Engage Squared – The power of puppy posts
When the CEO of consulting company Engage Squared got a new puppy, he introduced his latest family addition to his colleagues with a post on Viva Engage.
Sure, photos of a super-cute puppy are always sure to grab attention, but this sort of post coming from a CEO can achieve so much more than just likes and reactions.
Engage Squared CEO Stephen Monk’s Viva Engage post introducing his new puppy.
Firstly, a post like Stephen Monk’s introduction to his new puppy Daisy on Viva Engage allows the CEO to share parts of his personal life with his employees and build connections, breaking down traditional organisational hierarchies.
It's also an example of the culture at Engage Squared. People are encouraged to share the parts of their personal lives they’re comfortable with sharing, so everyone can better understand each other. It also brings some fun and smiles to work.
Three of the top four Most Engaging Posts on the SWOOP Analytics dashboard from the past three months at Engage Squared were "social" posts - two about pets and one about outfits for an upcoming company retreat. These discussions create a sense of fun and connectedness at Engage Squared.
A screenshot of Engage Squared’s Most Engaging Posts from SWOOP Analytics.
The connectedness of social posts can’t be underestimated, especially in an organisation where employees are spread across Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Japan. There is only one employee located in each of the Australian states of South Australia and Tasmania, and the Australian Capital Territory, so the social posts help connect these geographically isolated people and make them feel included.
Stephen Monk, CEO, Engage Squared.
“Sharing posts on Viva Engage, like the one about my new dog, goes to culture,” said Engage Squared CEO Stephen Monk.
“We have a space where people feel like they can talk about their lives, where work is not just work.”
Stephen holds one-on-one meetings with every new starter at Engage Squared and checks in every now and again in team meetings. Viva Engage is the next step to keeping connected and Stephen uses it to ask people about their lives and share insights into his own.
“It all goes to that side of wanting to have a good collaborative work environment, and sharing stories about what’s in our life is really valuable for that,” he said.
Three key purposes of Viva Engage
Stephen said Viva Engage has three key purposes at Engage Squared.
The first is to showcase the completion of successful projects and share lessons learned.
At the end of each project, a summary of the project is shared on Viva Engage, along with any lessons learned. Each post includes the hashtag #WeDoneGood, and data from SWOOP Analytics shows it’s the No.1 Hot Topic on Engage Squared’s Viva Engage network. Those who worked on the project are tagged in the post.
With Engage Squared offices and colleagues spread across the APAC region, sharing the lessons learned on Viva Engage allows every employee to gain knowledge from the experience and learn what worked and what didn’t. Working this way results in organisation-wide social learning, which helps deepen Engage Squared’s project management core competency.
An example of a #WeDoneGood post.
“Showcasing successful projects and sharing stories about the work that we’ve done helps us to share those stories with potential future customers, but also look at re-using good work so that we’re able to deliver more stuff more quickly in the future,” Stephen said.
The second key purpose of Viva Engage is to nurture a culture of sharing and connectedness, where people feel comfortable to talk about their lives, and the third purpose is reward and recognition.
Stephen said the reward and recognition purpose is critical because it’s a way to acknowledge and praise people. The posts are then amplified at the monthly all-hands meeting, with Stephen calling out the good work of everyone mentioned in the praise post.
“We share praise and take screenshots and put them into our all-hands deck at the start of each month,” he said.
“It reinforces that Viva Engage is the channel where you go and praise people for great contributions by then using that as the content we talk about at our all hands meeting. It reinforces there’s a business reason and side effect for using Viva Engage, or a ‘what’s in it for me’.”
Anyone can post praise on Viva Engage, then screenshots are taken of each post and shared in the monthly all-hands meeting.
An example of a Praise post in Viva Engage.
Engage Squared was ranked No.1 in SWOOP Analytics’ 2023/24 Viva Engage worldwide benchmarking analysis for small-size organisations (between 100 and 1,500 active employees, with “active” employees being those who have at least reacted to a post in the past three months) in the APAC region. Engage Squared has continually been among the top achievers in SWOOP Analytics’ benchmarking across all aspects of the Microsoft 365 suite.
Practical ways to get people using Viva Engage
Engage Squared recently held an all-company retreat in the New South Wales Blue Mountains and kicked off the team building activities with a treasure hunt. One aspect of the treasure hunt was to meet someone new with the letter E in their name and take a photo. All the answers to the treasure hunt had to be shared by each team on Viva Engage.
An example of a Viva Engage post for the company retreat treasure hunt.
“So you had to go around and get to know each other and you had to create your post and put it back on Viva Engage,” said Claudia Piscitelli, Chief Experience Officer at Engage Squared.
Viva Engage was also used in the lead-up to the company retreat to discuss important topics like what outfits to wear, adding to the sense of fun and connectedness.
A Viva Engage post about outfits for the upcoming company retreat.
Claudia Piscitelli, Chief Experience Officer, Engage Squared.
“We had the cutest pet award at employee awards night and we put up the nominees in this same community. Viva Engage is a key channel that we really use to help drive culture and connection with each other,” Claudia said.
“Even though we use (Microsoft) Teams to collaborate, Viva Engage is still the place that we go to for more of that wide-spread celebration and praise and also just the goofing around with each other.”
Read more how Engage Squared collaborates across M365 in these case studies:
· Engage Squared – where collaboration is non-negotiable
· Engage Squared - It’s all Japanese to me
