Microsoft Viva gets improvements and Teams integration

Employee wellbeing and workflow tools, together at last.

What you need to know

• Microsoft recently announced a new slate of Teams features, fluid components, and more.
• Among said announcements was that Microsoft Teams now has native Viva integration.
• Viva also has new features of its own.

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 "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 Microsoft recently discovered that workers need breaks to 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 out Microsoft's blog post.

If you want other insights as to what Microsoft is up to, check out its new Whiteboard experience and fluid components. And don't forget about the upcoming Windows 11.

Microsoft Teams

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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.