What is Viva Engage and has it killed the intranet?
A survey conducted by Microsoft in 2022 concluded that 43 percent of leaders found that remote working posed a challenge to building relationships. As a result, digital employee experience software has evolved to include the social aspect of work.
This blog will look at the features of Microsoft Viva Engage, the app developed to address these issues. It will also discuss the assumption that its launch has removed the need for a complete intranet solution.
What is Viva Engage?
The focus on employee engagement was the driving force behind Viva Engage. It’s the part of Microsoft’s Viva Employee Experience Platform (EXP) that is designed to connect people across the company through conversation and communities. Here’s your brief guide to its main features:
- An app located in Teams, with the look and feel of familiar social media platforms.
- Modern and engaging, allowing users to post stories with short videos or photos.
- Developed to replace the Yammer Communities app, it has all the same functionalities with extended features and optimisation for Teams.
- Aims to build communities, spark engagement with leadership, increase knowledge sharing, and build personal networks.
- Allows users to have different community groups, write and pin posts, publish stories, share content and scroll through a newsfeed.
- Can be used on mobile devices, making it highly accessible for frontline employees.
For more information, our e-book Demystifying Viva Engage will take you through all you need to know.
Has Viva Engage killed the Intranet?
This is the big question. Do the features provided by Viva Engage eliminate the need for a complete intranet solution? With access to this social communications tool, will your employees stop using the intranet?
There are a number of answers to this question, mainly based on company size and how the intranet is used. Put simply, while they share some features, Viva Engage and an intranet are different technologies designed to solve different problems. It is widely acknowledged that the traditional intranet is dead. This has made way for the birth of a new type of intranet providing a network for all the elements of your modern office. Your intranet is a platform for all of your digital workplace tools, processes, tasks, and file storage. Most importantly, it is also the home to the knowledge and truth of your business.
Viva Engage is a social tool for communication within your company, designed to create strong working relationships through sharing ideas, giving feedback and engaging with your colleagues on a personal level.
The intranet is based more on the need for features such as static data storage, therefore a social communication tool will not replace it.
Equally, the processes and procedures of a larger organisation may seem to have a clearer need for a modern intranet solution. However, even smaller businesses without these requirements should consider that an intranet and a social tool such as Viva Engage have different purposes which are more powerful in combination.
Before making your decision, it is important to make sure you do a channel audit and to review usage data. Whichever way you decide to go, prepare and run a pilot on a small number of users to make sure that it will set the right tone for your organisation’s employee experience.
Better Together: Viva Engage and Your Intranet
Viva Engage was not designed to replace your intranet. Instead, it can enhance it.
It provides a place for social interaction between those working in different locations and timezones, allowing employees to share details of their lives outside of work even when working remotely. This social tool strengthens personal connection, improves employee experience, and increases engagement. Employees have a place to feel heard and valued.
Alongside this, your intranet provides features unique to the culture of your company. It is an internal platform which creates a collaborative, easily accessible digital workplace, holding the truth of your business.
Conclusion
Simply put, Viva Engage is a tool to improve employee performance by increasing human interaction with colleagues and leadership. Your intranet provides the processes, reasons and culture behind these interactions and fulfils the need for employee engagement beyond a social network.
At Cocentric, we work with some of the world’s fastest-growing businesses to help them overcome their internal communication challenges and integrate digital systems through tailored strategies, cutting-edge technology and ongoing support.
We offer workplace collaboration and communication tools that maximise your digital employee experience. If you would like to find out more, get in touch with our team.
