"You don't necessarily show up at the office in the morning, but on the intranet."
Microsoft Viva was introduced earlier this year and is a revolutionary solution for remote work in Teams where employees can keep track of most threads and managers have a good overview of projects, workload, and even the well-being of their staff.
Viva is built on four interconnected pillars: Viva Connections, Viva Insights, Viva Learning, and Viva Topics. Viva Connections is essentially a digital workplace in Teams. There, employees can communicate, access necessary data, and work in teams.
Hildur Elín Vignir, CEO of IÐAN Education Centre, says that implementing Microsoft Viva in a company's operations is desirable, and the benefits lie not least in the fact that it is, in so many cases, integrated with the company's main information system and is in a system everyone knows, Teams. IÐAN will utilize the benefits of Microsoft Viva in its operations and aims to provide advice to companies and managers on this new solution.
“The essence of Viva is that it's basically a traditional intranet. And what's more, most of this functionality has been available in SharePoint for many years. What Microsoft is doing is taking this SharePoint functionality, turning it into an app, and making this app accessible and integrated with Teams. This is actually very clever,” says Hildur, pointing out that a new system is not being invented from scratch. “What is most desirable, therefore, is that the workplace gets excellent intranet functionality in an environment it should be familiar with and on a foundation (i.e., Microsoft Teams and 365) that it already has. This means that companies can set up their own intranet in a much more accessible and quicker way than before. And this intranet is connected to the company's entire information system and lives inside a system (Teams) that everyone in the company is or should be using,” she says.
“The big problem for many companies that transitioned very quickly to remote work is that the foundations were not in place. Information was scattered, and so were communication channels. This is where an intranet solves all sorts of problems. Access to information, processes, and documents is secured. A communication tool like Teams is also integrated with the intranet, which is a huge advantage. I think Microsoft envisions that Viva Connect and the Microsoft 365 solution will essentially become the employee's digital office. You don't necessarily go to the office in the morning, but to the intranet.”
The development related to continuing education within companies is particularly remarkable. “Microsoft's dream is to integrate work and learning/continuing education in such a way that continuing education becomes a natural part of the regular workday. Viva is the tool that is supposed to make that possible,” says Hildur. Viva is intended to bring education closer to employees and managers by connecting education companies or course material producers/sellers with employees/managers. “It will therefore be simple to search for training in a targeted way through the system and distribute it effectively to employees. Companies can also put their own training into the system and distribute it in the same way. Viva thus becomes one giant training marketplace and management system for employee continuing education. “As for managers, they now have a tool to distribute and monitor training that would previously have been very expensive. Such advanced solutions exist, but they are hardly accessible to smaller companies. Players like eloomi are probably watching this very closely,” she says about this exciting development.
IÐAN Education Centre plans to offer training on Microsoft Viva soon. Register here if you would like more information.