Foster organizational innovation
Important
This article is for the legacy Workplace Analytics app and does not reflect functionality available on the updated Viva Insights platform. Access current documentation for Viva Insights advanced insights here: advanced insights documentation.
Employees who share information, prioritize learning, and protect time for deep thinking generate the new ideas needed for success in rapidly evolving markets. Each of the behaviors listed show how your organization compares with others based on industry research and your specific organizational data.
Calculations
The following are the percentage insights, their underlying metrics, and a little about the calculations used for them.
| Behavior | Percentage insight | Metrics | Calculations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enable deep work | Percentage of employees who have less than 20 hours for deep work each week | Total focus hours | The percentage of employees who have less than 20 hours available to focus each week. Calculated weekly and averaged over the time period. |
| Utilize influencers | Percentage of organizations who have few influencers | Influence | Influencers are employees with the best connections to people across the company based on their collaboration patterns. This insight highlights the organizations that don't have sufficient representation of them, based on company and organization size. |
The following defines the organizational data shown in the visual behavioral insights.
| Behavior | Visual insight | Calculations |
|---|---|---|
| Enable deep work | Distribution of time for deep work | Percentage of employees grouped by their focus time. The groups are divided into those who spend between 0 and 10 hours, 10 and 20 hours, 20 and 40 hours, and more than 40 hours focusing. The percentages are calculated weekly and averaged over the entire time period. |
| Utilize influencers | Organizations with limited influencers | Percentage organizations that don't have sufficient representation of influencers, based on company size. This uses the influence metric. |
Take action
You can select See your insights to see ways you can drive innovation. Depending on your role, the following are available in addition to the recommendations within Take action.
Opportunity groups - Lists the groups who are most affected and would benefit the most from these recommended best practices or Plans, which are based on your organizational data and industry research.
Explore the stats – The following recommendations link to more in-depth data about your organization's teamwork or internal networks. In the Take action section for each of the following behaviors, select See your insights > Explore the stats to access them:
Behavior Recommendation Explore the stats Enable deep work Make time for deep work Teamwork(if that link doesn't work, try this link instead) Utilize influencers Activate influencers to drive innovation Internal networks(if that link doesn't work, try this link instead) Explore in Power BI - If available, links to Power BI reports for more advanced analysis for one or more of the recommendations.
Plans - Opens a new Plan you can set up relating to one or more of the recommendations.
Best practices
This section describes why each of the following behaviors matter and the top best practices that can help foster innovation.
Enable deep work
Time without meetings, emails and chats provides employees with the opportunity to complete challenging work, think creatively and generate innovative ideas.
How to establish a meeting-free day each week explains the "goal is uninterrupted focus" time to work "on projects that require focus and high-level thinking..." Ways to support focus time:
- Follow a team norm to not send chats to team members who have scheduled focus time or have the focusing status showing in Microsoft Teams.
- Use a personal focus plan to automatically book focus time, protect this time by silencing chats, and track weekly progress.
For more best practices and ways to establish a 'no meeting' period, see Best practices for focus time.
Utilize influencers
Influencers are people within an organization who are well connected and can drive innovation by efficiently sharing information with others.
The Measuring your employees’ invisible forms of influence article says that "traditional organizational reporting structures limit managers’ visibility into how their employees are influencing and contributing to other teams. New workplace metrics are needed to help leaders get a more complete picture of this." Ways to leverage influencers:
- Use Insights and the Teamwork page to see connections, top collaborators, and suggestions on how to improve connections and cultivate influence.
- Use Microsoft Teams channels for cross-functional team collaboration and to drive conversations.
For more best practices and how to identify and utilize influencers, see Best practices for influencers.