Want Better Employee Engagement? Try Microsoft Viva

Did you know nearly 60 percent of workers feel less connected to their team since moving to remote working systems? What is worrying is that more than 30 percent of workers say the pandemic has increased their sense of burnout.

Now, map this data to the Construction Management Software  industry – an industry that has always relied on deploying employees to perform remote work.

We know employee turnover is problematic for the construction industry, which is why engagement is even more crucial for businesses that rely on skilled and craft workers. In fact, 94 percent of employees say that they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their learning and development.

The solution is on hand: A new digital platform to improve engagement in the construction industry.

Microsoft recently introduced Microsoft Viva, the first Enhanced Employee Engagement system designed to transform your digital workplace. As a Microsoft Gold Consulting Partner, we at CEM Business Solutions will now be providing services that bring Viva to our customers.

What this provides to your employees:

• Unique, personalized feed for employees to explore company and industry news and contribute to the conversation from virtually anywhere.
• Actionable insights to help achieve balance, build better work habits, and find focus wherever and whenever your employees need it.
• Learning tab based on personalized content to connect employees to information and expertise based on their interests and position.
• Topics page pages built automatically by AI and augmented by experts to share and refine knowledge about the topic.

Microsoft Viva includes four modules to start with: Viva Connections, Viva Insights, Viva Learning and Viva Topics. There’s more on the way.

Let’s go through each module and see how Viva can help the Construction Management Software  industry.

Viva Connections: Viva Connections brings employees a home page that is curated and company-focused to bring relevant news and conversations directly to your employees. Bring employees’ attention to specific news, policies, town halls and more by boosting their feeds with items that are always on top until read.

How Construction Management Software companies can take advantage of this: Within the Construction Management Software industry, most contractors and subcontractors rarely interact with HR and payroll unless there is an issue. With Viva Connections, get ahead of policy changes or add those reminders to clock in on your time capture app from the first page that contractors see.

Viva Insights: Viva Insights boosts productivity by providing individuals, managers and leaders with personalized and actionable insights that help everyone to thrive. Whether it’s providing an accountable venue to carve out time to complete daily tasks, disconnect or receive additional coaching and learning, Virtual Insights focuses on the productivity and wellbeing factor.

How Construction Management Software companies can take advantage of this: Completing a daily log can often be overlooked for project managers. But, with Viva Insights, managers can set up daily reminders to complete these before they sign off for the day. In addition, employees can add another safety level by scheduling a disconnect or professional leaning before completing strenuous tasks on site. Viva Insights also brings analytics to managers, so they can see which parts of the day are most productive and which tasks lead to burnout and stress – so they can better plan the project.

Viva Learning: Viva Learning is your central hub for professional development and learning. Employees discover, share, assign and learn from content libraries available across the organization. In addition, employees can share content and learning techniques that have best worked for them. Empower organizations to participate and collaborate in training by easily searching for and sharing training in chats.

GOOD TO KNOW: Employees who have opportunities to learn and grow are 3.6 times more likely to report being happy compared with those who do not have such opportunities. Highly engaged organizations report 5 times higher market capitalization per employee, 21 percent greater profitability, and 51 percent less employee turnover.

How Construction Management Software companies can take advantage of this: Instead of (re)investing in new employees, provide your current employees with the digital skills and development they need to thrive in hard-to-fill positions. As an additional safety layer, make it mandatory for employees to complete learning prior to engaging in new (or rare) tasks that may not be second nature.

Viva Topics: Bring the knowledge to all individuals in an organization with automatic connection in an app they use daily. Viva Topics automatically organizes company-wide content and expertise into relevant categories like ‘projects’, ‘products’, ‘processes’, and ‘customers’. Viva Topics easily integrates with the systems and tools in place within a company.

How Construction Management Software companies can take advantage of this: When turnover is high or subcontractors are coming right onto a job, you want to make it easy for them to follow along with a project. With Viva Topics, employees can easily access a card and gain access to all of its project documents, videos, and related people. The best part? It instantly connects all stakeholders to even information that is harder to grasp, since it can easily integrate into your ERP system.

About CEM Business Solutions: Based in Montvale, NJ, CEM Business Solutions is a Microsoft Gold Partner with nearly 20 years of experience offering integrated, high performance solutions to enhance business objectives. Since 2003, our dedicated consulting team has rolled out more than 350 implementations across 20 countries and 3 continents.