Westpac New Zealand - How to become an influencer in a month
At the beginning of August, Westpac New Zealand’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) Russell Jones was not featured among the top 100 influencers on the bank’s Viva Engage network. A month later, he had shot to No.2 on the Most Influential People list!
Russell Jones, CIO, Westpac New Zealand.
Russell came from nowhere to take a top spot on the influencers list (of more than 6,400 employees) simply by posting on Viva Engage once a week, and taking a few minutes from his busy schedule to respond and react to other people’s posts.
This CIO is not on Viva Engage every day, but he does make an effort to post at least once a week with an update about what he’s been doing, to recognise the great work of his team, to call out service anniversaries, or share some thoughts. Importantly, he also replies to comments, reacts or responds to other posts when he can – a true indication he is listening to employees - and tags colleagues into posts.
A Viva Engage post from Russell Jones, CIO, Westpac New Zealand, sharing photos and an update from his week.
Russell Jones made the conscious decision in June 2023 to start posting regularly on Viva Engage in the Technology community, primarily to connect with his team and to increase engagement. He particularly wanted to highlight the great work going on in the business, and to recognise anniversaries and other significant achievements. The added benefit of using Viva Engage was to reduce emails.
“Viva Engage seemed the obvious channel to use for this,” Russell said.
“It enables a direct feedback loop, in that people can comment or react to my posts. Our people also receive multiple emails each day which can quickly fall down inboxes, meaning Viva Engage feels a better channel for this kind of communication.”
And despite his busy work schedule as CIO of a major bank, Russell says posting once a week is relatively simple. He’s even had feedback that people look forward to seeing the emojis he uses in his posts each week.
“I’ve also been really pleased that people are starting to comment on my posts with honest feedback, both good and bad, which means I’m getting meaningful input from people on what is working well and where there is room for improvement,” Russell said.
“I’m keen on encouraging people to comment on my posts and to use our Viva Engage community to post their own highlights. My hope is that engagement in this community continues to grow.”
Screenshot of a reply on one of Russell’s Viva Engage posts.
Leading by example to inspire others
Fiona Roberts, Senior Digital Engagement Manager, Westpac New Zealand.
An added benefit of Russell’s commitment to engage with employees on Viva Engage is the way it has inspired other leaders across Westpac New Zealand to also become more visible and connected on Viva Engage.
“Russell’s success has prompted a lot of good discussion and healthy competition amongst our leaders,” said Fiona Roberts, Senior Digital Engagement Manager at Westpac New Zealand.
“Others have now followed his lead and are reducing emails and updates by moving regular communication to Viva Engage.”
An example of Russell Jones’ weekly Viva Engage update recognising employees’ good work, anniversaries and news from the week.
With this renewed commitment from Westpac New Zealand’s leaders to engage on Viva Engage, it’s perhaps no surprise the bank ranked No.1 worldwide for medium size organisations (between 1,500 and 8,000 active employees) in SWOOP Analytics’ 2023/24 Viva Engage benchmarking analysis.
Screenshot of SWOOP Analytics’ Influential People report showing Russell Jones as No.2 across the entire enterprise.
Tips to become an influencer
Fiona said Russell also responds and reacts to Viva Engage posts outside of his own Technology community, which has helped to elevate him to No.2 so rapidly on SWOOP Analytics’ Influential People list.
“What Russell does well is not just the regular posts, but when he sees a post on a topic he’s passionate about from across the network, he’ll take the time to respond to that,” Fiona said.
“He also adds reactions and emojis, which personalises his feedback.
“The simplicity of that has moved him to the second-most influential person in one month!”
Establishing a thriving community
It was late June 2023 when Russell made the decision to move away from email updates and embrace Viva Engage for more authentic connections. There was already a rarely-used Viva Engage community established for Russell’s business function named “Technology” which had about 900 members. Everyone in the technology team was invited to join the community, which now has about 1,600 members.
Russell worked with his Internal Communications advisor in the beginning to ensure he had content to post, but after a few weeks he was in the habit of doing authentic posts – recognition posts, and highlights of his week posted on a Friday afternoon, and including selfies when he was visiting branches.
An example of a Viva Engage post from Russell Jones.
Russell kicked off this revamped Technology community with an announcement explaining his commitment to the Viva Engage community and encouraging people to join the conversation. By August, he was in the groove of posting regularly, as can be seen in the screenshot above.
Below is Russell’s post to kick-off the Viva Engage community.
Russell Jones’ initial post in the Technology community.
Fiona said in just a couple of months, other leaders have followed Russell’s lead and new Viva Engage communities have been revigorated or launched.
“Leaders have now started using these communities for regular communications,” Fiona said.
“They’ve made a conscious decision to move away from emails to using Viva Engage for their regular updates. Typically, we’ll see on a Friday that leaders are there posting about what they’ve done in their week with some photos.
“We’ll see them recognise people that have done amazing work, or they will call out pieces of work that have come to fruition. It’s just been amazing, and the turnaround in engagement has been phenomenal.
“We’ve had big changes in a really short time.”
While there’s been a fresh shift to get leaders engaged and connected on Viva Engage, Westpac New Zealand has a strong culture of using the enterprise social network to connect. For the past four years, Westpac New Zealand has been a top performer in SWOOP Analytics’ annual Viva Engage (formerly Yammer) benchmarking analysis.
But it hasn’t all been organic growth. Fiona says the success of Viva Engage at Westpac New Zealand has been built on a foundation of strategy and passion.
“In our area we have a very clear strategy around how we use Viva Engage, and what we’re going to use it for, and we align that work with our other channels and initiatives going on across the bank,” she said.
“But it’s important that we teach others how to use Viva Engage effectively. Our team helps people get started in Viva Engage, setting up the communities for them, showing them how to run their communities effectively, and talking to them about how to make a sustainable communications plan so that you keep things fresh.
“If you don’t do that foundational stuff, people and communities can flounder.”
Learn more about Westpac New Zealand’s success to connect employee with Viva Engage in our case studies:
· Banking on Viva Engage & SWOOP Analytics to achieve top collaboration
