ANZ - How a thriving Viva Engage community helped employees through tough times

The Philippines endured one of the world’s longest running, strictest COVID-19-enforced quarantines. For close to two years, many residents had to stay indoors unless they could produce a pass enabling them to go out and buy essential items.

Needless to say, the restrictions impacted the mental and physical health of many Filipinos. One woman has gone above and beyond to ensure her colleagues can continue to work from home during the pandemic, access fresh food, feel motivated and connected, and help others in need. She’s done all this via Viva Engage/Yammer.

Virginia Ballerda, Engineer Chapter Lead at ANZ, uses ANZ’s “Connecting Philippines” Yammer community to keep her colleagues engaged and motivated, with the purpose of bringing happiness and a sense of connection. The extent of Virginia’s dedication was uncovered when SWOOP Analytics’ analysis of more than 3,200 Yammer communities ranked ANZ’s Connecting Philippines as No.7 in the world for the Most Thriving Communities, based on the measures of community performance, energy (sentiment) and growth (activity and members).

“During the pandemic there was a lot of concern about mental wellness and a lot of people here in The Philippines were affected,” Virginia said.

“Most people weren’t able to go into their workplaces, and while I was lucky to be working at a global organisation like ANZ, some Filipinos, particularly those working for local companies, lost their jobs. I used Yammer to ensure my colleagues and peers had a place to connect.”

Virginia Ballerda, Engineer Chapter Lead, ANZ.

Virginia’s primary role at ANZ involves helping employees with their technology, so her first priority when posting on Yammer during the pandemic was to share work from home tips. These included practical tips on how to update software or do minor fixes to hardware. Remember, Filipinos couldn’t just go to their offices to get the tech team to update their computers. Imagine the feeling of not being able to log in and connect with the broader organisation, while at the same time being stuck at home unable to get in-person tech support.

“I started sharing tips to help people work seamlessly at home and avoid some of the common tech issues that would typically need to be resolved in the office,” Virginia said.

“I wanted to ensure that everyone could work and support our customers from home.”

An example of a tech help Yammer post from Virginia.

Motivation through recognition

This story is about much more than just helping people with their technology. One of the ways Virginia worked to keep the 1,000+ ANZ employees in the “Connecting Philippines” community connected and motivated was to encourage regular recognition and praise posts on Yammer, especially peer-to-peer posts, like calling out a colleague or a team for a job well done.

“I also encourage my colleagues to recognise their peers because I believe in the power of recognition,” Virginia said.

“When you recognise your team or peers, it boosts motivation.”

Learning to grow food – via Yammer

Just as some of us got swept up in the sourdough making craze that came with the pandemic; Virginia, passionate about environmental sustainability, created a craze of her own by teaching her colleagues how to grow their own food and plants.

“During lockdown here in the Philippines, if you didn’t have your own car it was difficult to go to the supermarket and buy food,” Virginia explained.

“So I showed people how to grow food from what they already have at home. I believe this was also positive for people’s mental wellbeing and provided something else to focus on other than just the pandemic.”

Virginia shared her green expertise on Yammer, including how some vegetables can be soaked in water to grow shoots which can then be planted and eaten soon afterwards.

Many ANZ employees who began to grow their own food shared photos and progress on Yammer.

“I also used Yammer to coordinate providing seedlings to my colleagues. At one point I think around 50 of my peers were growing their own food and sharing their progress on Yammer,” Virginia said.

“People from around ANZ also reached out to ask me about the initiative, hoping they could do the same thing in their communities.

“We also had employees that wanted to grow flowering plants, so I gathered a group of volunteers to propagate plants and then give them out to people for free. I would announce on Yammer, using #AdoptAPlant, that I had some free plants to give away and they would quickly all be taken up.

“It makes people happy and people would always be looking out for my posts so they could take some freebies!”

The #AdoptAPlant campaign initiated by Virginia has been one of the Hot Topics on ANZ’s Connecting Philippines Yammer community over the past year, according to data from SWOOP Analytics.

Some examples of #AdoptAPlant posts on ANZ’s Yammer network.

“These sorts of initiatives might seem like a bit of fun, but I believe they go a long way towards helping people with their mental wellness, it helps people feel more connected to work and their colleagues,” Virginia said.

Years cultivating community via Yammer at ANZ

The thriving Yammer communities at ANZ didn’t just happen overnight. ANZ has consistently ranked among the top Yammer networks in the world in SWOOP Analytics’ Yammer Benchmarking Reports based on measures for participation, people-to-people engagement, responsiveness, and innovation.

In SWOOP’s 2022/23 analysis of more than 21 million Yammer and Viva Engage interactions from 4.7 million employees, ANZ was ranked No.1 worldwide for large-size organisations. Yammer has become a part of the culture at ANZ, after years of cultivation.

In the early days of Yammer, it was fostered by CEO Shayne Elliott, who used it as a tool to listen to his employees. What’s interesting since the pandemic is that peer-to-peer engagement has risen significantly; it’s not only leaders who generate significant engagement and conversation when they post a story, a question or an experience.

Ryan Crocker, Adoption and Communications Lead at ANZ, said almost every time an employee perspective or experience is featured on Yammer using the Featured Conversation function, it breaks ANZ’s record for the most seen by and engaged post.

ANZ’s Yammer team uses Featured Conversations thoughtfully and sparingly, and tracks engagement with SWOOP. The most recent post had more than 25,000 views, almost half of ANZ’s workforce.

“What we’re finding works really well is if it’s an employee story,” Ryan said.

Ryan Crocker, Adoption and Communications Lead, ANZ.

“If it’s an employee sharing a personal experience, a perspective or opinion on something it works really well.”

“Some recent conversations that generated a lot of engagement have included a banker that shared a story about a customer who came into a branch with a unique situation, the banker talked about how they were able to make a significant difference for that customer.

“Another was a powerful personal story about mental health and wellbeing - that one really resonated with our employees.

“All that kind of content just goes nuts. It shows that our employees really value the opportunity to hear and share stories and engage directly with their peers on Yammer.

“Yammer creates a strong sense of community and connection. Now we’re not connecting in our workplaces as often, I think people are increasingly looking for digital ways to bridge that gap.”

Ryan said the examples Virginia shared are great instances of community and connection in action.

“The richness of the activity in the Connecting Philippines community was born out of the difficult situation people were facing in the Philippines,” Ryan said.

“Yammer provided a great place for people to connect and share the love. It’s that sense of community and connection where employees can talk about what’s important to them and how they can support one another.”