Microsoft Viva review - pros, cons, and alternatives

​Microsoft announced Viva as an employee experience platform in February earlier this year. It presently comprises four separate apps, all of which are housed under Microsoft Teams. Anyone who wishes to use Microsoft Viva for internal communication has to have a Teams license. They can then use Teams on the PC or the Teams mobile app to access the Viva features.

Teams is already a launchpad for Microsoft Office products like Word and PowerPoint, as well as shared files from OneDrive and SharePoint. Viva features include Viva Connections, Viva Insights, Viva Learning, and Viva Topics. Topics is currently available; Insights is in preview, and Insights is under private preview. Microsoft has made Viva Learning active in public preview as of April 26.

In this respect, Viva Connections is the most interesting of the four Viva programs. The other three, Viva Learning, Viva Topics, and Viva Insights, all have related contact points, but none of them is specifically focused on communications.

Advantages of Viva office 

​Microsoft is seeking to establish the concept of the Employee Experience Platform (EXP) with the launching of Microsoft Viva. Microsoft's version of the EXP is Viva. Viva isn't so much a single "product" as it is a combination of existing Microsoft 365 services, including integrations with other commonly-used third-party services, because it aims to provide a holistic experience for its consumers.

Anita Lettink, who provides insights about the future of work, said, "This was a long time coming – Microsoft Viva, an employee platform to bring tools for employees engagement, learning, wellbeing, and knowledge discovery, directly into the flow of people's work."

The benefits of Microsoft Viva's features are explained below:

Microsoft Viva Connections

​ According to Microsoft research, approximately 60% of respondents report feeling less connected to their coworkers after switching to a remote work environment. Viva Connections is a program that aims to alleviate this sense of separation. This module guarantees that employees have access to a digital workspace that is tailored to their needs and delivers useful information. This can be customized for an individual or an organization, and it ensures that relevant, up-to-date feeds are given to increase their sense of belonging.

Microsoft Viva Insights

​ Workload burnout is a particularly distressing issue that many people have encountered while working remotely. Colleagues have progressed from modest watercooler chats to interminable back-to-back sessions. Microsoft's goal with Insights is to assist you in understanding how your team spends their time and to provide opportunities to make real changes to the way your company operates in order to minimize meeting burnout.

Microsoft Viva Learning

​ According to Microsoft, 79 percent of CEOs around the world believe that a lack of critical skills in their teams is a barrier to future growth. Employees, on the other hand, devote only 1% of their workweek to personal training activities. While it is well acknowledged that learning is an important component of an individual's and organization's success, it is sometimes overlooked and undervalued. In many situations, this is through no fault of the individual, but down to the tremendous workload. This must change if your company is to become more successful. Viva learning allows you to incorporate new skills and knowledge into your daily routine.

Microsoft Viva Topics

​ Viva Topics enables your company to pool its collective knowledge and skills to address many of the difficulties that individuals have when working from home, particularly those faced by newcomers. Microsoft recognized that adjusting to this new environment could be particularly difficult, so they established Viva Topics to help people keep up with the latest facts. Furthermore, Microsoft learned through significant studies that employees spend around an hour per day searching for or recreating information.

Disadvantages of Microsoft Viva

​Microsoft Viva faces similar problems as other programs. Anita Lettink described it best, "HRTech vendor's efforts to own the employee experience usually made life more complex. There is no standard. Every vendor has their own ideas about what experience works best."

Microsoft's Viva is a significant launch, but it will continue to evolve with time. We expect the company to fine-tune its online learning solution as it determines where native functionality in the Viva Learning app is required and where it can rely on partners.

However, it's exciting to see assets from Microsoft's LinkedIn portfolio (reminder: Microsoft bought LinkedIn five years ago) play a bigger part in this update. Glint's integration is also critical in terms of Viva's employee experience capabilities, and we wouldn't be shocked if Glint's profile in the Viva story rises in the new updates.

Microsoft Productivity Score is a portion of the Microsoft portfolio that isn't yet part of the Viva story in Viva Insights. Productivity Score, which was made available in late 2020, combines information about how employees utilize collaborative tools for work with information about their technology experience, such as whether their devices are running the most recent versions of Microsoft 365 apps. Despite the fact that this is positioned as an IT tool rather than a business tool, there are some clear overlaps with the Viva Insights features, and Microsoft might combine the two.

Microsoft Viva alternatives

​Microsoft Teams has become even more complex with the introduction of Microsoft Viva integration. It can become even more expensive. Thus, you can find better alternatives that provide similar features, better user experience, integration, and cost-effectiveness.

AgilityPortal is one of the best intranet software for all of your communication and collaboration needs. There is no doubt that the workplaces are evolving. People are working from all around the world. Coworkers are becoming more dispersed. AgilityPortal provides a single platform for your teams to connect, communicate, and collaborate.

The employee experience platform from AgilityPortal is designed to bring together a variety of solutions for employee engagement, finding knowledge, and learning. Staff and customers have a centralized area to interact, communicate, and collaborate, thanks to a combined intranet and extranet. You can deliver and manage your Workplace Transformation to give your employees the freedom to work without geographical and time-related constraints.

AgilityPortal Learning lab 

​​Do you want to improve production, cut time spent on creating your product or service, or even improve employee skills? Then you must be considering employee training. An LMS tool helps build confidence in your workforce while creating a better working environment. AgilityPortal's built-in Learning Lab allows leaders to build courses to empower and build knowledge. I've always been a firm believer that eLearning is the future of corporate training. And so should you. Sometimes change brings us one step closer to realization.

AgilityPortal's Employee Experience Platform

​AgilityPortal's Employee Experience Platform is a virtual Headquarters for your employees. It's no secret that HR is in the midst of a rapid digital transformation and modernization process.  Employee engagement software is used by organizations to increase employee job satisfaction and retain talented workers. The goal is to help workers become absorbed in the mission and culture of their organization, and therefore, be more productive and effective. Most modern employee engagement software is administered by human resource (HR) departments and is sold on a subscription basis as software as a service. This type of software may also be known as workforce engagement software.

A list of key pillars: 

• Connection: The relationship between you and manager, team members, leadership, and your company's mission and values.
• Performance: Your clear understanding of what you need to do to be successful at your job.
• Appreciation: Knowing your work has value and being recognized and rewarded for your contributions.
• Growth: Learning opportunities, continuous feedback, and ongoing support for career development.

AgilityPortal's Ideation Hub

​AgilityPortal empowers your people to contribute to your business initiatives which are typically internal campaigns that seek to improve your organization's work environment, company culture or overall business strategy. And enterprises have now come to a realization that they are nothing without their employees.

This is why employee involvement plays such a big role in today's ultra-competitive business world. And rightfully so – an enterprise's failure or success mostly relies on their employees. Ideation hub allows big thinking, creating ideas or incremental thinking from the people in the organization . Team-wide or line manager challenges to solve problems or get involve with business challenges.  Live idea review, collaboration, voting and strategy alignment to implement ideas into solutions. We've seen one too many enterprises fail because the focal point was merely producing results,  our clients use the AgilityPortal ideation hub as an output for all employees.