Sergeant Madeline Gillard armed herself with doughnuts when she walked into Mill Park Police Station in Melbourne’s northern suburbs to spread the word about Yammer to her colleagues in blue.

In an organisation traditionally averse to change, Sgt Gillard figured doughnuts would be an ice breaker to get the conversation started and convert her colleagues to Yammer. She needn’t have bothered.

When Sgt Gillard walked into the police station, the inspector immediately recognised her as the owner of a two-metre high fiddle-leaf fig tree. He knew Sgt Gillard and her tree because he had seen her post on Yammer. He too had a two-metre high fiddle-leaf fig tree sitting in his office and conversation flowed from there. Others joined in the conversation, with some jokes about the inspector’s forest in his office.

Sgt Gillard’s Yammer post about her fiddle-leaf fig.

“Our work environment is so stark, it feels very clinical,” Sgt Gillard said.

“It just initiated this entire discussion about how we can make our work environments more palatable.”

What surprised Sgt Gillard was the fact that talking about plants opened up casual conversation between junior officers and their boss, an uncommon occurrence within police ranks.

“It was an instant ice breaker. It was a way to talk about how to improve upon what we already have in the workplace and it also cut down that barrier between the junior ranks and this high-ranking inspector, talking about plants of all things,” she said.
“The fact that Yammer was able to break down that barrier and enable a human conversation between the two, regardless of rank, it was an instant win.”

Use social communities to get people comfortable using Yammer

A post on Victoria Police’s “Plant and garden enthusiasts of VICPOL” Yammer community.

Posting a photo in a plant group on Victoria Police’s Yammer network, which was rolled out to the more than 23,000 employees across the state of Victoria in May 2021, sounds simple but the effects can be priceless.

This example of connecting and networking in social groups on Yammer shows the business value that can be created by forming connections that will later come into play in a business setting. Initially it’s about getting people onto Yammer and feeling comfortable using it, even if that means doing so via a group about plants.

A conversation on Victoria Police’s “Plant and garden enthusiasts of VICPOL” Yammer community.

The “Plant and garden enthusiasts of VICPOL” Yammer community was created by two officers working in high-stress units – one from a high-risk sex offenders unit and the other a detective from a regional family violence unit. Talking about plants brings some happiness to Victoria Police staff who have faced a challenging past two years experiencing and enforcing six COVID-19 lockdowns.

It turns out the Victoria Police plant community on Yammer is ranked among the top 10 in the world for Most Innovative Communities in SWOOP Analytics’ 2021 Microsoft Yammer Benchmarking analysis of more than 4,300 communities, the world’s most comprehensive analysis of Yammer networks.

The community ranked so highly due its performance in three SWOOP measures that are aligned with innovation in communities: Diversity of experience in the membership (members are active in multiple other communities), Curiosity (a high proportion of posts and replies framed as questions) and %Catalysts (a high proportion of members that are able to provoke reactions and discussion).

Developing networks with Yammer

Sgt Gillard said she’s seen many engaging networks develop since Yammer was rolled out across Victoria Police in mid-2021.

Lifting spirits by sharing some notes of thanks on Yammer.

“I’ve got people saying to me that they’ve reconnected with people they haven’t spoken to in 20 years just because they’ve seen their name pop up, I’ve had people saying; ‘I didn’t even know this work unit existed but because they posted in this group I saw them’,” she said.

“We’re already seeing those wins in such a short amount of time.”

Sgt Gillard’s story of walking into Mill Park Police Station is a perfect example of how a social Yammer community adds business value.

She said the networking opportunities of social Yammer communities are huge, and with so many people working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these communities prove employees are engaged in their workplace.

“It’s a way to feel connected and be connected, and to demonstrate to our employees that we’re more than an employee number,” Sgt Gillard said.
“We are people with lives and if we bring our lives to the workforce, then we’re more likely to get greater business out of our people as well.”

Data from SWOOP Analytics shows exactly who is connecting across the Victoria Police Yammer network and identify any gaps in communication. For example, if a specialist unit working on a case isn’t collaborating with the local police station, the gap in communication can be immediately identified and rectified.

How Yammer leads to crime solving

Prior to Yammer being rolled out across Victoria Police in May 2021, identifying offenders from CCTV footage was a long, time-consuming operation.

CCTV files were too big to email so the process involved sending video footage to an intelligence unit, trawling through the footage to get a clear image of offenders, taking screen shots, formatting it and emailing it to those that needed it – hoping you get to the right people on the email list. This would take hours, if not days.

Once the email is sent, how do people know which offenders have already been identified? Do you ‘reply all’ or reply directly? Who might have missed the email?

“Since the implementation of Yammer, it’s as simple as dragging the video file across and hitting post,” said Sgt Gillard, sharing the example of the first time Yammer was used to share CCTV footage following an incident in Geelong.

“The efficiency was realised instantly in that case and the fact people could skip through six minutes of high-definition CCTV footage was a great win to demonstrate the operational benefits Yammer produces.”

A CCTV video post on Victoria Police’s Yammer network.

Piloting Yammer at Victoria Police

Before launching Yammer to the entire Victoria Police workforce, a pilot program was implemented.

Each police service area in Victoria Police has its own community Facebook page to keep citizens up to date with relevant, local information called Eyewatch. There are about 1,000 Eyewatch coordinators across the state who were given an early access to trial Yammer.

To this group, the value of Yammer was immediately obvious. Australia Day was approaching in January 2021 and police were preparing for the annual occurrence of fireworks being mistakenly reported as gun shots.

Someone asked on Yammer if anyone had posted on Eyewatch a message about Australia Day fireworks and the dangers of illegal fireworks.

“So instead of everyone spending time on their own individual post, they could get together with a consistent message that suits Victoria Police, what we’re trying to achieve, it also has a WorkSafe line in it around dangers and all of a sudden we’ve got a consistent message that is tailored specifically to the community it’s being posted to,” Sgt Gillard said.

“We’re not reinventing the wheel.”

Finding a Yammer community manager within the ranks

As well as being a Yammer community manager, Sgt Gillard has a career in frontline operational and investigative policing and continues to work the beat on the frontline when needed. She believes having a Yammer community manager with real-life experience in the job brings instant trust.

“I’m casting an operational lens over all of this - I’m not coming from the ivory towers, I’m not coming from a communications background, I’m casting my mind to how can I make this platform work as a detective? How can I make this work as a copper on the van responding to 000 calls?” Sgt Gillard said.

“It really helps to build our employees’ trust and to be able to prove to them that Yammer is giving them the voice that they haven’t previously had. It’s sparking the conversations and it’s about two-way engagement rather than the broadcast comms that we’re so used to in our organisation.”

Another win for Yammer has been the willingness of middle management to embrace it. Perhaps surprisingly, Sgt Gillard said many young employees haven’t jumped at Yammer but middle-aged employees – especially those who appreciate the change for the better – have embraced it.

Initially, the focus was executive buy-in for Yammer but Sgt Gillard said this didn’t work for Victoria Police. The power comes from middle management for engagement across Victoria Police, something that can be measured with SWOOP Analytics.

“If I had my time again, I wouldn’t focus so much on executive engagement in the first instance because it almost turned people off Yammer and they felt like they didn’t have a voice because the leadership voices were too loud,” she said.

“Because we do have a rank structure, people felt like it was the command and we’re the observers.

“Having the sergeant or senior sergeant driving the roll-out has worked brilliantly, whereas if too much of it came from the executive level, it would turn people off in our environment.”

The value of data for evidence

Along with the launch of Yammer, Victoria Police also engaged SWOOP Analytics to measure Yammer usage across the police force.

“Police love evidence, and that’s what SWOOP Analytics provides,” Sgt Gillard said.
“We can share anecdotes of connections made and innovations achieved, but being able to use these in-depth analytics to give statistics and evidence is invaluable.
“We can demonstrate cross-department collaboration, and who’s communicating with influence, in ways not previously possible.”

SWOOP also allows Victoria Police to learn what communication strategies are working, and what areas they should focus on.

“It takes the guesswork out of our comms plans,” Sgt Gillard said.

“We can help our leaders communicate effectively and efficiently, and show that their efforts are reaping rewards.”

Hear more from Sgt Gillard in her Yammer Community Festival presentation.

Victoria Police - How plants lead to crime solving at Victoria Police