While you were sleeping - connecting shift workers with Yammer

It can get pretty lonely working in the middle of the night in London while the rest of the city sleeps. For London Underground’s maintenance workers and engineers, the hours between midnight and 5am are some of the busiest.

While everyone else sleeps, those maintaining London’s Tube network are fixing tracks, carriages and train engines ready for the world to wake and get to where they’re going.

Until Transport for London (TfL) rolled out Microsoft’s Enterprise Social Network Yammer to its 27,000 employees, there was little way for those working the graveyard shift to share the vital work they’re doing with the rest of the organisation.

TfL now boasts the No.1 Yammer community globally for Most Responsive Community in SWOOP Analytics’ analysis of more than 4,300 Yammer communities in 2021. TfL’s overall Yammer network was also ranked No.1 for large-size organisations in EMEA.

The Most Responsive Community is one called “Where Am I?”. It’s a community where TfL workers post random photos of the London Underground network and ask colleagues to take a guess where they’re working. Posts are regularly met with hundreds, if not thousands, of comments as colleagues take a punt as to where the photo was taken. Most of this engagement stems from posts from just five or six colleagues.

“It’s pictures of the network,” said Lloyd Cattell, Digital Communications Manager at Transport for London.

“The pictures are usually random parts of a station somewhere and loads of people seem to get involved. Some of these have broken off into questions and discussions.”

The posts are all phrased as questions and while many of the responses are from people taking guesses, many more discuss operational issues and move into work-related discussion.

Neil Pepper is a regular poster on the “Where Am I?” Yammer community and is now one of the Most Influential People on TfL’s Yammer network, according to data from SWOOP Analytics.

An example of a “Where Am I” post on TfL’s Yammer network.

“On the Tube, trains run after midnight and start again before 5am so there’s a very small window where you can actually do anything - but yet we still have to fully maintain the track and fix problems on the trains. All of these things have to happen in such a tiny window and we have colleagues that work to make all these things happen - and then we come to work without knowing about all the magic behind the scenes,” Lloyd said.

“So Neil, for example, is sharing pictures about what he’s doing. People wouldn’t usually see the things he does because they happen when we’re all sleeping. Likewise, it’s nice for the rest of the business to see how much work goes into keeping things running that we don’t even know about.

“It’s a really interesting business and that’s one of the reasons Yammer works so well, because it’s quite fascinating to see what other people do to keep our city moving. Seeing so many fascinating things on Yammer encourages loads of colleagues to use it.”

An example of a post from Neil Pepper on the LU Renewals & Enhancements Yammer community.

Getting shift workers onto Yammer

Train operators, maintenance staff and other shift workers are integral to the smooth operation of London’s Underground system yet communicating with them can be difficult when, by the nature of their work, they can’t be on devices while working.

That’s where Yammer communities like “Where Am I?” have been so important to bring shift workers onto the digital platform and to connect with colleagues and join in conversations.

By getting these workers onto Yammer to connect with colleagues, they can then catch up with company communications. TfL has a Bring Your Own Device policy where employees can install Yammer and shift workers can access it on their commutes to and from work.

“If you’re working as a train operator, you’re working on your own the majority of the time and you probably don’t have the same connection with colleagues as in other roles,” Lloyd said.

“Yammer gives them the ability to find out what other people are doing, how other train operators are finding things. It’s nice to have that connection to see how other people are doing things and that’s potentially a big chunk of the reason they like to use it.

Yammer posts from Neil Pepper sharing images from his overnight shift at South Harrow.

“For us, part of the benefit is they see our (company) updates too, but I’m sure it’s the connection side of it that they really benefit from and that’s why they choose to use it.”

James Mountford, Senior Communications Manager at TfL, said Yammer has allowed a diverse spread of connections across the workforce that otherwise may not be achievable, especially with six Staff Network Groups that give employees the chance to share ideas and support each other in developing TfL’s equality agenda in all areas of employment.

“It’s really difficult to meet people outside of your local area particularly when you’re not in a role where you don’t manage your own time and diary,” he said.

How the pandemic helped with Yammer adoption

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns stopped large face-to-face conferences at TfL, paving the way for live events on Yammer.

James Mountford, Senior Communications Manager at TfL.

Colleagues were able to use Yammer to see and hear leaders delivering messaging, which was very important during the uncertainty of the pandemic.

“If they want to hear from the Commissioner or MD (managing director) from London Underground they’ll join the Yammer live event,” James said.

“This has also helped with adoption onto Yammer.”

TfL Commissioner, Andy Byford, Managing Director for London Underground, Andy Lord, and other leaders regularly engage in conversations on Yammer and ensure there are Q&A communities where every employee can ask questions and receive responses.

“Almost every other week there’s the MD or one of his reports running a Yammer Q&A and it’s really breaking though and it’s helping those leaders have that direct conversation with their people in a nice friendly way,” James said.

“It’s an incredibly powerful tool to reach areas of the workforce that potentially wouldn’t see other things.”

James said TfL is taking advantage of the marked “Best Answer” feature in the new Yammer. By using the “Feature Conversation” tool to put a featured post at the top of employees’ Yammer feed, TfL has had 16,000 people see a post.

“We’re talking more than half our workforce will see something that we post on Yammer. As a tool for us as a communications team, it’s really powerful,” James said.

TfL’s Yammer journey

TfL initially began using Yammer in 2009 and it was widely embraced across the network prior to and during the 2012 London Olympics. However, there was no “owner” for Yammer at TfL at the time and eventually the business stopped using it.

A few years later, the Employee Communications and Engagement department successfully pushed for Yammer to be re-introduced under its ownership. House rules were established and Yammer was embraced. Since then it has been used as a communications and collaboration tool across TfL, with about three-quarters of the 27,000 employees using Yammer.

“It’s become a collaborative space that’s safe, but also somewhere where people can say the things that they think and we (and leaders) can listen to feedback,” Lloyd said.

“People can speak their mind on Yammer and the conversations that would otherwise be ‘by the water cooler’ are very open on Yammer - which I think is overwhelmingly positive because a lot of things that leaders would never hear about, they see and can respond to as well, which is quite powerful.

“People have the confidence to be honest.”