Today we are announcing expanded Viva Insights capabilities to help managers and team leads navigate hybrid work and to help everyone in an organization run more effective meetings. We are also spotlighting additional personal experiences in Viva Insights that are coming soon.
New Insights and Experiences for Managers of any Team Size
Managers and virtual team leads are on the frontlines of helping their teams remain engaged while ensuring business priorities move forward in this complex landscape of hybrid work. Expanded insights across surfaces for managers and leads with teams of any size will soon be generally available with the Microsoft Viva Insights license. These new insights will be available to any people manager with one or more direct reports as well as virtual team leads.
An updated “My team” tab in the Viva Insights app in Microsoft Teams will show actionable recommendations to empower managers and team leads to:
Intelligent nudges and reflective insights will also be available across other surfaces in the flow of work- in Outlook, through manager-specific cards in the daily briefing email and the monthly digest email, and on the web with the Viva Insights team homepage.
These new manager and team lead insights are based on information managers and team leads already have access to in Outlook and Teams. Viva Insights applies intelligence to this information to make it easier for managers to reflect on their work patterns and take action to improve team productivity and wellbeing.
These new insights complement the initial set of manager insights we first announced in February 2021, specific to group managers overseeing teams of nine or more people. Group managers with nine or more direct reports will continue to see those previously announced insights in addition to the new capabilities we’re announcing today.
New features that foster improved meeting habits
Hybrid work heightens the importance of meetings, with fewer opportunities for hallway chats and other informal collaboration moments.
Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index, published in March 2021, found weekly meeting time for Microsoft Teams users had more than doubled year-over-year since the onset of the global pandemic. We know back-to-back meetings make it harder to stay engaged and focused.
A new effective meetings experience will roll out in the coming months in the Microsoft Viva Insights app in Teams. Meeting organizers will be able to view personalized insights and suggestions to help improve their meeting habits, as well as feedback to help improve their meetings. Licensed Viva Insights users will also be able to create and share meeting plans to help foster shared team meeting norms, such as shortening default meeting times to allow for breathers and always including Teams links.
Users can also reflect on the categories of their meetings and make informed decisions around their meeting habits, aligned to business and personal priorities. For example, a leader can reflect on how much time they are spending across customer meetings, business reviews or coaching team members.
Like all personal insights in Viva, this meeting effectiveness data will be private and accessible only to each individual user.
Guided meditations from Headspace in additional languages
In June, Viva Insights offered users a curated set of guided meditations and mindfulness exercises from Headspace in the Viva Insights app to help people start the day grounded, relax their minds before a big presentation, or disconnect from work in the evening. These have been available in English so far and will be available in four additional languages - French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish - later this month.
Quiet Time: build better boundaries between work and personal time
To help create better boundaries between personal life and work life, Viva Insights will be rolling out quiet time settings early next year. With this feature, users can configure quiet time to silence mobile notifications from Outlook and Teams outside of working hours as well as provide personalized insights on how consistently users are disconnecting. Users can modify quiet time settings any time and will be able to set quiet time directly from Teams and Outlook mobile. Along with setting up quiet time, users can use the virtual commute experience available in the Viva Insights Teams app to be intentional about unplugging after-hours.
Focus time experiences during the workday
Viva Insights will be rolling out a new focus mode experience starting in December 2021. Focus mode expands on the focus time feature in Viva Insights, enabling Microsoft 365 users to work uninterrupted with Teams notifications silenced. Focus mode will enrich the focus time experience by helping users make progress on important work, with focus music from Headspace. This immersive experience includes a notification and a new focus mode page in the Viva Insights Teams app. Users will be able to enroll or modify their focus plan settings, or book ad-hoc focus time in the Viva Insights Teams app.
Viva Insights homepage
For current users of MyAnalytics, a new Viva Insights homepage is now discoverable via the Microsoft 365 app launcher on Office.com, in place of MyAnalytics. This surfaces key data-driven, privacy-protected insights and gives individuals access to personalized, role-based recommendations at a glance.
The Viva Insights homepage also offers group manager and team lead insights via the Viva Insights team homepage rolling out in November 2021. Users will require a Viva Insights license to view the Viva Insights team homepage.
Viva Insights extensibility and integration opportunities with 3rd party data
Viva Insights is part of the open and extensible Microsoft Viva platform. Viva is easily customizable, accessible from anywhere you work, and integrates with tools you already use, to fit your unique needs. Viva Insights leverages the same extensibility to capture holistic insights from both Microsoft and 3rd party data sources.
Viva Insights uses data and signals from Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and other Microsoft 365 apps and services, and can also access data from an existing ecosystem of partner integrations such as Glint and Qualtrics. In this way, leaders can see how collaboration patterns influence the outcomes they care about, and organizations can realize exponential value from their existing technology investments, all while improving employee wellbeing and productivity.
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