The Changing Workplace Landscape
The advent of flexible work has changed the way we think about the workplace here at Microsoft. Like other enterprises, we’re focusing on how we can coordinate, modernize, and optimize our approach to the fast-changing needs of our digitally connected, distributed workforce. One of the key ways we’re doing this is by leveraging Microsoft Viva Insights to assess and address the critical needs of the hybrid workplace, ultimately aiming to increase engagement, collaboration, and productivity for all our employees.
Prioritizing Employee Wellbeing
Employee expectations and priorities have shifted in the new hybrid workplace. Recent data from Microsoft’s Work Trend Index reports that 48% of employees feel burned out at work, while 53% prioritize health and wellbeing over work more than they did 3 years ago. A positive work culture, personal wellbeing, and mental health are now among the top aspects that employees view as “very important” for an employer to provide.
At Microsoft, we’re evolving the employee experience to meet these changing needs. We’re using Microsoft Viva Insights and Glint as a way to assess and address the critical needs of the hybrid workplace, with the goal of increasing engagement, collaboration, and productivity for all our employees, as well as our managers and leaders.
Personalized Insights for Improved Wellbeing
One of the key features of Microsoft Viva Insights is the Personal insights functionality, which helps our employees individually prioritize wellbeing and improve personal productivity in the flow of work. The statistics and insights generated from this data are for each employee’s eyes only, providing them with tailored recommendations and opportunities throughout their day that they can choose to act on.
For example, Viva Insights can suggest that an employee schedule a recurring “focus time” block to minimize distractions and boost productivity. It can also prompt them to take regular breaks, or suggest sending emails during working hours to better respect their colleagues’ work-life boundaries. These personalized insights empower our employees to work smarter, build better habits, and achieve a healthier work-life balance.
Protecting Employee Privacy
At Microsoft, we take employee privacy extremely seriously. We want every employee to know that their personal reflections, dashboards, and insights about their own work habits are always available only to them. The data and statistics generated by Viva Insights are de-identified, aggregated, and protected using differential privacy – sophisticated methods for data variation and randomization that ensure no individual activity or metric is visible to managers or organization leaders.
Viva Insights also adheres to local data privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe. We collaborate closely with our workers’ councils in the EU to ensure the appropriate review and implementation of workplace technologies like Viva Insights, further protecting the privacy of our employees.
Enhancing Organizational Productivity
While the Personal insights in Viva Insights empower our employees, the broader organizational insights also enable our managers and leaders to make more informed decisions that promote employee wellbeing and business success. By leveraging Viva Insights, our leaders gain a deeper understanding of how work impacts their teams and individuals, allowing them to evaluate their leadership practices and identify opportunities for development.
One example of how we’ve used Viva Insights at Microsoft is to help an internal business group team establish clear work patterns and expectations. They set their calendar from 9am to 3pm, Pacific Time, allowing team members to have breakfast and dinner with their families without work communications creating interruptions. The team also dedicated Fridays as a “meeting-free day” so members could focus on outstanding tasks before the week’s end.
Driving Adoption and Change Management
Deploying a tool like Microsoft Viva Insights across a large, complex organization like Microsoft requires a thoughtful, collaborative approach to change management. We’ve learned valuable lessons in our own adoption journey that we believe will benefit other organizations looking to leverage Viva Insights.
First and foremost, we’ve found that it’s critical to establish clear agreement on the key aspects of the employee experience, aligning expectations, language, and focus for the implementation of Viva Insights. This involves close partnerships with internal stakeholders, particularly our HR teams, to ensure Viva Insights integrates seamlessly with our existing culture and initiatives.
We’ve also used a hybrid change management approach, combining centralized communications with locally driven adoption activities. This has helped simplify and unify overarching messaging while allowing our local teams to reinforce the content in ways that align with their specific work cultures and needs.
Importantly, our end-to-end collaboration with our workers’ councils in the EU has been critical in boosting the successful rollout of Viva Insights and other Microsoft products and services in those regions. By including employee representatives in the process, we’ve been able to accurately measure the pulse of our organization and address any privacy or labor-related concerns.
Fostering a Culture of Wellbeing and Productivity
At the heart of our Viva Insights implementation at Microsoft is a focus on wellbeing and productivity. We’ve seen the tool empower our teams to establish healthier work patterns and expectations, such as dedicated focus time, meeting-free days, and rhythms for recognizing and praising colleagues.
One of our internal HR power users shared how Viva Insights has directly increased their wellbeing: “Having the preparation details for an upcoming meeting delivered directly to me not only improves my productivity, but it makes me more confident.”
Ultimately, our adoption of Viva Insights has been about integrating the tool into the flow of work, rather than driving it as a standalone experience. By aligning Viva Insights with our existing HR programs and cultural initiatives, we’ve been able to support and affirm the behaviors that improve wellbeing and productivity across our organization.
Lessons Learned and the Road Ahead
As we continue our journey with Microsoft Viva Insights, we’re learning valuable lessons that we hope will benefit other organizations looking to enhance employee productivity and wellbeing:
- Prioritize Partnerships: Collaborate closely with key stakeholders like HR, IT, and employee representatives to align on the employee experience and cultural nuances.
- Adopt a Hybrid Approach: Combine centralized communication with locally driven adoption activities to simplify messaging while addressing unique needs.
- Protect Employee Privacy: Ensure robust data privacy measures and transparent partnerships with employee councils, especially in regulated markets.
- Integrate with Existing Initiatives: Align Viva Insights with your organization’s existing wellbeing and productivity programs for seamless adoption.
- Empower Employees: Leverage the personalized insights and recommendations in Viva Insights to help employees improve their own work-life balance and productivity.
We’re not done yet – Viva Insights is a catalyst for positive change at Microsoft, and we’ll continue working closely with the product team as “Customer Zero” to ensure that the opportunities to assess and improve wellbeing and productivity continue to grow for every Viva Insights customer.
If you’re looking to enhance employee productivity and wellbeing in your organization, I encourage you to explore the capabilities of Microsoft Viva Insights. It’s a powerful tool that can help your teams work smarter, build better habits, and achieve a healthier work-life balance. And remember, you can always reach out to the IT Fix team at https://itfix.org.uk/ if you need any further assistance or guidance.
