is performing, including company-wide outcomes and leading indicators for each outcome.

Learn how to get Viva Insights.

Viva Connections

Use Viva Connections with Viva Learning to increase awareness of learning opportunities within your organization.

• Write a SharePoint news post that highlights new learning opportunities. This news post will appear in the Viva Connections feed. You can link to training modules in Teams from the news post.

Learn more about Viva Connections

Learn how to plan, build, and launch Viva Connections for your organization.