Remote Work Productivity
The advent of flexible work arrangements has revolutionised the workplace, leaving many organisations to rethink their strategies for empowering and engaging employees. At Microsoft, we’ve embraced this shift wholeheartedly, leveraging our own suite of productivity tools – including Microsoft Viva – to foster an inclusive, thriving culture where our people can achieve their full potential, whether they’re working from home, the office, or anywhere in between.
Microsoft Viva
Microsoft Viva is a digital employee experience platform that brings together essential capabilities such as communications, knowledge, learning, and workplace insights in the flow of work. Powered by Microsoft 365, Viva enables our employees to hone their skills, acquire new ones, and access the resources they need to be their best, all while respecting individual privacy and data regulations.
Viva Connections
One of the key components of Viva is Viva Connections, which serves as the gateway for our employees to connect with Microsoft’s culture and stay engaged and informed. Viva Connections provides a branded app experience within Microsoft Teams, both mobile and desktop, to give our people a personalised and curated destination for discovering the relevant news, conversations, and tools they need to succeed.
By combining information from Microsoft 365 apps like SharePoint, Yammer, Microsoft Stream, and Teams, Viva Connections creates the opportunity to present specific content and resources tailored to each employee’s needs. We’re using the Viva Connections Dashboard to provide a curated experience using Adaptive Card Extensions, which give our people quick access to their most critical content and tools.
Viva Insights
Another crucial component of Viva is Viva Insights, which is designed to guide individuals and teams towards better work habits and norms to improve wellbeing and productivity. Viva Insights respects employee privacy while leveraging Microsoft 365 data to measure the day-to-day actions that contribute to our culture and success, such as how employees use their time, their collaboration habits, and how they operate across team, business, and geographic boundaries.
At Microsoft, we use Viva Insights to promote a more productive workplace culture across all levels of the company. The Personal insights feature provides our employees with personalised recommendations to help them prioritise wellbeing, like scheduling time for focused work, taking regular breaks, and practicing mindfulness. The Teamwork habits feature uses team-level insights to help managers maintain regular 1:1 interactions, keep up with outstanding tasks, and recognise team strengths and accomplishments. And the Organisation trends feature provides insights that help our managers and business leaders track leading indicators of employee wellbeing and engagement, allowing us to make data-driven decisions that improve the overall employee experience.
Hybrid Work
The shift to hybrid work has presented both challenges and opportunities for organisations like ours. As we navigate this new landscape, we’re focused on leveraging the right collaboration tools, enhancing the employee experience, and harnessing the power of workplace analytics to drive productivity and engagement.
Collaboration Tools
At the heart of our hybrid work strategy is Microsoft Teams, which has become the central hub for our employees to communicate, collaborate, and access the resources they need. Teams integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft 365 apps, like SharePoint and the Power Platform, to provide a seamless, user-friendly experience that empowers our people to work more efficiently and effectively, regardless of their location.
Employee Experience
But technology is just one piece of the puzzle. We’ve also placed a strong emphasis on enhancing the employee experience (EX) to ensure our people feel connected, supported, and empowered in this new hybrid world. This involves everything from reinforcing our company’s purpose, mission, and values to co-creating our hybrid work strategy with employee input and leveraging real-time data to continuously improve the EX.
Workplace Analytics
Underpinning our hybrid work strategy is the use of workplace analytics through Viva Insights. By gaining a deeper understanding of how work gets done, we can identify areas for improvement, champion beneficial organisational practices, and address complex challenges our business is facing. For example, our leaders use the Organisation trends feature to track key indicators of employee wellbeing and engagement, allowing them to make informed decisions that support our people and drive positive business outcomes.
Microsoft 365
As a Microsoft-centric organisation, we’ve fully embraced the power of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem to support our hybrid work initiatives. In addition to Teams and SharePoint, we’re also leveraging other M365 tools like Microsoft Power Platform to empower our employees to automate processes, build custom solutions, and become more self-sufficient in their day-to-day work.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is the backbone of our hybrid work strategy, serving as the central hub for communication, collaboration, and access to essential resources. By integrating Teams with other M365 apps, we’ve created a seamless, user-friendly experience that enables our people to work more efficiently and effectively, whether they’re in the office, at home, or on the go.
Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft SharePoint plays a crucial role in our hybrid work model, providing a centralised platform for storing, sharing, and managing content. Through Viva Connections, we’re able to surface relevant SharePoint content directly within the flow of our employees’ work, ensuring they have easy access to the information and resources they need.
Microsoft Power Platform
The Microsoft Power Platform, which includes Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI, has become an invaluable tool in our hybrid work arsenal. Our people use these low-code/no-code tools to build custom solutions, automate repetitive tasks, and gain deeper insights into their work, empowering them to be more productive and self-sufficient.
IT Security Considerations
As we embrace the benefits of hybrid work and leverage the power of Microsoft 365, we’re also keenly aware of the importance of maintaining robust IT security measures to protect our data and our people. This includes a strong focus on data privacy, cybersecurity, and remote access management.
Data Privacy
One of our top priorities is ensuring that our employees’ personal data is kept secure and private. We’ve worked closely with our workers’ councils in Europe to ensure that Viva Insights, and any other Microsoft technologies we deploy, adhere to local data privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This includes using advanced privacy-preserving techniques, like differential privacy, to protect individual activity and metrics from being visible to managers or organisational leaders.
Cybersecurity Measures
In addition to data privacy, we’ve also implemented a range of cybersecurity measures to safeguard our organisation against the evolving threat landscape. This includes deploying robust endpoint protection, implementing multi-factor authentication, and regularly training our employees on best practices for identifying and mitigating cyber threats.
Remote Access Management
As our people work from a variety of locations, we’ve also placed a strong emphasis on remote access management, ensuring that our employees can securely access the resources they need while adhering to our security protocols. This includes the use of virtual private networks (VPNs), secure remote desktop solutions, and other tools that enable our people to work safely and productively from anywhere.
By taking a comprehensive approach to IT security, we’re able to empower our hybrid workforce while maintaining the highest levels of data protection and cybersecurity. This, in turn, helps to build trust, foster collaboration, and drive innovation across our organisation.
So, there you have it – a glimpse into how Microsoft is leveraging Microsoft Viva, Microsoft 365, and a range of IT security measures to enhance remote work productivity and drive hybrid success. As we continue to evolve our approach, we’re excited to share our lessons learned and best practices with the broader IT community. If you’re looking to enhance your own remote work initiatives, I encourage you to explore the capabilities of Microsoft Viva and the wider Microsoft 365 ecosystem. And remember, if you need any support or have questions, the team at IT Fix is always here to help.
