Microsoft Viva Insights – Activity Tracker for the Workplace

Many of us are used to tracking ourselves from sleep habits to physical activity with fitness trackers. The data we get helps us make healthier lifestyle choices – or not. Many of us may have also noticed that our daily work habits do not always support our well-being at work. The days are filled with back-to-back Teams meetings, lunch breaks are non-existent or spent in front of the computer, and workdays last long into the evening. Sound familiar?

The Microsoft Viva product family is designed to enhance everyone’s workday experience. Out of the four modules, Viva Insights has been developed to support workplace well-being and better workday scheduling, especially in a hybrid work environment.

With the personal Viva Insights app, you can obtain information about your work habits, keep track of how you feel at work with various tools, and make adjustments to your workday. Find out if these tools could help you build a better workday!

1. With the Reflection feature, you can keep track of your feelings, see your entry history and come back to them later. The feature does not, of course, make any changes for you, but it can give you some food for thought. If you notice any negative long-term patterns in your mood, it’s definitely a good idea to take a moment to sort this out. For example, if you always feel awful on Mondays, you may want to think about whether you get enough rest during the weekend.

2. For many, fast-paced workdays are one of the biggest challenges with hybrid and remote work. People go from one meeting to another, sometimes without any breaks in between. When it only takes a couple of mouse clicks to jump into the next remote meeting, our days become hectic and we are tempted to fill our schedules to the brim. You often hear people wondering whether they will have the time to get any work done when their days are filled with remote meetings. One solution to tackle this issue is the Book focus time functionality in Viva Insights. The feature finds free time slots in your schedule and enables you to select and book uninterrupted focus time. The real challenge is to stick to that and not let other people schedule meetings that overlap with your focus time.

3. Sometimes it can be difficult to get out of the flow of work at the end of the workday. “Just one more thing” is a familiar thought to many of us. The Virtual commute feature helps you to wrap up your workday. If you have any unfinished tasks left that day, the virtual commute feature first prompts you to put them on your To Do list. Next, it will give you a preview of your schedule and appointments for the next day. If you forgot to react to a meeting invitation, you can do that at this point of your virtual commute. You can also reflect on your emotions with the Reflect feature and, if you wish, you can end your workday with a brief meditation with Headspace. This way, you have gone through all your events and tasks for the following day and don’t need to wake up early in the morning to worry about what’s on your schedule for that day.

You can find all the above features in your Insights app in Microsoft Teams. There are also other features that allow you to send praise to your colleagues and track your networking. You can also track how you spend your workdays: how much time you spend in meetings, on writing documents or on communicating with people inside and outside of your organisation. For many of us, this information can be an eye-opening experience and the first step towards creating a workday that supports our well-being.

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