3 ways collaborative apps like Workday in Microsoft Teams boost engagement and productivity

Enterprises are increasingly turning to collaborative apps to enhance workplace engagement and productivity. Business leaders are looking for ways to do more with less, especially with the current economic uncertainty, and providing better employee experiences can boost revenue.¹ That presents an opportunity for independent software vendors (ISVs) to earn customer loyalty by building easily accessible enterprise apps with rich features that deliver business value.

Workday, a leading enterprise cloud software provider for HR and finance, embraced this opportunity to build a collaborative app for Microsoft Teams that meets users in their natural flow of work. Workday for Microsoft Teams improves productivity and engagement with a range of quick actions and user-friendly dashboards that simplify administrative tasks and empower teams. It’s no surprise that customers have responded enthusiastically to the extensive capabilities.

Other ISVs can replicate that success. By meeting employees in the flow of work, Teams can provide a vibrant platform for growing a customer base and increasing the number of users in an account to improve customer retention. In this post, we’ll highlight three ways collaborative apps in Teams can improve productivity and engagement by diving into the benefits of Workday for Teams, as well as offering insights into how other ISVs can increase usage of their apps.

1. Meeting users in the natural flow of work produces value for the customer

Workday is an innovative organization, and even before the surge of hybrid work, its product teams understood that digital workspaces and collaboration tools were on the rise. They engaged with customers to discover opportunities to deliver a better user experience and learned that people wanted quick, frictionless access to HR information and frequent tasks.

With that in mind, Workday began its mission to bring simple, self-service experiences into Teams to support workers in their natural flow of work. The Workday for Microsoft Teams app is part of Workday Everywhere, a product approach that integrates the company’s software across digital workspaces, browsers, and more. Workday for Teams improves the employee experience by streamlining everyday HR and finance tasks, providing access to information on demand, and strengthening company culture and collaboration. It helps customers build a more connected, efficient workplace and simultaneously increases the opportunities for users to interact with the Workday platform, fueling app usage.

“Workday for Microsoft Teams is easy to use and saves employees time because they’re able to access their information right within Teams without repeatedly switching between apps,” says Indira Vidyaprakash, Senior Director of Workday Everywhere. “The integration increases app usage, which means more employees experience the full value of Workday.”

Hilti, a multinational manufacturer for the construction and building industry, has enjoyed the efficiency that this integration provides. “It’s great that you can perform Workday tasks directly in Teams without having to leave the working environment where people already are all day,” says Holly Bilton, Hilti’s Global Process Manager, HR.

To enable enterprises to benefit from that seamless experience, Workday for Teams is free for customers who have already purchased Workday’s Human Capital Management product. 

2. Building a user-friendly, engaging app drives usage and renewals

Once Workday for Teams has been deployed, the company encourages customers to pin it on the app bar along the left side of Teams, which improves engagement. Enabling notifications can expand adoption and usage as they alert users to new tasks, which can be completed without leaving Teams.

“Our customers tell us that Workday for Teams empowers employees to quickly and efficiently manage common tasks in one place, helping improve productivity and allowing them more time to focus on their role,” Vidyaprakash says. “Customers love the boost to employee engagement and satisfaction, and that drives them to invest more in Workday.”

The Workday home dashboard in Teams provides a holistic snapshot of everything employees and managers can do, personalized to their roles. The dashboard offers a menu with common quick actions, and it also has an integrated HR calendar showing time off and upcoming holidays. For managers, the calendar displays the team’s time off, birthdays, and anniversaries, allowing them to easily view important dates for their employees.

Employees can request time off by chatting with the Workday Assistant, which uses natural language processing to discover information within Workday. They can request Workday learning courses through chat, and the app streamlines the approval process for managers. Employees and managers can also collaborate on performance management tasks inside Teams. In all, there are more than 75 quick actions users can take, which encourages heavy usage.

High usage rates tend to support customer retention and can help ISVs expand within accounts by increasing the number of licenses that enterprises purchase during contract renewals.

Workday has also made it simple for customers to configure and deploy Workday for Teams, which helps increase the adoption of the app and growth across the organization. In turn, that generates a satisfied customer base with high levels of engagement. Since early 2022, Workday Everywhere has gone from around 300 enterprise customers to more than 600.

3. Utilizing analytics and adding new features can support engagement and retention

Workday is also rolling out new features to continue elevating the user experience and to create incentives to utilize the app. For example, this May, the company is releasing a feature that allows users to get a full view of upcoming pay slips inside Teams, which will be available from the home tab for easy access.

A big focus going forward will be the capabilities offered by the Workday Peakon Employee Voice app for Teams, which is a real-time survey platform for understanding employee sentiment and wellbeing. Workday intends to help managers measure, analyze, and improve employee engagement by providing insights and engagement scores on the Workday for Teams home dashboard.²

Customers can also use analytics to tailor their Workday for Teams experience and get the most from existing features. Enterprises that have enabled Workday Assistant can access a usage report to learn which features are performing well and configure it accordingly. That report helps customers realize the value of Workday, again helping to support retention.

With an eye to the future, Workday is also continuing to develop its offerings within Teams. Soon, the Workday app will include more robust functionality and a more interactive dashboard, all with the goal of continuing to enhance the value for users and drive increased productivity for all.

Learn more about collaborative apps in Microsoft Teams

Give customers an experience they’ll love by building collaborative apps with Microsoft Teams. 

And check out these resources for more information on Teams apps and Microsoft support:   

• Learn more about reaching users through the Microsoft commercial marketplace. 
• Take advantage of best practices for growing your app. 
• Find out more about Microsoft’s program to accelerate ISV Success. 
• Visit Microsoft AppSource to see the range of business apps available for purchase and download.  

Discover Workday for Teams and the Workday Peakon Employee Voice app. Learn more about Workday’s leading enterprise apps for HR and finance.

This blog series highlights ISVs that have achieved business growth and added value for their customers by building and deploying apps on Teams. We love sharing partner success stories. If you have a story, please contact us.

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¹Research: How Employee Experience Impacts Your Bottom Line, Harvard Business Review. March 22, 2022.

²Any forward-looking statements made in this post are subject to Workday’s safe harbor statement.