This article was originally written by Avanade alum Tracey Seward.

This blog post is the second in a two-part series, which captures the opportunity presented by Microsoft Viva. Head here to go back to part one, which explains why the unveiling of Viva is so important right now.

Microsoft Viva has arrived – into a world that might have seemed unimaginable until recently. And into an era that has never needed it so badly.

Because employee experience (EX) matters more than ever. Satya Nadella’s “two years of digital transformation in two months” proclamation has quickly become legend. With large swaths of the workforce shifting from the “visible physical” to “invisible virtual,” EX is pivotal to the immediate and enduring future of organizations of all sizes, across all industries.

Microsoft Viva addresses a challenge that our clients have faced for some time now, by providing an integrated employee experience platform designed to empower individuals and teams. Viva brings together communications, insights, learning and knowledge into the flow of work.

In this blog post, we explore the core components of Microsoft Viva and outline the value you can expect to unlock from this bold, progressive canvas of EX potential.

The Viva platform features four key modules: Topics, Insights, Learning and Connections. At its core, Viva empowers organizations to build an integrated and holistic employee experience – the same fundamental traits that run throughout our own Workplace Experience framework.

Here’s an overview of the opportunities each module makes possible.

Viva Topics

Topics helps organizations to surface knowledge and expertise more efficiently and easily. As a preferred partner, we’re already hands-on with Microsoft SharePoint Syntex and we’re helping clients to understand its full potential. Topics employs AI to identify assets, knowledge and experts and organize them in shared subject areas. Through Topics, organizations can efficiently and intelligently empower individuals and teams with the knowledge they need to work smarter – all within the flow of work in Microsoft 365 and Teams.

Viva Insights

Insights brings together Microsoft’s workplace analytics suite – featuring Workplace Analytics, MyAnalytics and Glint. We’re excited about the opportunity to partner this with Accenture and Avanade’s broader data and analytics solutions. Insights will help our clients gain visibility into how work gets done, to protect productivity and ultimately leave employees net better off – by building trust, collaboration and ensuring well-being. And this is something we’re already doing – which you can learn more about below.

Viva Learning

Learning represents an area of massive potential through Viva. In an era of rapid digital transformation, and new ways of working, reskilling is a critical priority of most companies. Viva transforms the informal and formal learning process – transporting it from siloed platforms and integrating it into the flow of work. By aggregating content from Microsoft’s learning partners and an organization’s own learning and development content, employees can more easily gain access to the tools they need to capitalize on their full potential.

Viva Connections

Finally, Connections centralizes the employee experience in a company-branded employee hub within Teams. This provides a tailored experience that can be built according to specific business units or types of employee. Connections gives employees access to the core tools and functions they require, simplifies the process of maintaining communication with a dispersed employee base, and empowers leaders to evolve organizational culture in a more seamless, consistent and scalable way.

We’re working with organizations all over the world to help them harness the power of Teams as an employee hub – including models and accelerators for frontline-work specific scenarios across different industries. And we’re embracing other workforce management capabilities – everything from nudges, skilling and bots through to integrations with platforms like Workday.

How are we capitalizing on the Viva opportunity?

We’re a preferred partner for the launch of Viva. And this is more than a badge for us – it’s a declaration that we are ideally placed to help our clients realize their EX vision to deliver more value at speed. And that we’re at the forefront of unlocking workplace value and innovation through the Microsoft platform.

Exclusive early access to the Microsoft Viva platform makes this possible, but this is just the kernel of possibility. It’s what we do with it – how we impact the way work gets done, how we change working lives for individuals and for teams – that really matters to us.

This conviction is a key reason clients choose to work with us, and why prominent analysts have confirmed our position as the leaders in the workplace market. And it’s why Microsoft trusts us to pilot its products and platforms.

We’ve embraced the core modules of Viva to rethink how we work at Accenture and Avanade. We’re already using Insights to inform and evolve our own flexible working program, helping us to understand how we’re impacting productivity, ensuring a better quality of life and enabling employees to bring their best selves to work.

And we’re excited to be working with our clients to harness the potential of Insights to drive data-driven and insight-anchored journeys towards the new Workplace Experience. In fact, we’re already working with a number of multinational organizations to harness the powerful potential of Insights and address questions such as:

• How do I ensure that my people become net better off as a result of working here?
• How do I create and enable a culture that unlocks the potential of our employees?
• What must I unlearn in order to adopt new roles and skills?
• How do the decisions we make about our workforce and workplace benefit the broader community?

Seize the potential of Viva

• In the next 30 days – establish an employee experience baseline view and roadmap.
• In the next 60 days – use insights and additional analytics to measure sentiment and productivity, informing the management of employee well-being through virtual leadership.
• In the next 90 days – extend this process to provide a consistent employee experience regardless of work location.

Learn more about harnessing the potential of Viva and maximizing your EX and Workplace Experience – talk to our team today.