When consultancy company Bip UK & Bip US ranked No.2 in SWOOP Analytics’ 2022/23 worldwide Viva Engage & Yammer Benchmarking of 97 organisations, we asked; “What did you do differently this year?” 

Sarah Parry, Head of Knowledge Management, had an immediate answer.  

During the 2021 Yammer Festival hosted by SWOOP Analytics, Sarah watched a session with Paul Brereton, Head of Digital Communications at Aggreko, the world’s largest supplier of mobile and modular energy solutions. 

In the session, Paul explained how he uses data from SWOOP Analytics to produce a monthly report about Aggreko’s Yammer usage, which he shares on Viva Engage for all to see. Paul @mentions the most influential colleagues in the monthly report, highlights the Most Engaging Posts, the top topics people are discussing, the top groups on Viva Engage each month and so on. 

“I looked at that dashboard and thought; ‘We’re all about data, why aren’t we doing this?’,” Sarah said. 

“So, at the end of December, I ran our first dashboard.” 

To Sarah’s surprise, the Viva Engagement & Yammer engagement metrics from December were high despite many employees taking time off for the Christmas and New Year celebrations. A closer look at the data showed the higher levels of engagement for December could be linked to the online work Christmas party where a competition was held to share a photo of your team on Viva Engage, which received loads of responses and reactions. 

In her first monthly Viva Engage report post, Sarah @mentioned the top influencers, reported on how many people had been using Viva Engage, the number of posts made, replies, reactions and how often people @mention each other. She also highlighted the two-way relationships occurring across the organisation and if people are active in more than one community, along with the response rate and the distribution of SWOOP Personas. 

“I always start each post with a summary and that the data is from SWOOP,” Sarah said. 

“I committed after that first month to do a report on the first day of each month, looking back on the previous month. I praise the individuals and I say; ‘thank you’, to top 10 influencers and tag them. We’re starting to get some real competition going to get on the report.”  

Leaders are also taking notice of Sarah’s monthly Viva Engage updates, with Sarah and Dani Lindley, Head of Corporate Communications & Engagement, working with the leadership team to show them the importance of engaging on Viva Engage. 

“We’ve got the stats, we can prove this, our people really are on Yammer (Viva Engage) and we want to see you too, Yammer is an important channel for engagement,” Sarah said. 

These monthly Viva Engage reports are amplified in Bip’s weekly internal email, as well as posted on the SharePoint intranet, with direct links to the Yammer post with the monthly update. 

“We’re sharing it across all of the channels,” Sarah said. 

“We’re posting it in Yammer itself for those people who are in Yammer. We also publish a news article in SharePoint and we mention it in our weekly email newsletter, for those who prefer to keep in touch through email.” 

Back to the question; “What did you do differently this year?”, Sarah summed up; “What’s different? This is the difference.” 

Simply using the data from SWOOP Analytics to create monthly reports, posting those reports and @mentioning people identified each month has in itself created a new lifeblood in Viva Engage. Employees see at a glance the hottest topics, most engaging posts and most influential people across the Yammer network, drawing many into the platform. 

Welcoming new employees via Yammer 

One of the regular hot topics on Bip’s Viva Engage network is #newjoiners, where new employees are asked to post on Viva Engage and introduce themselves to their new colleagues. 

“All of these get loads of interactions,” Sarah said. 

“When we do the monthly dashboard with SWOOP data, we see that #newjoiner is consistently one of the top five topics. There tends to be a lot of engagement on these posts.” 

During new employees’ induction week, Sarah introduces them to Bip’s knowledge management ecosystem, including SharePoint and Viva Engage, and she emphasises that while she personally is not a fan of social media, Viva Engage is different because it’s a safe, warm and welcoming space where ideas and opinions can be shared with respect, people are celebrated and connections are created. 

At the end of the induction week, the new employees are asked to post on Viva Engage to introduce themselves and the team of new inductees make a short, usually funny, video to share on Viva Engage. 

“The #newjoiners is to help people to get over any concerns about posting for the first time,” Sarah said. 

“I encourage people and say; ‘With our hybrid ways of working, our digital channels are so important for connecting with others across the company. Yammer gives you that sense of community, it’s a very visible demonstration of our shared purpose.” 

“There’s a lot of praise, there is a lot of saying thank you.” 

Bring your whole self to work 

Bip UK & Bip US, formerly Chaucer, has always encouraged its people to bring their whole selves to work – and share what matters to them with their colleagues. Chaucer has regularly been among the top performers in SWOOP Analytics’ annual Viva Engage & Yammer benchmarking analysis and this year ranked No.2 overall, and No.1 for small-sized organisations (between 200 and 1,500 active staff) from the 97 organisations included in the benchmarking. 

Some of the new, and most popular, Viva Engage communities formed over the past year include a Keep Calm & Craft community, which started with people sharing their knitting and crochet projects and has since broadened to people sharing photos of their sculptures and artwork. 

Neurodiversity is another big topic on the Viva Engage network, with people sharing their personal experiences and resources. A “United” community celebrating all employees’ different cultures is one of the most engaging on Viva Engage. Different cultural festivals and holidays are shared, and again, many posts are linked to the weekly newsletter and on SharePoint. 

“We encourage people to bring their whole selves to work and Yammer is where they do that very openly and it then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Dani said. 

“We’ve discovered some amazing hidden talent of artists and sculptors, alongside the crafters. There is a big wellbeing aspect to this as well.” 

Dani also noted the increase in the number of photos and GIFs used in Viva Engage posts, something that is not coincidental. 

“When we onboard new joiners, we do mention the power of images in making engaging posts. We do appear to appreciate a well-chosen GIF,” she said. 

Perhaps the best endorsement for Viva Engage at Bip comes from a comment Sarah received recently. 

“I had someone say recently that they’ve only been here a few weeks, but they already feel they’ve made friends through Yammer,” she said. 

Bip, Italy's third-biggest management consultancy, acquired London-based consultancy Chaucer in July 2020, creating a global advisory company that employs more than 4,500 people.