Microsoft Viva gets Teams integration and new perks
Employee wellbeing and workflow tools, together at last.
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What you need to know
In case you’ve forgotten that Microsoft cares about your wellbeing — at least, up to the extent that your employers care about it — take a moment to remember Microsoft Viva, the company’s “employee experience platform.” It now will be integrated directly into Microsoft Teams, meaning you’ll get all the health-minded perks of Viva amidst the onslaught of work being slung at you from colleagues on Teams.
What are those health-minded perks, you ask? Well, they include items such as Microsoft Learning, which [Microsoft says](/e?link=https%3A%2F%2Fclick.linksynergy.com%2Fdeeplink%3Fid%3DkXQk6%252AivFEQ%26mid%3D24542%26u1%3DUUwpUdUnU85796%26murl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.microsoft.com%252Fen-us%252Fmicrosoft-viva&token=ZesLBFi5 “empowers people to better themselves with employee training—naturally and without disruption” that’s designed to “encourage a culture of growth that helps people reach their potential.”
And in terms of brand-new Viva features, you can look forward to mindfulness exercises and guided meditations in Teams' Viva Insights app. Better yet, later this year, Viva Insights' upcoming focus mode will silence Teams notifications so you can plow through work without coworkers pestering you. And that’s not all the focus mode will do. According to Microsoft, it will “feature Focus music from Headspace and implement timers to help you make progress on important tasks in regular intervals with breaks planned in between.”
This is a big deal, as Microsoftrecently discovered that workers need breaksto function properly. It’s good to see the company acting on its findings in meaningful ways.
Viva will also get “quiet time” functionality so that you can cut notifications off entirely. For the full list of goodies coming to Viva, check outMicrosoft’s blog post.
If you want other insights as to what Microsoft is up to, check out its newWhiteboard experienceandfluid components. And don’t forget about the upcomingWindows 11.
Microsoft Teams makes collaborating with colleagues easy. It also makes monitoring wellbeing a cinch thanks to its new Viva integration, which will help employees take care of themselves while on the job.
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Robert Carnevale is the News Editor for Windows Central. He’s a big fan of Kinect (it lives on in his heart), Sonic the Hedgehog, and the legendary intersection of those two titans, Sonic Free Riders. He is the author ofCold War 2395. Have a useful tip? Send it to robert.carnevale@futurenet.com.
