How to Skyrocket Organizational Engagement With Yammer

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Hungry for more Yammer content? Here are some of our favorite posts:

• What is Yammer & Why Do Companies Use It?
• Microsoft Teams vs. Yammer: A Short and Sweet Guide
• Which Tool When: #MicrosoftTeams or Yammer?
• Yammer Communities: 3 Reasons Yammer Is Relevant Again

It’s crucial that organizations foster a culture of transparency that keeps everyone from leadership to firstline workers informed, aligned, and moving forward. Yammer speaks directly to this and Dux and I are here to explain why. We’ve put together the top 5 strategies you need to get your organization to engage more. Let’s get into it!

Engage with Leaders 

Using Yammer to help leaders engage with the rest of the organization can really help unite the workplace. From firstline workers to c-level execs, Yammer enables everyone to communicate in one space and share everything from company initiatives to personal achievements. A great example of this is Microsoft’s CEO Connection group that helps Satya connect with everyone and share initiatives in one convenient location. 

Facilitate Innovation with Everyone 

We’ve talked about how Yammer can help connect leadership to the rest of the company, but let’s dive a bit deeper into how companies can use Yammer to create a culture of open sharing and learning to drive real business outcomes. From the get-go, Yammer is built for open sharing, learning, and innovation. This means organizations can bridge silos, departments, and geographies by creating open spaces where people can share knowledge, share best practices, and foster conversations that support learning and development. 

Need some help leveraging Yammer in your org? Check out this post: Click To Tweet

Tap Collective Knowledge and Increase Adoption 

Peer-to-peer sharing in one convenient location makes it easier than ever for coworkers to openly share ideas, reveal hidden knowledge, and even bring internal experts into discussions. It can also ease the rollout and adoption of new technologies by helping internal advocates get their voices heard. Everyone in the company, from the CEO to firstline workers, will be able to learn more and do more! 

Drives Initiatives 

Not only can Yammer be used for sharing employees’ social interests and connecting everyone, but it can also be used to help transform a business. How, you ask? By connecting groups to discuss strategic topics around common objectives and creating meaningful multi-way collaboration. An example of this would be having an employee advocacy group encourage employees to do volunteer work in their area.

Empower Everyone 

The basic concept behind using Yammer is that it provides many different ways to help you grow your organization’s communities. From keeping groups open for coworkers to join and participate in whenever they want to praise employees as a way to recognize their contributions and great ideas, these 5 strategies are the best way to get started using Yammer in your organization. 

A Few Frequently Asked Questions 

What are the differences in live events in Microsoft Teams vs. Yammer? Which do I choose for a particular event? 

The experiences can be quite similar, and they both leverage Microsoft Stream. If you want to quickly spin up a live event solely using your webcam or device, use Microsoft Teams. The viewing and commenting experience will all be within Microsoft Teams and the live event can be recorded and watched afterward. That said, the comments and engagement will be tied to the original recording.

If you want higher production value, the ability to schedule, share, watch and comment/engage in Yammer, or to use an encoder with a video team, create the live event in Yammer. The process is slightly more complex with Yammer but the overall event will have more features and allow for a better attendee experience. Here’s some documentation on how to set it up. We’ll be sharing a Live Events in Yammer playbook geared towards the internal communications audience soon, so stay tuned into the Yammer blog on the Microsoft Tech Community!

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How can group admins use Yammer to keep track of all Yammer groups, not just leadership groups?  

Each group admin is a leader in this sense. Whether a group is dedicated to a work function (like sales + marketing), a particular initiative (diversity/career growth), or even a community of interest (lifestyle/athletics), Yammer can help group leaders and employees keep a pulse on what is top of mind for the workforce. This could be issues, problems, process solutions, employee benefits, or anything else. Use group insights to see engagement levels. Use sentiment analysis to understand larger trends. Follow and create particular hashtags to track campaigns or specific issues. 

What are best practices for surfacing trends/common ideas/concerns in Yammer? 

There are some really great examples on the Yammer blog. Check out this article for best practices on sparking ideation. You can also host a YamJam, town hall, or create a poll to understand common issues that people are having. Look here for some more ideas on how to run dedicated campaigns.  

As our organization begins rolling out Microsoft Teams, is there similar guidance and recommendations on reengagement, live presentations, etc.?  

Absolutely. Here’s a guide to getting started with Teams. Here’s how to run a live event with Microsoft Teams.  

How do you set up keyword alerts in Yammer?  

You can find the documentation here under the keyword “monitoring.”

What resources are available today that we can use to increase our adoption and usage of Yammer internal to our organization? 

We have a ton of resources designed specifically for this. Check out this page. 

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