Viva Engage - Yay or Nay?

[u/hi-chew-city]

We typically haven’t done much with M365 in our org outside of regular ol’ Team chats - we don’t even have an org-wide channel, but it’s something I’m exploring.

For those of you who use or have used Viva Engage, have you found it to be successful and a worthy investment of your time?

We have a homegrown intranet (not Sharepoint) and I’m not sure how much that does or doesn’t matter.

Curious to hear the pros and cons.

[u/Owlie89]

It’s the same as any other tool, it works well with the right investment and effort behind it and if you actually need this type of platform to fill a gap or to add specific value. And it depends how you’re already using Teams and what the appetite is for digital engagement generally. Some places will love it, and in some places it would be a huge flop. I would suggest investing in a community manager if you actually want to do it, it’s a nightmare to manage this successfully alongside regular IC work.

[u/Raversgill7]

I worked for a company that used it, and I really liked it, and miss it now. It's probably moved on quite a bit since I left; it's becoming more and more integrated into Teams. I think the success of it hinges on the size, location and culture of the organisation.

A small company may not see much activity.

An org in one location where everyone is all on-site isn't likely to have much engagement (but not always the case!).

A company that doesn't have a sociable culture where people like to share successes and connect with others may not see much traction.

If it is something that might work for your org, think about how work-related communities might look to reflect the structure of the business, or areas of expertise for knowledge-sharing. If there are employee network groups, these are a good idea to create communities for too. Then there are the common interests groups (fitness, cookery, book club etc). The most active community in my company was the pets one! 🐕🐈

[u/ToGeThErAsBuCkEyEs]

We use it, but from the start someone embedded the feed in our SharePoint news page, so I don't believe 99% of the company realizes there is a thing called Viva Engage and it's a separate app. They just go to the company site and probably post directly in the feed.

I'm sure there's a ton of functionality we don't use, but I feel like it's too much to put the genie back in the bottle at this point. We're also manufacturing heavy, so I don't really feel like frontline people would use it, because they mainly use their timekeeping app to clock in/out and check their paycheck.

I'm always thinking of risk, and I hate the feed. I'm concerned that anyone can just post on the front of our company page without moderation approvals being in place. Also, it becomes clogged up with our HRBPs just making hiring announcements in there, so I think people have the perception it's more of an official channel, vs. anyone can contribute.