Western Sydney University - Sharing gratitude on Yammer to boost morale

When the city of Sydney and its surrounds went into an extended COVID-19-enforced lockdown in winter 2021, it hit many people hard.

The lockdown lasted almost four months and, at times, it was difficult to stay positive, especially after coming out of a previous lockdown in 2020. During the global pandemic, the tertiary education sector has been one of the hardest hit, and it’s been no exception for Western Sydney University.

It was in this environment that Western Sydney University’s Work Health Safety and Wellbeing Unit, supported by the University’s Communications team, ran a campaign to encourage its 5,000+ staff to share what they were most grateful for with a post on Yammer. The campaign was called Gratitude Week.

Melissa O'Leary, Communications Manager, Western Sydney University.

“The idea of Gratitude Week was to help combat some of the impact of the extended lockdown, and the challenges staff were experiencing, with a reminder to focus on small, positive moments,” said Melissa O'Leary, Communications Manager at Western Sydney University.

The campaign was introduced by Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Barney Glover AO, in an all-staff webinar on August 11, 2021 and supported by all-staff email updates and an introductory Yammer post by the Director of the Work Health Safety and Wellbeing Unit.

By the end of the week, there were hundreds of gratitude posts on Yammer. Almost nine in every 10 posts had responses, and 95% received reactions. Data from SWOOP Analytics shows the topic of #gratitude was the highest performing topic on Yammer during Gratitude Week, and for the entire 2021 calendar year.

An example of a gratitude post on Western Sydney University’s Yammer network.

Using Yammer to spread positivity

Melissa said the second wave of lockdowns across greater Sydney in 2021 seemed to take a toll on Western Sydney University staff.

“Emotionally and mentally everyone seemed quite drained, we were recovering from the first lockdown and that optimism of going back to normal, and then to go back into lockdown again for such a long period of time, the University wanted to ensure we considered the wellbeing of our staff,” she said.

“We suggested using Yammer as a platform for engaging with staff to express their gratitude because we just needed some positive messages in the doom and gloom in all the negativity of lockdown.”

That was the basis for Gratitude Week. The Communications team and Work Health, Safety and Wellbeing Unit pulled it all together in just over a week before launch.

The Communications team set up an online form to enable staff to post what they were grateful for, with an option to remain anonymous; a range of graphics for staff to use on Yammer, or as Zoom backgrounds, was produced to facilitate ongoing promotion of Gratitude Week through all-staff email updates.

Some of the graphics made available to use on Yammer posts in Gratitude Week.

To keep engagement going, each day of the week the Work Health Safety and Wellbeing Unit posted a small, achievable goal to help staff express gratitude about the little things in life.

“Ideas included taking a gratitude walk, encouraging a habit of gratitude in the workplace, keeping a gratitude journal and developing a gratitude tree,” said Toula Arronis, Communications Coordinator at Western Sydney University.

Daily Yammer posts also featured staff submissions from an online gratitude form, and posts encouraging staff to share what they were grateful for.

One of the Yammer summary posts of submissions to the online gratitude form. These were posted on Yammer throughout the week by the Work Health Safety and Wellbeing team.

At the end of Gratitude Week, which ran from August 13-17, highlights of the week were shared with staff, with links to each of the day’s summary posts.

Using data from SWOOP Analytics, Melissa and Toula found #gratitude was the most engaged topic during Gratitude Week, and throughout the whole year. A number of related “hot topics” around gratitude and mental health were also high on the “hot topics” across Western Sydney University.

Western Sydney University’s Hot Topics measure from SWOOP Analytics. Hot Topics are the topics associated with the most engagement.

Of the top 20 Most Engaging Posts on Yammer for the week of August 13-17, 2021, six were related to gratitude posts.

Western Sydney University’s Most Engaging Posts table from SWOOP Analytics.

The gratitude posts were not limited to work-related topics. Melissa said many employees shared examples of communities coming together, their gratitude to their kids’ school during online learning, enjoying a walk in the sun.

“It was really just people expressing some positivity in that week,” Melissa said.

“Following Gratitude Week, I feel a lot of people appreciated taking the time to express their positive thoughts, to hear words of thanks or stories from others that made them think from  a different perspective.”

An example of a Gratitude Week post - this one expressing gratitude about Gratitude Week itself.

Using Gratitude Week to reinvigorate Yammer

While the main aim of Gratitude Week at Western Sydney University was to lift staff morale and boost positivity, a secondary goal was to bring employees back to Yammer. Yammer was flourishing across Western Sydney University’s staff network prior to the pandemic but it took a backseat to “official” email communication once the pandemic changed the way people worked.

“The Gratitude Week posts ended up with 85% response rate for replies and 95% response for engagement,” Melissa said.

“That’s the kind of engagement we hoped the week would bring. It was also an opportunity for us to encourage two-way communication via our Yammer network, where we had relied so heavily on email to inform staff on what the government restrictions were and the impact to our operations.

“This was an opportunity for us to use another forum, one that any staff member could contribute to.”

Melissa and the Communications team are turning their attention to other ways to make Yammer a place for open discussion about all things – good and bad. The next step is to encourage staff to feel like Yammer is a place that they can make suggestions or express their opinions to make Western Sydney University an even better place to work.

“It’s a very ambitious task about turning our network into something that is really about dialogue and discussion with staff, about how we can do things differently or better, or even questioning the status quo about why we are doing things,” Melissa said.

“What we want is for people to know that there’s a culture that you can ask a question and Yammer should be the right place for it. It’s a cultural shift, where people don’t have the fear of posting something without them thinking there’s going to be some retribution because they’ve asked something that might be controversial.

“We will continue to monitor our progress towards this goal through SWOOP Analytics.”

Western Sydney University is one of Australia's leading tertiary education institutions. Ranked No.1 in the world for impact (THE Impact Rankings 2022,, more than 48,000 students currently attend the university, which is spread across 11 campuses.