For the first time in nine years of Viva Engage and Yammer benchmarking, a large size organisation with more than 40,000 employees has been ranked as the highest performing Viva Engage network.

What makes this achievement so significant is that small-size organisations have historically dominated the performance rankings because it is often easier to achieve higher levels of employee engagement within smaller size organisations.

However, this year’s result – coming off the back of SWOOP Analytics’ 2022/23 benchmarking that identified medium-size organisation Westpac New Zealand as the top performer - proves any size organisation is capable of achieving true connection and engagement through Viva Engage.

The top ranked Viva Engage network for SWOOP Analytics’ 2023/24 Viva Engage Benchmarking is ANZ. Coming in at No.2 from all 97 organisations benchmarked is humanitarian aid organisation Christian Aid, with consulting company Engage Squared at No.3. Both Christian Aid and Engage Squared are small size organisations, with between 100 and 1,500 interactive users. Interactive users are those employees that have at least reacted to a Viva Engage post within the six-month benchmarked period.

These divisions of organisation size – small (between 100 and 1,500 interactive users), medium (between 1,500 and 8,000 interactive users) and large (more than 8,000 interactive users) - were made in recognition that it is often easier for smaller organisations to perform, compared with the larger organisations. This had always been the case until 2022/23 when Westpac New Zealand was ranked the best overall. (Westpac New Zealand ranked No.4 from the 97 organisations benchmarked this year). This shift in performance rankings – which are based on SWOOP Analytics’ extensive measures including participation, reciprocity, diversity, curiosity, response rates, @ mentions and more - reinforces size really does not matter when it comes to employee engagement on Viva Engage.

ANZ’s No.1 ranking in SWOOP Analytics’ benchmarking is a testimony to the culture of open conversation and knowledge sharing at the bank. It is important to remember this culture of collaborating on Viva Engage hasn’t happened overnight. ANZ has clawed its way up the rankings in SWOOP Analytics’ annual benchmarking before reaching the No.1 spot for large-size organisations in 2021, retaining that position in 2022, and claiming the overall No.1 place for all 97 organisations benchmarked in 2023/24.

SWOOP Analytics has been fortunate to ride this Viva Engage and Yammer journey with ANZ and the bank is a role model for any organisation to follow. ANZ’s Yammer journey started with CEO Shayne Elliott at the helm, using Yammer (now Viva Engage) to connect with his employees in genuine two-way conversation and taking the time to understand what’s important to them. Back in 2019, pre-COVID-19, Shayne was asking his employees their opinions on Yammer and listening to their answers. Read about his leadership in this case study.

In 2020, when the world of work changed due to the global pandemic, Yammer went “berserk” at ANZ and Shayne Elliott was again at the helm, doing a webcast every week, with the link shared back into the Yammer Q&A Community for everyone to join the conversation and ask questions.

Under the CEO’s leadership, the 40,000+ employees at ANZ have learned to come to Viva Engage and Yammer to connect, to learn, to ask questions and share knowledge. Over the years, Viva Engage has become a part of the culture among ANZ employees, and it’s allowed the CEO to now take a back seat role on the enterprise social network because while his leadership was needed in the early years, almost every leader, and the majority of employees, now know to come there, and the network is thriving.

“As a larger organisation it takes quite a while for things to catch on and grow over time, so I think we’re just witnessing that,” said Ryan Crocker, Adoption and Communications Lead at ANZ.

“Viva Engage is embedded in so many different areas of the bank and so many different people are using it in different ways that it’s just slowly but surely making its way throughout the organisation.

“I think what we see in our team day-to-day is probably just the tip of the iceberg as to how Viva Engage is being used.”

2023/24 Collaboration Champions

On top of the overall enterprise rankings, SWOOP Analytics has recognised the top performers from each region around the world and we have included case studies from each of these in the full benchmarking report. Drumroll please…

The 2023/24 Viva Engage Collaboration Champions are:

APAC

• Large-size organisation – ANZ

• Medium-size organisation – Westpac New Zealand

• Small-size organisation – Engage Squared

EMEA

• Large-size organisation – Major UK retailer

• Medium-size organisation – Aggreko

• Small-size organisation – Christian Aid

Americas

• Large-size organisation - The world’s largest home improvement retailer (name and case study included in the report)

• Medium-size organisation – Anonymous US-based global company

• Small-size organisation – RealFoundations

Community Champions

As well as ranking the top performing Viva Engage networks, which takes into account every Viva Engage community across each organisation, we also did a deep-dive analysis into 4,828 Viva Engage communities across 73 organisations we labelled as “active”. These “active” communities had regular activity throughout the six-month period assessed – posts, replies, reactions and an average of at least one interaction every workday for the six month period analysed.

We then analysed these communities on measures of reciprocity, connections, sentiment, growth, consistent activity and more to identify the top “thriving” communities. We approached the organisations with the top 10 thriving communities and asked to share their stories, many of which are included in the full report. Some organisations were happy to be named, without revealing the name of the top community, and some wished to remain anonymous. These are the top 10 thriving communities identified by SWOOP Analytics for 2023/24.

SWOOP Analytics would like to congratulate all these organisations on their success and thank you for allowing us to share your stories, experience and best practices in our report. We can’t wait to see next year’s results! If you would like to be included in next year’s benchmarking, you can find all the details on our website.