How Your Business Can Bring Purpose with Microsoft Viva Goals

Microsoft Viva is a powerful communication and collaboration tool that can help you boost engagement among your employees. You can then leverage this sense of purpose to improve concentration, increase productivity and achieve your business goals. Let’s explore some of the features of Microsoft Viva and how you can use them to enhance productivity in your workplace.

What Is Microsoft Viva?

This digital workplace assistant helps you connect with your employees and get work done. It includes the following five features:

1. Viva Insights: helps you understand how you're doing at work and what you can do to improve
2. Viva Topics: facilitates a way to discover and learn information important to you and your work
3. Viva Connections: provides a way to connect with people and experts who can help you with your work
4. Viva Learning: helps you develop the skills you need to be successful at work
5. Viva Goals: as the newest addition, helps you set and track progress toward your objectives

What Is Microsoft Viva Goals?

To bring this new module to market, Microsoft partnered with Ally.io. This company is a leading player in the objectives and key results market. These are some of the top features it brings to the table:

• Set personal or work-related goals.
• Track your progress over time.
• Get insights and advice on how to achieve your goals.
• Share your goals with others for accountability and support.

These features can play an instrumental role in the performance management functions of an organization. These could include setting sales quotas or reviewing quarterly and annual performance for bonuses and promotions.

Why Is Microsoft Viva Goals Such a Crucial Addition?

Setting goals can better align your work with your company's mission and values. Clear goals help your workers stay motivated and engaged with work. Viva Goals also allows you to track progress and see how you're doing over time. This feedback can help you adjust your goals as needed and keep you on track towards achieving them.

This direct approach to goal-setting can drive a sense of purpose that employees might not otherwise experience. Considering that the entire purpose of Viva is to help you create an environment for employees to thrive, this addition is hardly surprising and a welcome change.

According to Microsoft, the use of goal-setting frameworks increases employee empowerment. This empowerment encourages employees to take calculated risks that could benefit the organization. It posits that 73% of workers using frameworks like these feel empowered to get creative and take explorative actions.

What Are Goal-Setting Best Practices To Boost Purpose?

Goals are an excellent way to get everyone pushing the company in the same direction. Setting goals with Microsoft Viva can also help you prioritize tasks based on importance and milestone deadlines. However, the quality of the goals also matters. Keep the following best practices in mind:

• Make sure your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. These factors combine to create SMART goals.
• Set goals at different levels, such as individual, team and company-wide. That way, everyone has a sense of ownership.
• Communicate your goals clearly and frequently. This ensures everyone is on the same page.
• Harvard Business Review recommends giving employees autonomy to achieve their goals in their own way. Self-direction is a powerful tool for boosting engagement and pride in one's work.
• Continue to check in on progress at regular intervals. Don't wait until the big goals are due to see whether everyone has done their part.
• Don't be afraid to adjust goals if they become unfeasible. Market changes, material shortages or the loss of a key worker can all necessitate adjustments.

If you'd like to find out more about bringing cloudficiency to your project, reach out to us.

How Does Goal-Setting Relate To Employee Well-Being?

Microsoft Viva has operated as the anti-burnout arm of Office 365 for some time. How does setting goals help employees achieve this? Microsoft found that workers who set and achieved goals reported higher satisfaction levels.

When employees take charge of setting goals and monitoring progress, they also experience less burnout. It removes the overwhelming sense of the unknown and the anxiety that comes with that.

It also provides employees with proof that their work matters and that they are, in fact, making progress. Finally, Viva Goals makes it easier for them to determine when falling behind, so they can adjust performance without management's intervention.

How Can Cloudficient Help You Boost a Sense of Purpose at Work?

Viva is one of many great cloud-based tools Microsoft has worked hard to bring to market. It is also one of many you can leverage to boost collaborative efforts and maintain a sense of purpose and direction. Has your business migrated to the cloud? If not, we can help. Contact Cloudficient for a quote.
With unmatched next generation migration technology, Cloudficient is revolutionizing the way businesses retire legacy systems and transform their organization into the cloud. Our business constantly remains focused on client needs and creating product offerings that match them. We provide affordable services that are scalable, fast and seamless.

If you would like to learn more about how to bring Cloudficiency to your migration project, visit our website, or contact us.