This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: Yammer Blog articles.
Digital transformation is rapidly changing the way we communicate and work with each other. When employees are truly engaged, companies report improved employee retention, customer satisfaction, sales metrics, and overall profitability. Transparency and open communication yield better results than protectionism – they build trust and align purpose.
With Yammer you can create sustained connections and conversations across your organization to deliver better employee experience and to drive organizational performance. We recently we hosted a webinar about employee engagement and driving business outcomes and walked through the details of what this could like for your organization with Ragan Communications. Watch the full webinar here or catch the highlights below!
Employee Engagement
Engaged employees perform better. In today’s world transparency builds trust and aligns purpose. Working together accelerate learning and problem solving.
What’s distinct about an enterprise social network? What are Yammer Super Powers?
Yammer’s core superpower – enabling participatory conversations. It’s inclusive and open – groups are public by default, anyone can join, and new content is made discoverable to the organization
Yammer is non-invasive – you can use it on your own terms, it’s not another queue of work there for you to take immediate action, you can participate and contribute on your own time, and catch up using the inbox when you want to .
And Yammer is built to capture knowledge – groups and threads organize discussions, topics enable conversations across groups, and more…
Align the workforce – Leadership and clarity of purpose
- Build an ongoing, two-way connection between leadership and employees
- Align people around your purpose and goals by breaking down barriers between leadership and the organization.
- Communicate consistently about your company’s mission, values, and strategic initiatives.
Clarify vision and drive awareness. Yammer does this with live events and real-time Q&A shared across any device so the entire workforce can participate and engage.
Think of Yammer not as a megaphone… but as a stethoscope.
Create an executive communication plan and communicate it at scale. This includes host events, blogs, video, news, and resources – all promoted across your intranet sites and social enterprise networks like SharePoint and Yammer in tandem with Live Events.
Use live events to create authentic moments between leadership + the workforce… sparking moments of high engagement with real-time Q&A. In fact, we see engagement on our network go through the roof during our CEO Connection monthly live events with our CEO, Satya Nadella.
Sharing, Learning, Innovation
Bridge silos, departments, and geos by building open spaces where people can crowdsource knowledge, share best practices, and discuss their interests. Empower employees to brainstorm and ideate, collect feedback, or work together towards common goals. Bring in experts from different departments and locations.
Foster conversations that support learning and development. Create a dedicated location for new employees where they can find helpful links and resources, learn about company culture, watch videos and welcome messages from leadership, and introduce them to asking questions and weighing in on discussions from Day One.
Host townhalls, hackathons, bug squashing parties, or other campaigns geared towards publicly solving company pain-points. Be a connector by sponsoring meetups and employee socials around a specific topic.
Start small and get a quick win that shows a group saving time or money. This will help gain support and momentum. Employee Focus should be on identifying solutions, not only identifying problems.
Here are some conversation starts to use in your Yammer groups.
Changing behavior and meeting corporate initiatives
Communicate new norms and initiatives – Yammer enables you to share community announcements, post polls, gather feedback, and have real + challenging discussions about the mission and goals of the organization in an authentic way.
Use Yammer to onboard new employees. We have a dedicated resource site with a 10-step guide showcasing how to leverage Yammer for new hires. This can help new team members start early to understand that Yammer is a for place of learning, discovery, connection, and culture.
Participation and Inclusion
The goal is to create an inclusive workplace where all employees feel valued. We are all stronger when we are better represented, and corporate communications can help play a role in carrying those goals across the org and helping the company make steps towards their initiatives.
Create communities based on shared interests and affiliations in Yammer, such as diversity and inclusion, parenthood, LGBTQ, or special interests like photography, hiking, gaming or giving. The possibilities are endless, but the connections are real. Use these open forums to discuss and live company values and change areas where the company is falling short.
Reward and recognize employees at every level for their ideas. In Yammer, you can “Praise” a coworker for their contributions. Another great way is to recognize personal milestones, such as having a baby, getting married, buying a house, running a 5k, or other achievements.
Drive Department Process
“Today’s question becomes tomorrow’s FAQ.”
Use Microsoft Flow and SharePoint lists to create a knowledge base, no code necessary.
If a user asks a question that doesn't have a clear match, the proposed answer is forwarded to a specific person to verify. Each verified answer is included as a response to the question, and expands the knowledge base so it can be used for future questions.
Use Yammer to rollout Office365 or other technology changes. Using a community-based approach on your Yammer network, with peer to peer learning, will help your organization adopt new technologies alongside the change.
Connect your diverse workforce with translation in 60+ languages, use AI and transcriptions in live events, collaborate across time zones, and use the mobile app for remote workers to engage employees beyond headquarters.
Driving business outcomes with enterprise social
Often an organization starts off by driving employee morale and moves to the second column of business transformation. We have Yammer Adoption Resources available to help plan and drive adoption of your organizations Yammer journey.
Listen and watch the full webinar linked above and let us know your thoughts. Feel free to leave a comment if you have questions!