A host of updates to Workplace from Facebook have been announced at the platform’s flagship Transform EMEA virtual event.

We spoke to Ujjwal Singh, Head of Product at Workplace for Facebook, who talked us through the new features.

Q&A Updates to Live Video

Singh said that Live Video has played a crucial role in keeping employees connected throughout the pandemic, particularly frontline workers.

This latest update is designed to help hosts create a more intimate experience for attendees.

The host can select a question which brings it to the centre of the screen for both the host and the audience.

A host-only feature will then display a contact card for the person asking the question, allowing the host to address the individual directly and personalise their response.

“This is just the beginning of the new Q&A,” Singh said. “It may seem minor at first but it’s transformative for the people that have already used it. It is very meaningful when it comes to authenticity.

“There’s a new type of leader that is successful in this new world; it’s someone that puts themselves out there and is not afraid to engage in the hard conversations. They need to be empathetic and vulnerable, so at the heart of what Live allows is for a leader to do that.”

New Plug-ins and Integrations

The Workplace leadership team have always stressed that they are not looking to compete with, or displace, other companies in the collaboration space. Instead, the aim is to bring other tools together into the Workplace ecosystem.

A new plug-in lets users share information from Workplace into third-party platforms such as SharePoint and other intranet solutions.

Content can also be shared from these sites into Workplace’s own equivalent, known as Knowledge Library.

A second update introduces the ability to sync Workplace with third-party calendars such as Outlook and Gmail.

“Fundamentally, it’s about improving the employee experience, so little things like this will go a long way towards employees feeling more connected and having information at their fingertips,” Singh said.

“We think of Workplace as the Switzerland of tools. We don’t have a calendar service or a document service that we’re trying to push on customers; we’re happy to integrate across any and all of those solutions”

An update to the partnership with Cisco also now allows users to start a broadcast on Workplace from within Webex.

Improved Diversity and Inclusion

Employees will now be able to include a pronunciation of their name in their Workplace profile in phonetic spelling. This spelling will appear in the Q&A cards mentioned above for hosts on Live Video, as well as on users’ profiles, with the aim of removing awkward experiences around mispronunciations.

Facebook is also bringing new skin colours to Workplace’s emojis, which can be set as default, to ensure everyone feels represented.

“We want to make sure everyone has a voice and that they can be themselves,” Singh said. “Fundamentally if you can do that, we think it improves employee experience.

“At the heart of what Workplace is trying to do is make the employee experience better.”

 

 



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