When Westpac New Zealand launched its own Yammer network to its 5,000 employees scattered across the country, in some of the world’s most geographically remote towns and cities, it had the (perhaps ambitious) idea it would break down the divide between head office and the rest of the company.

Guess what? That’s exactly what happened!

Three years in and Westpac New Zealand’s Yammer network has become a community where every employee at the bank has a voice, everyone can be heard, and traditional organisational and hierarchical divides have been shattered.

It’s also become the primary channel for communication.

Sadly, this has been put to the test during emergencies including devastating earthquakes, a volcanic eruption, the tragic mosque shooting in Christchurch and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yammer has worked as a primary communications channel during emergencies because Westpac NZ employees have been encouraged to install the Yammer app on their personal devices so it’s accessible to all, regardless of whether they have access to a work computer at the time of an emergency.

Fiona Roberts, Senior Digital Engagement Manager, Westpac New Zealand.

“Every time we have something like a natural disaster, Yammer becomes our primary channel, basically because other communication channels may not be available to affected employees,” said Westpac NZ’s Senior Digital Engagement Manager, Fiona Roberts.

“Essentially, it’s been a great tool for us to check in with people and make sure they’re okay. We can offer support, we can get a community of people going, we can share coping tips. Really, Yammer has been quite a godsend for us.”

As well as the earthquakes and tremors in Christchurch, in March 2019 two consecutive mass shootings occurred at mosques in a terrorist attack during Friday prayer. 51 people were killed.

“Yammer was a key channel for us because we used it to allow people to pour out their grief and their thoughts and prayers for the people of Christchurch,” Fiona said.
“We really led with Yammer. That’s where we did our first posting and shared the condolences, and then opened it up for people to post whatever they wanted in terms of sharing their thoughts, prayers or their feedback.
“It was a hugely important channel from that point of view.”

Christchurch shooting Westpac NZ support messages.png

Messages of support on Westpac NZ’s Yammer network.

A message of support from Westpac’s Group CEO Brian Hartzer posted on Yammer.

Keeping it fun

It’s not all about emergencies and tragedy though. There is a lot of fun in the mix, not to forget work!

Take for example this Yammer post from Westpac NZ CEO David McLean.

Every year the bank has a company recognition program called Legends. Employees are nominated for a Legends Award and all monthly winners become eligible for Annual Legends. The Annual Legends winners are then invited to a trip away.

David McLean was on a personal trip at the location for this year’s Annual Legends trip and recorded a video, giving a few hints and visual clues as to where he was, but not giving away too much. He asked the Westpac team on Yammer to guess where he was and where the Annual Legends were headed.

“This thing went gangbusters and he nearly broke the network because people were all trying to guess where he was,” Fiona said.

“He got such an amazing response and such amazing feedback.”

SWOOP Analytics data showed Mr McLean was Westpac NZ’s No.1 Most Influential Person after that video post. (In case you’re guessing, the mystery destination is New Zealand’s adventure capital Queenstown.)

“The hardest thing when you’ve got 5,000 geographically spread people is how do you bring those 5,000 people together?” Fiona said.

“One of the things that we know during the COVID-19 lockdown is it’s really hard for them to speak to our senior leadership team, with most people working from home. They’re not engaging as much with their leaders, not having lunch-time conversations, or having our regular get-togethers in the office, so Yammer is a lovely way for them to be able to talk to people and for leaders to seem genuine, authentic and approachable.”

She said this is where the Internal Communications team has been pushing Yammer to Westpac NZ leaders to make them accessible to all employees, especially during the COVID-19 period.

Bringing the fun to work. A #summersnaps campaign in Yammer.

Measuring executive engagement on Yammer

One way to make leaders accessible to all employees was to get them to post a video on Yammer during the COVID-19 lockdown showing their home, their kids and pets, which resulted in great engagement, all of which is measured with SWOOP Analytics.

Westpac NZ also uses SWOOP to benchmark business units and leadership teams to see what they’re talking about, how they are role modelling the use of Yammer, are they asking questions? Are they actively engaging people? Are they responding to posts in a timely manner?

“Our lives improved enormously once we got SWOOP. It’s not just about having the tool but having someone who really understands it to help us,” Fiona said, referring to SWOOP’s Customer Success Managers.

Together with SWOOP, Westpac NZ has worked on identifying the things that need improvement, following the Enterprise Social Network maturity model.

“We have given ourselves measures of how we will grow and with the opportunities in mind how can we shape our communications strategy so Yammer is a key channel and we can continue to grow that channel,” Fiona said.

Fiona and her team rely on SWOOP’s Most Influential People widget to help champion campaigns along with SWOOP’s Hot Topics measure.

“We might delve into why was it a hot topic, what triggered that topic? Was it related to the people participating in the topic or was it a particularly good topic? Was it the way the question was asked or the way the campaign was devised? SWOOP really has helped us get better at what we do,” she said.
“Every time we do a campaign or a competition we can look at how that competition has gone versus other types of competitions, who has participated in them, where has that landed, who is conversing, who are the influencers? These are fantastic measures. We would never be able to improve without these SWOOP measures. It’s been an amazing relationship.”

The hard work has paid off, with Westpac NZ ranked in the top three medium-sized organisations in SWOOP’s 2020 Global Yammer Benchmarking, the world’s largest analysis of Yammer networks.

Innovation with Yammer

One of Westpac NZ’s most popular Yammer Communities is called #WarOnStuff. It’s a place where any employee, especially those who are customer-facing, can share ideas to improve processes and, ultimately, the customer experience.

“How do we get rid of the niggly processes and ridiculous paperwork and old, outdated technology? How do we make things simpler for our customers?” Fiona explained.

“We really wanted to be in that innovation space. How can we get better at what we do for our own people, and the customers we look after? How can we make sure that everything is simple and easy?”

Employees post in the #WarOnStuff community and stuff gets fixed! In fact, the leader who runs #WarOnStuff was the No.1 Influencer for the most recent 12-month period, SWOOP showed.

“#WarOnStuff is having a massive impact. The emphasis is on putting customers and their needs first. This is what we do every day,” Fiona said.

Westpac New Zealand’s Yammer journey

Westpac New Zealand created its own Yammer platform for its people in 2017.

“Yammer NZ was designed to be a space for everybody to do what they wanted to do, and we were clear from the start that we wanted to build a local community,” explained Fiona.

“We’ve always said; ‘This is your space’. We monitor it, but we don’t take anything down unless it’s against the guidelines that we have agreed to.”

There are simple guidelines for Yammer usage but otherwise it’s up to employees to use it as they see fit, whether that’s to talk about their cat, their work, LGBTQIA+ groups, or accessibility groups.

“We see our Yammer network as a team of 5,000 all pulling in the same direction, supporting and engaging with each other and we give them permission to use that channel for whatever they chose to use it for.”

Westpac New Zealand is one of New Zealand’s largest and oldest banks, helping New Zealanders with their money since 1861. It boasts more than 1.3 million customers in almost 200 locations. Westpac NZ is part of Westpac Group, one of four major banking organisations in Australia.

To find out the most influential people, the most engaging posts and more in your organisation, sign up for a free trial of SWOOP Analytics.