Internal communication is the lifeblood of any organisation, enabling effective collaboration, innovation, and growth. However, internal communicators face a range of challenges in today’s complex business environment. In this blog, we will discuss these challenges and also look at how Microsoft Viva can help address them.
If you’re new to Microsoft Viva, here’s a quick overview:
Viva is an employee experience platform that brings together tools for communication, collaboration, learning, and insights into a single integrated experience within Teams, Microsoft’s collaboration platform.
Viva consists of a number of core components, each designed to address specific needs for employees and organisations:
- Viva Connections: This component provides a central hub for company news, announcements, and other resources, giving employees a personalised, unified view of the information they need to stay informed and engaged.
- Viva Engage: This component may be familiar to you as Yammer, which has been integrated into the Viva ecosystem to provide consumer-grade enterprise social capabilities, to help organisations build community, personal networks and deep engagement.
- Viva Insights: This component helps organisations understand employee well-being, productivity, and engagement through real-time data and analytics. Insights can provide insights on how employees are working, where they might be struggling, and what organisations can do to improve.
- Viva Learning: This component provides a platform for training and development, making it easy for employees to learn new skills and keep up with the latest trends in their field. Learning also helps organisations track employee progress and measure the effectiveness of their training programs.
- Viva Topics: This component uses a combination of AI and human curation to surface relevant content and expertise across the organisation, making it easier for employees to find the information they need to do their jobs effectively.
By bringing together these components into a single, integrated experience, Viva helps organisations create a more connected, engaged, and productive workforce.
Ok, let’s now take a look at some of the key challenges faced by internal communicators.
Challenge 1: Information Overload
One of the most significant challenges facing internal communicators is information overload. With so much information available, often across multiple channels, employees can quickly become overwhelmed and struggle to find the information they need. This can lead to missed deadlines, mistakes, and a decrease in productivity.
Solution: Viva Connections and Viva Topics
Viva Connections provides a central hub for employee communications, aggregating content from other sources, such as SharePoint, Viva Engage and more, reducing the need to constantly monitor multiple channels. Additionally, internal communicators can easily configure Connections to push targeted messages to employees based on their roles and departments, ensuring less ‘noise’ and more ‘signal’. Connections also provides personalised news feeds that highlight the most important information for each employee, reducing the need to search through multiple channels for information.
Viva Topics can help by providing a streamlined user experience to connect all information in a meaningful way, using AI technology to organise information into accessible knowledge within the apps and services employees use every day.
Challenge 2: Lack of Engagement
Employee engagement is critical to the success of any organisation, but it can be challenging to keep employees engaged in today’s fast-paced business environment. Without engagement, employees may become disinterested, disengaged, and less productive.
Solution: Viva Insights, Viva Topics and Viva Engage
Viva Insights provides real-time data on employee engagement, productivity, and sentiment. By analysing this data, internal communicators can identify potential barriers to engagement and take action to improve their communication strategies. Viva Insights can also help promote work-life balance by providing employees with insights into their own work habits, enabling them to make more informed decisions about how they spend their time. Insights can provide data on how often employees are collaborating in Teams or sharing files with their colleagues. This can help employees identify opportunities for collaboration and build stronger relationships with their colleagues.
Viva Topics can also help with employee engagement. For example, by providing new hires with access to relevant information and expertise, Viva Topics can help them get up to speed more quickly, reducing the risk of disengagement and turnover. Also, by making it easier for employees to find and connect with colleagues who have relevant expertise. Viva Topics can help employees build stronger relationships with their colleagues and work more effectively as a team.
Viva Engage fosters engagement by providing a familiar, social interaction platform (ie similar to consumer social platforms) for employees to connect with colleagues and leaders, to express themselves and build social capital, and to find belonging.
Challenge 3: Inconsistent Messaging
Inconsistent messaging can be a significant problem for internal communicators, leading to confusion and wasted time and resources.
Solution: Viva Connections and Viva Learning
Viva Connections provides a central platform for employee communications, making it easier for internal communicators to ensure that messaging is consistent across departments and teams. With Connections, internal communicators can create and manage a range of communication channels, such as news feeds, team sites, and chat groups, ensuring that employees receive consistent messaging regardless of their location or role. In addition, the soon-to-be-released Viva Amplify will enable ICs to create campaigns, combining multiple communications and channels with a unified, consistent message.
Viva Learning can also be used to provide training on effective communication techniques, helping to ensure that all employees are communicating effectively.
Challenge 4: Remote/Hybrid Work
The COVID-19 pandemic made remote work a necessity for many organisations and this has moved into a global trend towards hybrid working. While remote work can offer many benefits, it can also present challenges for internal communicators. Without face-to-face interactions, it can be more challenging to keep remote employees engaged and informed.
Solution: Viva Connections, Viva Engage and Viva Insights
Viva Connections can help remote employees stay connected and informed by providing a centralised platform for employee communications and collaboration. With Connections, remote employees can easily access news feeds, team sites, and chat groups, ensuring that they remain connected to their colleagues and the wider organisation.
Viva Engage helps employees stay connected, share their work and perspective and participate in communities of interest. Engage also helps leaders shape culture and align workforce in a hybrid context by unlocking communication and engagement opportunities for everyone.
Viva Insights can also provide data on remote employees’ engagement and well-being, helping internal communicators to tailor their messaging and strategies to the needs of remote workers.
Internal communicators face a range of challenges in today’s complex business environment. However, with the help of Microsoft Viva, these challenges can be addressed effectively. By using Viva Connections, Engage, Insights, Topics, and Learning, internal communicators can improve communication strategies, increase employee engagement, and measure the effectiveness of their efforts. With Viva’s centralised platform and real-time data, internal communicators can ensure that employees receive consistent messaging, stay informed and connected, and remain engaged regardless of their location or role. As such, implementing Microsoft Viva can be a game-changer for internal communicators, enabling them to drive business success through effective communication strategies.
