How to Engage Employees With Viva Connections

Over the past few years, the pandemic has revolutionised the way we work – as millions of us have begun to work from home, either full time or part time, the lack of disconnect between work and home life has led to increased feelings of isolation as we do not see our colleagues face-to-face. Burnout has also been on the rise as a result of over working and lack of community, among other things.

It is therefore more important than ever to ensure you engage employees & colleagues alike. Microsoft Viva Connections is the perfect tool for this – bringing the intranet to the forefront of the user experience. It lives in Microsoft Teams and offers a personalised view of news, conversations and communities through apps employees already use.

The platform intends to boost happiness, feelings of belonging and employee retention by encouraging meaningful connections across the organisation.

In order to be as successful as possible, organisations should share and build on the contributions of their employees. With Viva Connections, it is easy to engage the entire team wherever they are, from any device, sharing news, conversations and tasks so they can stay on top of workflows.

Here is how you can engage employees & colleagues with Microsoft Viva Connections.

 

A simplified intranet – making work easier

It is easy to find the information you need through Connections, as well as share unique perspectives, expertise and ideas.

It is also a great way to keep up with notifications and conversations, which is paramount to feeling connected to colleagues when we are not physically present. Users will be able to start the day by seeing news articles, start or join discussions, keep up to date with what’s going on in the company – all through an easy-to-read feed.

Everything is personalised, so individuals will see communications that apply to their role, location and job type, with important news boosted to the top of your feed.

Video and live events can showcase important moments and campaigns, while sharing stories and messages in the organisations authentic voice can help provide a more bespoke experience for teams.

The app is easily customisable to your organisations branding, goals and style to further unite users around your organisation’s vision, mission and strategic priorities.

 

Engagement tools

The Viva Connections dashboard is the source of information and job-related tasks and is targeted to specific roles and individuals. It consists of cards that form a feed to showcase existing Teams apps, third-party apps, custom solutions, internal and external links.

The dashboard cards can be built out quickly and easily with no code, meaning any admin in your organisation can set up the homepage in no time at all. Developers can create custom cards to meet an organisations’ specific needs if it is required, as well. You can also target specific audiences for specific cards so they see relevant content for their role.

Below is a look at some of the ways to utilise Connections to engage employees:

• Assign people tasks
  • If tasks are assigned to users, they can be showcased in Connections, to help keep on top of work, check off what has been done or not done, and ensure they prioritise correctly.
• Web links
  • Do you work with external clients and in external tenants? Perhaps you use certain partner websites for vital work? Include these in the dashboard so users can find and access them with ease.
• Shifts
  • For organisations that have front line workers that work in a shift pattern, being able to see their shift calendar as soon as they open Teams in the morning saves time and lets them know where to be and when without having to search/
• Conversations
  • Link Connections to conversations in Yammer so everyone can participate in ongoing discussions – whether work related or personal.
• News
  • Often there will be the need to share important company news. Instead of sending out an email that may go unread, pin it to the Connections dashboard so employees can see it when they open the app.
• Videos
  • Does your company create videos for learning, updates, news and more? Include new or important ones on the dashboard so no one misses anything key.
• Third party apps
  • Integrate third party apps like Workday and Skillsoft if you use these and need to ensure employees can access them quickly without having to bookmark a page or open a new app.
• Customised cards
  • Design your own cards for any bespoke apps or systems you use so that it is accessible for all relevant users.

By building out the Connections dashboard with important, role specific information, you will save your employees time and effort as everything is at their fingertips. Connections has a global navigation so you can easily move around the site without opening numerous tabs or losing anything important.

This simple change makes a huge difference and means everyone stays up to date whilst also being able to prioritise other, more role-specific tasks.

 

Want to engage employees and colleagues in this new hybrid world? If you are looking to implement Viva Connections, or any of the Viva Employee Experience components (and Viva Insights), Changing Social can help you! We offer free consultations to help set you up for success and to make sure your organisational rollout is smooth. Email us for more information at [email protected] or fill out the form below.