Introduction to Microsoft Viva

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Microsoft Viva is an integrated employee experience platform that empowers people and teams to be at their best. Viva brings together all the tools that employees need to be successful in today’s world of work into one unified solution that enables connection, insight, purpose, and growth. Microsoft Viva is built right into Microsoft Teams and experienced through Microsoft 365, so employees can find what they need when they need it. Viva is easily customizable and extensible, accessible from anywhere, and integrates with the tools that organizations already use.

Many organizations and companies have successfully implemented Viva to support their employees to succeed in various business scenarios. Here are a few examples:

• U.S. Banks and Engage Squared use Microsoft Teams in combination with Microsoft Viva Connections and Viva Engage to support collaboration and engage employees in conversations.
• Blum empowers frontline workers and the Sasuchan Development Corporation builds wealth and community for the Takla Nation with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Viva Connections.
• Orkla brings its dispersed employees together with communities in Microsoft Viva Engage.
• Musictribe explored learning and development alternatives and chose Microsoft Viva Learning to provide its people with e-learning and virtual training opportunities.
• Dell Technologies, Avanade, and Northumbrian Water simplify knowledge sharing and connect people with content and expertise using Microsoft Viva Topics.
• Microsoft uses objectives and key results (OKRs), giving teams the ability to track and align business goals within the organization with Microsoft Viva Goals.
• PayPal and Unilever unlock workplace data and improve employee well-being with Microsoft Viva Insights.
• Cricket Australia provides tools and insights with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Viva for employee onboarding. Read more customer stories and get inspired by how organizations can use Microsoft Viva to achieve their business goals.

The four Viva experience areas

Viva’s goal is to simplify work. Employees are overwhelmed with the number of disparate point solutions and applications that are needed to be successful in today’s world of work. Viva has a simple platform experience that brings together all the key solutions that are required to be successful at work in one unified product, all in your natural flow of work.

Viva is categorized into four main experience areas: Connection, Insight, Purpose and Growth that contain a curated set of apps as described below:

• Connection: Keep everyone informed, included, and inspired (Viva Connections and Viva Engage)

• Insight: Improve productivity and well-being with actionable insights (Viva Insights)

• Purpose: Align people's work to the team's or organization's goals (Viva Goals)

• Growth: Help employees learn, grow and succeed (Viva Learning and Viva Topics)

  

Now, you'll see how these Viva apps can work together to empower employees in each of the four experience areas, through the lens of an imagined organization, Lamna Healthcare.

Introducing Lamna Healthcare

In this module, let us imagine a leading medical group in the healthcare sector: Lamna Healthcare. Lamna Healthcare focuses on integrated health care, education, and research. It employs over 2,000 physicians and scientists, along with another 30,000 administrative and allied health staff, across four major campuses in the nation. Lamna needs a suite of employee experience tools to engage, connect, and empower its diverse types of employees. These employees include physicians and surgeons, nurse practitioners, Human Resources professionals, Information Technology (IT) professionals, office administrators, custodial staff, and many more. The following organizational chart shows a simplified structure of departments and employees at Lamna Healthcare:

In this module, we'll use Lamna Healthcare to walk you through various scenarios. You'll see how Lamna Healthcare gets started with Viva, uses Viva to connect and engage employees, supports learning and growth, aligns goals, and provides insights to foster productivity and well-being.

Note

Though your organization differs from Lamna Healthcare, many of these scenarios are universal and can be adapted for your organization.

Lamna empowers employees with Viva in four experience areas

The following simplified version of Lamna Healthcare uses Viva to support its people in the four experience areas of Connection, Insight, Purpose, and Growth. Here, we mention Viva apps only in their focused experience areas. In the real world, you'll often want to combine various apps as the solution to your business scenarios. Unit 2 will discuss identifying business scenarios in more detail.

Experience area	Business scenario	Action	Viva app
Connection	As a large healthcare group with over 33,000 employees, Lamna needs to ensure all employees are well informed, connected, and engaged.	- The Lamna leadership assigned a steering committee, including various stakeholders, to work on the adoption of Viva. - The Office of Communications works with the Office of Information Technology to set Viva Connections as the Viva hub to integrate all other Viva apps. Lamna uses Viva Connections to send news and updates to employees through Feeds. Employees can access tools at Viva Connections Dashboard and Resources. - To encourage collaboration and networking, Lamna Communications Office works with other departments to set up communities for employees with Viva Engage, to encourage employees to ask questions, share ideas, and pictures.
Insight	Lamna Healthcare wants to make sure its employees build good work habits that are both productive and sustainable.	- Lamna’s Office of Information Technology sets up Viva Insights for employees to access it from within Teams or using a web browser. - Individual employees book time for concentration, take necessary breaks, hold effective meetings, stay connected with colleagues, and disconnect from work during their off-hours. - Managers can use Teamwork habits to help schedule one-on-ones with team members, understand the health of their team and follow up on tasks.
Purpose	The leadership of Lamna Healthcare has started tracking objectives and key results (OKRs), giving teams throughout the organization clarity of purpose and establishing transparency between teams about progress, contributions, and alignment.	- The senior leadership team identifies the organization’s objectives and key results. - Team leaders work with their teams to identify their own OKRs. Individual employees can also set their personal OKRs to align with their teams’.
Growth	According to the responses to a recent organizational-wide survey, over 70% of Lamna Healthcare employees think that the opportunity for professional learning and development is one of the top reasons to continue working at Lamna Healthcare.	- The Office of the Chief Learning Officer sets up a centralized place where its employees can find and consume learning content that supports their job and career development. - The Office of the Chief Knowledge Officer sets up the Topic center. Knowledge Managers work with each department to review and edit topics related to various Lamna projects, events, locations, people, and resources.