The world’s largest home improvement retailer, the operator of London’s underground Tube network and an Australian-headquartered multi-national bank have taken out honours as the world’s best networks in SWOOP Analytics’ 2021 global analysis of Microsoft’s Yammer. 

Transport for London (EMEA), ANZ bank (APAC) and the world’s largest home improvement retailer (Americas, but you’ll have to download the report to find out who we’re talking about) were recognised as the top Yammer networks for large-size organisations in SWOOP’s 2021 analysis, based on measures for participation, people-to-people engagement, responsiveness and innovation. 

Global publishing giant Wiley, Aggreko, the world’s largest supplier of mobile and modular energy solutions, and Australia’s largest health insurer Medibank were the top ranked organisations for medium-sized organisations in SWOOP’s 2021 benchmarking.  

RealFoundations, the world’s foremost provider of management consulting and managed services to the real estate industry, was the No.1 Yammer community for small-size organisations in the Americas, with semiconductor intellectual property company Imagination Technologies taking out the top prize for EMEA and Australia’s largest member organisation NRMA, best known for its roadside assistance, won the title in the APAC region. 

We’ve spoken with the Yammer Community managers and facilitators from all these organisations and shared their stories, experiences and best practices in SWOOP’s 2021 Yammer Benchmarking Report. 

Our 2021 winners for the best Yammer networks are: 

Using real-time data, SWOOP analysed more than 13 million Yammer interactions, 2.8+ million employees, more than 4,300 Yammer Communities across 75 organisations in our 2021 benchmarking. 

We also took a deep dive into some of the top ranked Yammer communities, using our anonymous ranking and assessment measures to identify the Top Yammer Communities, Most Innovative Communities and Most Involved Communities. 

One of the Most Innovative Communities was identified as a plant group on Victoria Police’s Yammer network, a network rolled out earlier this year to the Australian state’s police service’s 23,000 employees. 

By connecting over plants, Victoria Police can identify conversations and connections that have led to immediate business value.  

Victoria Police also shared examples of crime solving with the help of Yammer. Prior to Yammer being rolled out across the police service, identifying offenders from CCTV footage was a long, time-consuming operation. 

CCTV files were too big to email so the process involved sending video footage to an intelligence unit, trawling through the footage to get a clear image of alleged offenders, taking screen shots, formatting it and emailing it to those that needed it – hoping you get to the right people on the email list. This would take hours, if not days. 

Once the email is sent, how do people know which offenders have already been identified? Do you ‘reply all’ or reply directly? Who might have missed the email? 

Since the implementation of Yammer, it’s as simple as dragging the video file across to Yammer and hitting “post”. This has already led to crimes being solved in Victoria. 

Another Most Innovative Community identified by SWOOP is consulting company Engage Squared’s “Social” Yammer community.  

In this community, a bot randomly @mentions an employee and asks them a question like: What’s your favourite part of the workday? What’s your favourite board game? How do you have your coffee? What’s the last thing you do at night? 

The idea is the bot – named Flow Bot - gets people engaged on Yammer by asking them a personal question. It gets employees logging onto the enterprise social network so they may look around to see what else is being posted in other communities, it allows colleagues to learn a little more about each other, it gives everyone a break from the regular work day - hopefully bringing some fun to work - and it allows employees to “practice” using Yammer in a safe environment, making them feel comfortable to use the digital platform. 

The Leukaemia Foundation’s “Celebrating our People” Yammer community was identified as one of the top individual Yammer communities in the analysis of more than 4,300 communities, while luxury goods company Cartier North America boasted the No.1 Yammer community for participation levels. 

Read in-depth case studies on all these organisations in SWOOP’s 2021 Yammer Benchmarking Report.