Microsoft Viva Goals - Your Copilot enabled strategic goal setter

What would it look like if your organisation was all going in broadly the same direction?

Since 2022 atwe've been using Viva Goals to set our initial path at Lightrise.   We've even made sure our bonus objectives and internships are in here.   As a leader who places an emphasis on trust and results it's important to provide structure, so that as humans we can identify what joint success looks like. 

SMART objectives still seem to be a rare find in some places.  A SMART Goal is an objective/goal or Organisation Key Result (OKR), that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.  Abiding to these quality standards is key to success.  Like any solution, if you put garbage in there, you'll get garbage out.  Put great things in however, and everyone knows the flows of the organisation where it's going and what you need to to to get there.  Easier said than done, in a larger organisation where challenges with performance and culture may also need to be considered to successfully roll a tool like this out.

Unlike many HR solutions, Viva Goals sits separately to your HRIS system.  If you have Azure Active Directory (recently renamed Entra) then you can set Viva Goals up.

   

Viva Goals provides true visual management and analytics, and as a lean SMB we wanted to remodel what management looks like and enable our solutions to take over the heavy lifting, save time, bring transparency and culture that matches it.

We sleep well knowing that Viva Goals is the one prompting the check-ins, and using it's latest Copilot features to suggest improvements, stronger measures and keep in constant contact with us as individuals and leaders to ensure we're on course for success.

Whether you are 3 in size or 300000, Viva Goals brings true scalability and low cost entry points to make it really easy to demonstrate a return on it's value.  

Thankyou Viva Goals, we've come so far thanks to your enablement of our company.  

Thinking about checking it out?

You may want to review your company's readiness by asking your IT department for the reports from the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard:

  

Are you Viva Copilot ready?  

About the writer:

Gareth Jones is CEO and Founder of Lightrise Consulting (www.lightriseconsulting.com) a specialist Microsoft Partner providing business answers and solutions to improve ESG and people experiences.

Microsoft Viva - Copilot enabled Workplace Analytics and Feedback

What's Microsoft Viva?  I'm often asked.

Well it's a suite of apps and tools from Microsoft which enable companies to digitally support the improvement of the worker experience.  Employee Experience is critical to the success of all organisations, and the key is creating a culture, and experience that represents your company's values (with or without technology).

Here I'm just focusing on the Copilot enabled Workplace Analytics and Feedback piece.

Viva can enable your strategic decision making, by providing you with Copilot's AI enabled mechanisms for:

Surveys - Take the "Pulse" of your colleagues to get anonymous insights on what you are doing well as an organisation, and what you could improve on.

Insights - What does the wellbeing of your team look like?, are there any red flags around working too many hours outside of work, back to back meetings, and inefficient practices not aligned with your companies direction?  Insights provides 1-2-1 guidance on an individual level ensuring people have optional means for tracking their mental health, or taking mind strength training and mindfulness with Headspace.  Individual advice that you could debate is stronger that provided by many managers.  I've personally used it on my own journey as I've moved through my mental health challenges, and it works.  To work properly, it requires  more than just switching it on.  It requires building out your communications strategy and a creating a culture of acceptance.  For me, Insights was an additional Fitbit type tool to help me keep my mind and body in check.

Glint - A mature product acquisition from Microsoft.  Glint brings the latest in 360 people science, and holistic insights, which is super easy to use, and enables you to manage and improve engagement using Copilot-backed analytics.

...and more importantly.... get smart alerts on your organisation giving Copilot a clear strategic place at the top table.  

 

Thinking about checking it out?

You may want to review your company's readiness by asking your IT department for the reports from the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard:

  

Are you Viva Copilot ready?  

About the writer:

Gareth Jones is CEO and Founder of Lightrise Consulting (www.lightriseconsulting.com) a specialist Microsoft Partner providing business answers and solutions to improve ESG and people experiences.