When news broke that the Perth metropolitan area and surrounding regions were about to go into a snap lockdown at 6pm on Sunday, January 31, 2021, with just a few hours’ notice, St John WA Medical Director Paul Bailey was out taking a Sunday walk.

For 10 months there had not been a single case of community-transmitted COVID-19 in Western Australia, and suddenly the state capital and its surrounding areas were in hard lockdown as bushfires raged on the outskirts of the city.

The sudden news, which would affect thousands of first responders, as well as support staff, prompted Paul to pop on his headphones, fire up his smartphone, and record a message to frontline staff and volunteers, posting it straight to St John WA’s social network, Yammer. All while he was out taking his walk.

“Okay, this is going to mean you’re going to have to wear full PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) from 6pm tonight,” he said.

“We’re not taking any risks. Every patient, every case, you’ll have full PPE.”

Paul explained St John WA was working with the state’s health department to determine more details and as soon as the new procedures were finalised, 9,000 plus employees and volunteers would receive the information through formal channels.

“Normally we wouldn’t use Yammer to announce crucial changes,” St John WA Internal Communications Advisor Hannah Cocivera said.

“But in that kind of scenario, it really was the best thing to do.

“Everyone was hearing the announcements via the news, and heading straight to Yammer, and they saw the video from Paul saying; ‘Yes, we’re working on it, this is what it’s going to mean, this is why we’re going to do it and we’re going to give you all the information when we can’.”

Meanwhile, St John WA’s Internal Communications and Incident Management Team was working flat-out to update clinical guidelines, as well as the organisation’s intranet, and write update emails to go out that evening.

“We were working on the more formal communication but in the meantime our leadership team were able to use Yammer as the holding platform,” Hannah said.

The following morning, St John WA CEO Michelle Fyfe used Yammer to share a video of herself reinforcing the details from the email sent to all paramedics, operational staff, volunteers and support staff the night before and clarifying any questions.

During the five-day lockdown, as thousands of homes were also being threatened by bushfires, Michelle continued to update St John WA personnel with videos on Yammer, acknowledging that many employees and volunteers’ houses were impacted by the fires while they were in a hard lockdown and having to wear full PPE in soaring temperatures in the heat of summer while fires raged.

Michelle let her people know she and the rest of the executive team were thinking about the frontline workers, and shared resources for help.

Data from SWOOP Analytics showed thousands of people saw the posts in St John WA’s Yammer network and were able to ask questions and receive answers from executives.

“It worked so well because it did what the platform is meant to do, which is humanise the leaders and give connection to on-road people,” Hannah said.

Fast tracking collaboration for COVID-19

Yammer had only been in operation at the ambulance service for less than a year when these examples occurred.

St John WA provides ambulance, first aid and patient transport services, as well as other medical and dental services, for the entire state of Western Australia, which is bigger than Western Europe, four times the size of Texas and 20 times bigger than England.

Prior to the launch of Yammer in March 2020, St John WA had limited two-way communication and collaboration tools available to its workforce. Staff and volunteers were reliant predominately on one-way communications delivered via phone, email and the SharePoint intranet.  

The organisation was in need of a network to connect more than 9,000 personnel and give them a platform to ask questions, find answers and connect with fellow team members across the state.

The decision to launch Yammer aligned with St John WA’s priorities, including listening to staff and volunteers and enabling greater leadership visibility. It aimed to ensure frontline staff learning was based on facts, customer case examples and continuous learning.

Launching Yammer in 7 days

St John WA partnered with consultants Engage Squared and planned a 10-week program to roll out Yammer across the organisation, intending to commence in March 2020. But then COVID-19 hit and put the world into lockdown.

The 10-week program for the launch of Yammer and Teams was fast tracked into seven days out of a necessity to immediately reach all operational personnel across the state.

On day one of the launch of Yammer, Michelle kicked off the new platform with a video. A week later, there were 2,000 interactive users on the platform. Data from SWOOP showed response rates at 88 per cent, well above the global average according to SWOOP’s benchmarking reports. 

There was now an inclusive and organisationally-enabled platform for two-way communications with frontline workers. Hannah said Michelle and other leaders’ use of Yammer worked as an invitation for everyone to use the platform.

Along with video updates and key messages posted on Yammer, critical content was also shared in the form of short videos.

Using analytics to see gaps in communication

Given the geographical challenges faced by St John WA, combined with limited internet access in some parts of the enormous state and the differing demographics of volunteer staff, Hannah said it was important to see which demographics and segments of the organisation were using Yammer well and which needed help – something that can be seen at a glance with SWOOP.

“With SWOOP we can see the groups that are really active, we can monitor how they move and change and see what people are talking about and interested in,” Hannah said.

“Quite often we see a spike and I can tell, by looking at SWOOP, what the spike is from. We can also give leaders and community managers more information about their groups.”

Hannah benchmarks St John WA’s directors each month and shows them their personal SWOOP persona, which gives them insights into their behaviours on Yammer and tips on how to improve their collaboration style.

Connecting the frontline to executives

Soon after the five-day lockdown ended in Western Australia in February, St John WA’s directors hit the road with paramedics and ambulance crews for a Directors’ Day Out, the first since the start of the pandemic.

The next day, one of the paramedics who met the executive posted on Yammer asking the directors about their experience and what they learned.

It’s a perfect example of how Yammer has enabled frontline workers - the paramedics who save lives - to connect, communicate and collaborate with the organisation’s executives, in less than a year of using Yammer.

“Our network has matured way quicker than I ever expected, considering the circumstances with COVID, but our organisation was ready for a platform that allowed two-way communication and a shared space to collaborate,” Hannah said.

“We really needed it, and now we can focus on the next steps, which is helping our business identify how best we can use Yammer, whilst supporting our people to use this tool to connect with their peers across the state.”