NEW Employee Experience Platform Specialist Role
Video Highlights
– Microsoft Learning announced a brand new role called Employee Experience platform specialist. In the past few weeks, we’ve only had bad news about the modern Workplace. This video has some good news. But there is a catch.
– Microsoft is creating the EX Platform Specialist role. The new role will only be provided as a course. There is no certification exam or assessment planned for this role. This course should be available on April 27, 2023.
– This is a one-day instructor-led training. It was only in English at the time of recording this video. It might be available in multiple languages later. You will learn to bring people together to create an optimal employee experience. This enables your organization to improve productivity.
– I think this is a step in the right direction. There is a need for training material right now. I would love to see two different certifications. What’s your take on this course? Do you think it’s a valid role?
Video Transcript
Welcome to this YouTube video, where we have some good news for all of you working with Microsoft 365 and with the Modern Workplace in general. Microsoft Learning announced a brand new role called Employee Experience platform specialist.
I am super excited about this role. Why? Because in the past few weeks, we’ve only had bad news about the modern Workplace and associated exams and courses. If you haven’t seen my previous video, make sure you watch it right after.
Basically, Microsoft announced that they’re going to retire half of the current Modern Workplace portfolio. So that was really sad for all the Microsoft 365 professionals out there that want to get certified. So I’m really happy to make this video that has some good news.
But there is a catch. So make sure you stick around right after the intro so we can talk about this new worldwide learning Microsoft role. As we have already said, the name of the role is the Employee Experience Platform Specialist role.
So what is the definition? And this is directly from Microsoft. Microsoft Employee Experience Platform Specialists assess, plan, strategize, design, and manage digital employee experiences. They use Microsoft Viva, microsoft teams, SharePoint power platform, and more.
Employee Experience Platform Specialists empower organizations to improve productivity, nurture empathetic leadership, and transform how employees feel about their work by developing a culture of trust, collaboration, well-being, and active listening. They continuously improve employee experience based on data-driven insights and feedback. Employee experience.
Platform specialists collaborate with senior executive leadership, HR It professionals, employee engagement teams, change management teams as well as learning and organizational development teams. They help to identify requirements for experiences such as employee onboarding career and skill development, rewards and recognition, compensation as well as benefits, employee well-being and employee retention. They design a solution that meets requirements, then work with Microsoft 365 Admins, SharePoint, Admins Teams, Admins, Data Scientists, and Security Teams, of course, to implement the solution.
Employee Experience Platform Specialists have a foundational understanding of Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft 365 Teams SharePoint, and a deep understanding of Microsoft Viva features and capabilities. They have experience in one or more of the following disciplines HR, People Development, Change Management, Information Technology, or Culture Development. So, I don’t know about you, but reading this makes me excited.
Especially that I always thought that this Employee Experience Platform Specialist was a role that we had in organizations around the globe. And now that we have Microsoft Viva, which lives in part in the It department, but also half of it is with the HR and Change Management Teams, with the Learning Development team. And now that we have so many modules, I feel like every department that manages people is involved with Microsoft Viva.
But remember when I said it’s all really good news? However, there is a small catch. So what’s the catch? Well, this new role will only be provided as a course. There is no certification exam or assessment planned, at least as of now, for this role.
So it will be simply a role that Microsoft recognizes. There will be official courseware for it. However, there will not be an exam associated with it. So that’s a bit of the sad part.
If we take a look a bit more in detail, this will be an instructor-led training course, or ILT, that you will be able to either do at a Microsoft learning partner with the help of a Microsoft-certified trainer such as me. Maybe that will be able to teach the course, guide you through the different labs and things like that, and answer any questions that you might have. Or you can follow the content yourself on Microsoft Learn.
If you’re not aware of the change, there are no more Microsoft official courses with dedicated labs and things like that. Like back in the days now, all the instructor-led training with Microsoft Official Content, the actual student handbook that we had before is now the Microsoft Learn Pad. So everything is available for you to study yourself.
This will be a one-day course without any lab offerings. However, there are some self-paced projects you will be able to do. The course number is Ms 80 T.
And by the way, you will notice that all of the Microsoft roles that are not associated with a certification, are under 100. So if you see, for example, Ms 100 T zero, that’s usually certification related. But if it’s Ms 40 or 80, that’s usually an official course, but it’s not related to a certification.
This course should be available on April 27, 2023. So pretty soon, this course page is actually live right away. So let’s go and check it out.
Okay, so I’m on Microsoft Learn on the Ms 80 t page. I’ll put a link here in the description so you can easily reach it. But all of this is public at the time of recording this video.
So what do we have here? First of all, we see that this is a one-day instructor-led training. It was only in English at the time of recording this video. It might be available in multiple languages later.
As this course becomes more popular, we do have a bit of an introduction to the course, so we can see, for example, what you will learn. You will learn to bring people together to create an optimal employee experience that enables your organization to improve productivity. So we have that, we have the audience profile, and we also have the targeted job role, which is a business analyst, business owner, or business user.
From a prerequisite point of view, you can see that it requires a general understanding of Microsoft 365, Microsoft Viva, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint, as well as familiarity with employee experience, concepts, and methodologies. Of course, as the course is not fully out yet, you do not have the Learnpath or anything like that, but you’ll be able to quickly find it on Microsoft Learn, and I might do a quick video or at least post on social media once the course is fully out. But really, this is it for now.
I won’t read it all just because you’re able to do that yourself. But instead, let me actually go here and let’s talk a little bit about what are some of my talks around this new role. So, first of all, I think this is a step in the right direction.
Why? Because this role definitely exists in organizations. I do believe that most large organizations, and by that, I mean the ones that actually pay a license for Microsoft Viva, do have somebody filling this role. And there is a need for training material right now; I find that for Microsoft Viva especially, there’s a lot more marketing material than training material.
So we end up with so much sales stuff. And here are some numbers. Here’s why you should buy it, but when you come into implementing it, you don’t have that much documentation.
When I worked on my Pluralsight course on getting started with Microsoft Viva, it was, and it is still available today, a course for administrators on how to deploy Viva. I found so much of the documentation to be lacking for some products. So I definitely think there is a need for training material.
I wish there was a certification associated with this course because having a course is cool, right? And training is one of the most important parts of the whole certification program, in my opinion. However, I do wish there was still a way for people to showcase this expertise to potential clients or employers. What I would love to see now is that this is what we have today, and I said it’s a step in the right direction.
What would be the right direction? According to Vlad, this is a bit of my wish list for Christmas, and I know we’re still a bit far from Christmas, but I would love to see two different certifications. I’d love to see something like the Ms 310 employee experience platform specialist. So a certification associated with this specific role and a new certification, ms 320 employee Experience administrator.
So for the administrator of all those tools, so SharePoint Admin, OneDrive Admin, and Viva Admin together, especially since now yammer is Viva Engage, that would be included as well. So really, the person that’s in charge of managing and administering everything that the employee experience platform specialist works with. So this is my early Christmas wish list from Worldwide Learning.
Those are two certifications that, if we had the training and the certification for it, I would be a super happy guy. But right now, there are no plans or any news for those certifications. But now, what’s your take on it? Please let me know in the comments.
What’s your take on this course? Do you think it’s a valid role? Do you think it’s a role that actually exists in organizations? Do you think this is a good investment by Microsoft, or should they have put their time and money into creating this content elsewhere? Do you wish there was a certification associated with it like I do, or do you think it’s a bit useless and a waste of time? Do you think there should be any third-party training for this topic as well that goes more in-depth than just one day of training?
So, for example, would you want me to do a plural side course on the topics covered in this course, or do you already find that there’s enough information out there, and maybe it’s just me that five, six is not enough, but do you think there is already enough content that you wouldn’t watch another course on it? Please let me know in the comments. I really want to hear your opinions on this, and I do read every single comment out there, so please do let me know what you think on this.
I want to keep this video a bit shorter, so thank you so much for making it to the end of this video. I hope you’re excited, as I am for worldwide Learning and Microsoft to give us some new stuff in the modern workplace portfolio, especially after we lost half of our certification exams in the year 2023. Don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube, and feel free to follow me or connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or almost any social media I’m there.
It would be my pleasure to connect with you, and stay tuned. There are a lot more videos coming around. Microsoft certifications and training materials, practice exams, and things like that, so make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel so you’ll be the first one to know.
Thank you very much again for listening to this video.
