Hey Reader,

Last year I went viral on LinkedIn for a post I flung together quickly on a whim, but that clearly struck a nerve:

It talked about the absolutely suffocating, overwhelming and confusing environment most employees find themselves in, pulled from one platform to another and expected to navigate multiple tools and platforms simply to keep up to date with what’s happening in work.

It’s exhausting, isn’t it? This kind of fragmented workplace has been a serious problem for years and I think it got worse during the COVID-19 pandemic when companies introduced a rake of new comms tools and collaborative platforms without thinking how they all fit together, without thinking of what kind of terrible experience this is creating for employees.

Why did this hit such a nerve?

I think my LinkedIn post went so viral because so many people recognised it as painfully true. Companies have scattered information across so many places that employees now need a map just to keep up with their own company. It’s not just tiring, it’s wasting employees precious time and energy. Isn’t it time we fixed this? Can’t we have the dream solution at last, some kind of central single platform where people can work and communicate easily without having to navigate through tons of tools and systems?

Well, maybe the dream is coming true. Because Workvivo has just launched a new product, Workvivo HQ, and when they asked me to take a look at it I felt quite excited and also palpably relieved. Finally, someone is building what we need!

In today’s newsletter I’m going to share my thoughts about Workvivo HQ, give you a look at some of the features I think you’ll love and my honest hesitation about one of its capabilities. When I worked in-house, tech vendors like Workvivo would launch new products and I'd be curious, but I never quite found the time to go and dig into what it actually was or whether it was a good fit for my company. I just never had the time! So let me save you the time and effort today, I’ve taken a proper look on your behalf and I’ll give you the lowdown right here.

Thanks to Workvivo for sponsoring this newsletter and giving me the opportunity to explore this product properly.

What’s Workvivo HQ?

Workvivo HQ is a single platform that combines your internal communication, your company knowledge and the tools employees use to get things done, all in one place. It’s a kind of digital headquarters where employees can go to get everything done. Now in theory that’s what many modern intranets claim to do, so why is this different?

The real difference is that Workvivo HQ is AI-native and is programmed with smart AI workflows and AI agents to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. For years, if not decades, intranets have promised that information can all live in one place and that’s all well and good, but it still takes a lot of navigation to find that information and actually take action on it. In Workvivo HQ, AI sits at the centre of the platform and can not only retrieve answers to your specific questions but can take action for you. This is impressive and not something I’ve seen before.

This feels like the old fragmentation problem is really being properly tackled for the first time.

Learn more about Workvivo HQ here

What does it look like?

Let’s have a look at some screenshots so you can get a flavour of some of the features of this platform, what you could use it for and if it might be a good fit for you.

Here’s a sample front page of Workvivo HQ and you’ll notice a search bar up top that says “How can I help you?” (please forgive my badly scribbled red arrow haha, design is not my strong point). Now you might notice this is different to many search bars because it’s not asking you to search for keywords or asking “What are you looking for?” It’s asking how it can help you, which is a different question altogether.

Usual search bars will have you type in “annual leave policy” and you’d get 100+ search results, some broken links, an article from the newsletter in 2014 and no actual way of easily finding the information you need.

But those days are gone. You don’t want to search through multiple links or documents, actually what you want is to find out how much leave you’ve got left because you really want to join that girls’ trip to Slovenia. And if you’ve got the leave days, you want to go ahead and book the time off. That little search box that says “How can I help you?” can actually do all of this for you.

Here’s what it looks like. Maybe you start by just asking what the PTO policy is. Workvivo HQ doesn’t give you links or docs to read, it just tells you the answer immediately using AI:

And then you get braver and tell it what you actually want, you ask “What is my PTO balance?” and the AI agent will actually go into your Workday account (or whatever system your HR team use to track annual leave) and find the answer and deliver it directly to you:

And not just that… but it can actually go ahead and BOOK YOUR ANNUAL LEAVE FOR YOU! Yes the AI agents can go into your system and book those PTO days for you on request, so all you need to do is book your flights to Slovenia.

I just really like how simple and obvious this system is, you don’t need to search the intranet for the annual leave policy and then open a separate platform to check your leave time and then open a separate form to book off more days… just do the whole thing really easily in one place, in Workvivo HQ.

This is just one example… the same “how can I help you” approach works across whatever systems you connect. The AI agents can answer your questions and take action on your behalf.

Livestream your townhalls

Another feature I found quite interesting is that you can livestream your townhall meetings through the platform. It has a chat and a Q&A box just like any good webinar would have, it looks a bit like this:

And of course this can be made available for replays.

One feature I noticed in the live streams is where I have a slight worry about how it will work in practice, this is where AI can generate a summary of the key points covered in your townhall which looks something like this:

Now this bit gives me slight pause, not because the feature is bad or there’s anything wrong with it, but because I’ve been involved in so many townhalls where leaders have gone wildly off script or have said something they didn’t quite mean or that was phrased badly. If this happens in a live townhall, it’s not a huge deal, the leader can catch it and correct it and the moment will pass. But if this is all captured by AI and written up into an official summary of the event, it goes on record and may create a false narrative of the meeting.

This is kind of a subtler issue too; the AI is deciding what counts as a 'key point' and it might give weight to an offhand comment while missing the message you actually worked hard to land.

This isn’t a features problem or a tech problem, this is something we need to be aware of as comms professionals. We can create processes to ensure the summaries are reviewed and refined to reflect what was said and what the key messages of the event were.

Is this the solution to the fragmentation problem?

If our employees are exhausted by tons of tools and scattered information, then yes I think Workvivo HQ is a really good solution. Workvivo has been a great product for years and this latest product is evidence of them really listening to their customers, understanding the market and building something even better than before.

I'll be curious to talk to people who bring Workvivo HQ into their organisations over the coming years, I’d love to see how it works in the messy reality of a real company, and whether it does what it says on the tin: gives work a home, and gives your people their time and attention back.

If you want to see Workvivo HQ properly, book yourself a demo with the team, free of charge:

Book a live demo of Workvivo HQ

I enjoyed exploring this new tool, it's always a joy to see companies building something that is so useful in our world.

Thanks for reading and stay curious,

Joanna

Find me on YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn and check out my book​

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