Microsoft HR Drives Copilot Adoption with Employee-Focused Strategy
Microsoft’s Human Resources department is leading the charge in adopting Microsoft 365 Copilot, understanding that successful technology integration hinges on a people-first approach. By embracing human-centered strategies, the HR team is effectively communicating, providing learning opportunities, and measuring the impact of Copilot adoption. This process leverages the Microsoft Viva suite to engage employees, create skilling pathways, and track progress.
Adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot has become a top priority across the company, and the HR team is central to this effort, serving as both users and champions of AI transformation. “As champions for Responsible AI at Microsoft, we have a special duty to learn, experiment, and apply Copilot to the space where we work,” says Liz Friedman, senior director of HR AI Transformation. “To support the rest of the company on this journey, we have to understand it ourselves.”
This approach acknowledges that adopting new technology requires more than just technical capabilities. Caribay Garcia, a principal people scientist on the Microsoft Viva product team, notes a shift in the adoption challenge: “It’s not as much about building momentum as it is about guiding excitement to create effective usage and long-lasting change.” The focus is on harnessing employee enthusiasm to drive meaningful and lasting change.
Microsoft Viva is a key tool in this strategy. Its suite of apps is designed to support employee engagement, fitting naturally with agile Copilot adoption efforts. The HR team utilizes the following Viva components:
- Viva Connections: Sharing important news related to Copilot, generating excitement, and tying Copilot to company culture.
- Viva Amplify: Producing and distributing employee communications to increase awareness.
- Viva Learning: Offering courses and training to help employees maximize their use of Copilot, including guidance on creating effective AI prompts.
- Viva Goals: Establishing and tracking Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) focused on how employees use Copilot and subsequent productivity gains.
- Viva Engage: Actively engaging employees, providing leader updates, and enabling community discussions through the Champ communities.
- Viva Insights: Using the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard beta to gain insights and identify usage trends.
- Viva Pulse: Gathering instant feedback from employees on their Copilot experience to fine-tune implementation and adoption approaches.
- Viva Glint: Understanding employee sentiment and gauging the overall effectiveness of the Copilot deployment.
With additional support from Microsoft Digital, the HR team recognizes Viva’s value throughout the adoption journey, from communication and learning to gathering employee feedback. Anand Shah, senior business program manager with Microsoft Digital, highlights the scalability of Viva: “It’s critical at scale because it captures so many more people than we could ever manage with just instructor-led trainings or other centralized efforts.”
HR and People Science: A Powerful Combination
This adoption strategy also benefits from the expertise of people science professionals within the Viva product group, who bring experience in organizational psychology, behavioral science, and data analytics. They use a research-based, people-focused approach, infusing the Viva suite with insights that meet their specific business needs. Carolyn Kalafut, a principal people scientist in the Microsoft Viva product group, emphasizes the importance of this perspective: “People science helps us understand what’s important to employees to help them feel happy and successful.” This approach is especially important when dealing with rapid changes like those brought about by AI transformation. “When employees experience rapid changes like AI transformation at work, our research shows that we can ease the process by encouraging them to share their voice, addressing their concerns, keeping them informed with key updates, and providing relevant skilling opportunities.”
The HR AI Transformation team has developed a strategy to address key challenges associated with AI adoption in HR, including concerns about employee confidentiality, where and when to use Copilot responsibly, data security, and the introduction of new features. The team leverages change management and technical expertise from Microsoft Digital to address these concerns. “We think of our efforts in terms of a cohesive strategy for driving change, from generating awareness and motivation to building knowledge and skills, then applying and tracking the behaviors we’ve enabled,” Friedman says. “Viva apps are really well designed for each of these steps.”
Multi-Channel Communications and Learning
Change and adoption communication is enhanced through both centralized campaigns and localized efforts within departments. HR’s internal adoption leaders have developed campaigns specific to their needs, using Viva Amplify and HR’s Copilot sponsors and champions to deploy materials through channels such as Teams, Outlook, and Viva Engage.
The HR AI Roundup is an example of a successful Viva Amplify campaign. This monthly update provides: goals and progress updates on Copilot adoption, new features and capabilities, and instructions for how employees can take advantage of these tools.
“Everyone can be an effective communicator with Viva Amplify,” says Laura Luethe, a director of communications on the Microsoft HR AI Transformation team. “Communities it combines the capabilities of corporate communicators with the ability to tailor messaging to uniquely relevant audiences.”
The HR team also provides diverse learning styles with opportunities for self-directed and group learning using Viva Learning. This strategy helps in terms of providing multiple paths to learning and content discoverability. “People are hungry for skilling opportunities for their specific disciplines. Viva Learning supports that desire by providing one central location for all their learning needs.” The AI for HR Academy includes discipline-specific content and material on systems thinking, supplemented by collaborative skilling activities.
Community-Based Engagement for Adoption
A community-based approach to Copilot adoption means respecting the individual’s unique challenges and community. With many employees in different locations, a digital solution becomes essential. “There’s no watercooler big enough for our global community to gather around,” says Chris Owen, a senior program manager on the Microsoft HR AI Transformation team. “In that environment, Viva Engage becomes the one and only space where all of HR can meet regularly and exchange ideas.”
Viva Engage enables peer-to-peer guidance and communication about Copilot and unlocks synergies between different Viva apps. The HR’s Copilot Champs Community is integral to these peer-to-peer initiatives. They share best practices for local outreach, and support each other’s efforts to drive adoption within their specific disciplines, often through Viva Engage. Community members share knowledge, content, and ongoing best practices, which is especially helpful in a hybrid environment. The HR team also builds digital tools, such as a Copilot escape room, to gamify learning and prompt conversations.
Data-Driven Insights to Improve Adoption
Data and insights are essential for understanding the ”why” behind adoption behaviors. Viva Glint surveys are deployed to gauge employee sentiment. They help them understand employee experience, uncover trends, and analyze metrics. Results from surveys are assessed alongside Copilot usage data. This data is often acquired via the Copilot Dashboard in Viva Insights.
According to recent survey results, the HR team correlates employees who use Copilot at least once a week with an associated increase in thriving at work metrics. “It’s all about energy, empowerment, and whether work is meaningful to employees,” says David Spahr, a director on the Microsoft HR AI Transformation team. “We aren’t just trying to understand the productivity and efficiency gains of AI—we want to see the ways it’s helping humans become more human.”
Setting Objectives and Tracking Progress
Viva Goals provides the benefit of tracking and clarity around OKRs to help deliver that motivation. The HR Services team uses this tool to track progress on how Copilot supports productivity and job satisfaction. The team is setting up a correlation between Copilot usage in Dynamics 365 Customer Service and an increase of success metrics for support staff.
“We’re very intentional about defining our objectives, anticipating their benefits, and establishing OKRs to track those pieces,” Friedman says. “From there, we can verifiably demonstrate progress.” The HR team has learned that no OKR is static. The team moves away from pass-or-fail thinking to a dynamic system that makes progressive changes.
Strong Results and Future Plans
“HR has been a powerful adopter,” says Eric Wand, Head of IT at Microsoft Canada. “This organization has been so committed to their Copilot journey; they’ve achieved many of their end-of-year adoption metrics in just the first few months.” Microsoft Viva is a crucial part of HR’s process, and it continues to be a critical tool for advancing usage at scale. As they incorporate further Viva apps, HR will continue to fine-tune their adoption activities and find new ways to unlock even greater value for employees. The team is currently exploring ways to programmatize agile and decentralized Viva Pulse surveys according to people science principles and gain further visibility into employee sentiment and usage at the team level. HR is also partnering with Microsoft Digital to track usage through the Copilot Dashboard in Viva Insights. The combination of qualitative and quantitative data will support even more effective change management as HR continues to deepen its Copilot adoption.
This approach underscores the importance of adapting to how work is done. “Our job is to empower the people who empower the planet, and that means changing the way we change,” Friedman says. “The more we can do to meet people where they are and help enhance how they work, the more success we’ll have. So the investments we’ve already made in employee experience areas—communications, skilling, and measurement—have given us a valuable head start at accelerating our own functional AI transformation efforts here in HR.”
