As business grows, organizations face increasing and deepen challenges of communication. The number of business units and employees increases exponentially, and workspaces are being distributed. The more complicated workflows require the clearer communication. Virtual non-face-to-face communication has been common since the COVID-19 outbreak, and various communication channels came to the fore beyond face-to-face meetings and reporting.

LG Uplus operates many types of communication channels. Hybrid work – a blend of in-office and remote work - has gotten settled into LG Uplus’ work culture. Furthermore, LG Uplus is well equipped with its groupware including Teams and email. These channels encourage employees not only to connect to but also to improve individual abilities without restriction on time and space.

Hybrid demands various communication channels.

Since adopting a hybrid work model, LG Uplus considered how to enable feelings to be delivered and shared beyond message via digital methods. Communication means more than a delivery of work information. One of critical lessons we’ve learned through the course of pandemic is that communication is expected to touch emotion, to empower employees to be aligned with corporate mission and vision, and to get a sense of belonging even when we cannot meet in person. LG Uplus started considering Viva Engage with a consensus of demanding a new type of digital communication, according to Seohyun Jung, CDO Digital Governance Specialist of LG Uplus.

“Groupware was a key channel of general employee communication. Although groupware played a significant role for a long time, we could not help acknowledging that groupware’s community board based UX works in a bit unique way compared with emerging communication trends. Rather, the groupware was optimized to deliver direct messages in one way such as announcements to employees. As the hybrid working model kept going, we needed to give variety the way of communication,” Jung mentioned.

Today’s workforce is more used to communicating via chat and social media than a community board and email. And they want to continue business with any device from any place. Groupware requires a high level of security and authentication as it has confidential information and decision-making workflows such as electronic approval. Embracing recent work trends and enabling employees to easily access to work environment at any time and to feel free to share their stories were needed. Meanwhile, it was difficult to add this kind of channel to existing groupware.

Viva Engage gave LG Uplus a perfect-fit solution. LG Uplus employees have already made collaborations by using Microsoft 365. Microsoft Teams has created more immediate and vigorous communication than a community board and email. Employees were familiar with Microsoft 365, and Viva Engage was the best choice as they could access through the same environment. Above all, the strongest benefit of Viva Engage was that there was no need to put additional cost or manpower to introduce and operate the Viva Engage. LG Uplus was able to use the service right away without a certain process for deployment because Viva Engage is a part of Microsoft 365.

A communication platform that creates an active corporate culture with free participation and easy access.

Microsoft Teams is a great message channel but is focused on promoting business communication such as reporting, material sharing, and co-working. There was a thirst for a tool to share what is happening inside and to exchange ideas more lightly. At times, message delivery channels give force to what the message originally talks about. Email and community boards may seem more official and add weight to the message. Teams message also have limits on what members can share with each other when they don’t feel close enough. For instance, when if a member from different team left feedback on a new service through Teams, the team in charge of that service may feel it like a claim or a work order unintentionally.

Viva Engage has lessened the burden of communication by benefiting from the social media’s advantages. Leaving short comments with simple words is available and pushing the ‘Like’ button can be enough to express thoughts and emotions. Sharing videos and photos is also convenient so that bonding employees together has been eased. Yujin Son, Professional of Change Management Team said that more employees are taking part in corporate activities since activating Viva Engage.

“We recently launched a campaign at Viva Engage that encourages employees to go through service experience – ranging from restructured web pages to new optional services – from a customers’ perspective and exchange ideas before launching. In the past, it might feel uncomfortable and difficult to give comments or ideas to other teams’ projects. Viva Engage has been a great place for employees to mention what to improve and what are different from expectations, and to derive better ideas from dynamic conversation,” Son said.

LG Uplus successfully built a communication environment, that LG Uplus has been thinking about for a long time, where everybody can smoothly conversate with anyone without barriers and can actively take part in. Jung describes that Viva Engage has created a light and comfortable communication atmosphere.

“One of the positive aspects of social media format is that everyone can have a voice regardless of title, position, role, and responsibilities. There is no pressure to leave a formal reply to leaders’ posts, and people in various positions – first-year student, team leaders, and executives across the organization can join the discussion with different points of view,” Jung said.

Leaders use Viva Engage as an effective channel to engage with employees directly and deeply. Active involvement from leadership has led to an elevated level of engagement from employees and closed the distance between positions. The mission and vision shared by leaders and the ideas and thoughts of employees have strengthened understanding between each other.

Social media experiences and exchanges come to the organization.

Viva Engage goes beyond corporate events and activities. Individuals are willing to share their professional and personal interests via Viva Engage. They build, find, and join communities aligned with their work and individual interests.

It is easy to access the tool and share photos and videos with any device – PC or mobile so that sometimes makes unexpected conversations. Communication among brick-and-mortar stores is hardly occurred. After launching Viva Engage, they began lively exchange sales experience, tips, and best practices. Furthermore, they post a tutorial video about sales and customer support and build communities by location.

The prolonged pandemic situation and remote working affected corporate culture. To overcome the downside of the working-from-home policy and foster healthy culture, LG Uplus conducted a campaign calling employees actions to show they enjoy working on their terms. Employees shared their lives with photos and videos like they usually do via social media and these sharing generated interactions. Through this experience, employees could feel that are going through a tough time together and become support each other. Ease of access and familiar conversation made through Viva Engage create new ways of communication, according to Ms. Son.

“Before having Viva Engage, when it comes to sharing corporate video, we needed to consider many things including how to make and edit video, where to post it, etc. Uploading video to 3^rd party channel was worrisome from a security and data privacy perspective. Viva Engage has streamlined the overall process. Making and posting videos get easier and simpler. As access to the video can be restricted to employees only, data breaches or security concerns are eliminated. Lesser obstacles allowed knowledge sharing and communication more flourish,” Son said.

LG Uplus is giving thought to analyzing communication at Viva Engage and deriving insight from it. Microsoft Teams supports various analysis tools and Viva Engage is open to AI-based statistics and analysis like Power BI.

“We’re looking forward to a scale-up. Microsoft 365 continues to update, and data link gets more organic. Indexing numerous data cumulated in Viva Engage, connecting data with one from other services, and making advanced analysis are expected to be followed as further steps of using Viva Engage,” Jung explained.

Along with Teams and Microsoft 365 collaboration tools, Viva Engage connects employees and fills communication gaps. Social media is a proven communication method for enabling conversation, and Viva Engage is the easiest and safest platform to bring advantages of social media into corporate. To grasp evolving business environment – hybrid work beyond in-office and remote working, multi-dimensional communication is needed to take place. It is needed to let employees interact with and bond with even if they are physically far apart from each other. LG Uplus set another milestone in internal communication with Viva Engage.

“With no burden of deployment but by extending existing Microsoft 365 and Teams, Viva Engage has contributed to building a comfort and convenient social media platform for all the employees can easily jump in and participate in,” Jung commented.