Best practices for connectedness
Important
This article is for the legacy Workplace Analytics app and does not reflect functionality available on the updated Viva Insights platform. Access current documentation for Viva Insights advanced insights here: advanced insights documentation.
As a manager, you can help share ideas and expertise across the company. This type of collaboration helps companies stay ahead of the competition by driving organizational efficiency, engagement, and innovation.
Managers who have diverse ties across an organization are typically considered more effective and help their employees build strong networks.
Why it matters
How to Make Sure Agile Teams Can Work Together explains how: “Senior leaders need to consider where overload on the network’s center might preclude agile collaboration" and encourage "overwhelmed employees to re-distribute collaborative work in conjunction with their managers.”
According to Horizontal collaboration and cross-silo leadership, it's important to develop and deploy cultural brokers:
- "Cultural brokers promote cross-boundary work in one of two ways: by acting as a bridge or as an adhesive."
- “The value of horizontal collaboration is widely recognized."
- "Employees who can reach outside their silos to find colleagues with complementary expertise learn more, sell more, and gain skills faster.”
Best practices
- Strengthen connections with a Teams channel for group communications and chats.
- Use the Insights in Outlook and Suggested tasks to add colleagues to your Important people list, receive suggestions to meet, reminders to respond to email, and complete tasks for these contacts.
- Host informal gatherings, such as virtual opportunities for your team to bond over non-work activities and form new connections. Create agendas with fun conversation prompts and activities, such as online trivia games.
- Get people to see things through others’ eyes by organizing carefully structured, face-to-face, cross-silo dialogues.
- Create inclusive and trusting environments to facilitate agile collaboration. A culture of fear exists when employees do not feel safe to come forward with ideas, and those on the fringe may be less confident about contributing.
- Set up “communities of practice” or business development initiatives to help share expertise or resources.
Change strategies
Build strong connections with Teams
Use Teams channels to interact with others based on topics of interest or across different teams. Try out the built-in Microsoft tips and resources to accelerate adoption.
Enable personal network insights
Build connections with your network through the Teamwork tab.