Microsoft has announced the public preview of a new feature for its business-oriented service, Viva, called Viva Pulse. Launched during the pandemic, Microsoft Viva is designed to facilitate companies in gathering information and feedback from their employees online. Viva Pulse aims to further enhance this process as a new addition.
Tool for Rapid Feedback and Action
Viva Pulse empowers managers and project leads to swiftly gather feedback and take action using team and project-based surveys. These surveys are available in the flow of work with both a Microsoft Teams and web app experiences. As stated in Microsoft's blog post, “With Viva Pulse, managers and project leads can request ad-hoc feedback on topics to better understand their team's needs and address them in the moment.”
The service offers pre-populated, research-validated survey templates that focus on important topics such as change management or work situations. Managers and leads also have the flexibility to customize these templates to meet their unique team needs.
Timely Analysis and Confidentiality
Viva Pulse provides a snapshot of team sentiment, enabling managers and project leads to get quick feedback and adjust actions if needed. The service employs automatic sentiment analysis, saving time and helping focus on areas of opportunity for the team. To ensure employee confidentiality, managers and project leads receive an aggregated view of survey results.
Actionable Recommendations
Once the surveys are sent to the company's employees, project managers can then see the results in an anonymous, aggregated form. Viva Pulse will then use those results to show managers some links to suggested resources and possible ideas of what they could do next with this information. Microsoft added, “These actionable recommendations enable managers and project leads to make sure employees' perspectives are being heard.”
Microsoft encourages users to try Viva Pulse starting today and hear what their teams have to say. Feedback during the Viva Pulse public preview will provide invaluable insights to shape and inform Microsoft's employee engagement innovations. Viva Pulse is expected to be generally available in July 2023.
Since the launch of Microsoft Viva in 2021, Microsoft has been steadily expanding its features. That includes adding Viva Engage which can serve as a private social network for a business. More recently, Microsoft announced that Viva would add generative AI features via Copilot, scheduled to be available later in 2023.
Microsoft Viva: A Comprehensive Solution for Hybrid Work
Microsoft Viva, a platform based in Microsoft 365, is designed to provide a suite of employee tools encompassing knowledge, learning, resources, communications, and insights. It is a response to the challenges of hybrid work, including a growing disconnect between employees and leaders. Microsoft has been expanding its Viva employee experience platform over the last couple of years, with the aim of increasing the connection between employees and organizations.
Viva Pulse and Viva Amplify
Microsoft already presented Viva Pulse and Viva Amplify back in September 2022. As mentioned earlier, Viva Pulse provides managers and team leaders with a solution for getting confidential feedback from their teams. It plugs directly into Microsoft Teams and provides templates, analytics, and research questions leaders can put to employees. On the employee side, Viva Pulse provides an efficient way for teams to give their opinion. Managers can use feedback to make changes to workflows and productivity focus.
Viva Amplify, on the other hand, aims to streamline communication between teams and leaders. It provides a central hub for communication while also providing structure for energizing connections. Amplify provides writing guidance to employees, HR, corporate communications, and more. When ready, users can publish the communication to multiple channels.
Other Viva Components
Other components of Viva include Answers in Viva, People in Viva, Viva Engage, Viva Goals, and Viva Sales. Answers in Viva matches employee questions to the correct experts and answers within their organization. People in Viva puts a focus on the people who are essential to the employee experience. It helps users engage with their colleagues by providing discovery for experts and connections.
Viva Engage is essentially a social media platform for workplaces. It allows users to post content and create communities. Viva Goals provides a management suite for the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) framework. Viva Sales serves sellers by providing a hub for them to connect customer relationship management (CRM) solutions in a single place.
