Companies that already use Microsoft Teams may be skeptical about adopting another collaboration tool in the form of Microsoft Yammer.
However, Teams and Yammer serve very different functions. Teams is a very effective collaboration tool for people within a department. Teams is designed to create silos that help groups of employees focus on specific tasks at hand.
On the other hand, Yammer benefits communications outside of individual teams. It is designed to avoid the siloing of information. Many companies find it also helps to bring together people up and down an organizational hierarchy, helping to “flatten” it.
If you’re still not sure of its value in the workplace, consider the following Yammer benefits.
Yammer Help Users Access Tribal Knowledge
If you’ve ever asked for restaurant recommendations on Facebook, you know that tapping into the knowledge of your tribe can be a powerful thing.
When looking for an answer to a work question, it’s been customary to look for answers by sending out emails. But with Yammer, simply posting a question can get responses from subject matter experts across the company, and even spark an insightful discussion on the topic. Not only does the social nature of Yammer produce useful answers, but it can also lead to unexpected solutions.
Additionally, Yammer groups can be formed around specific topics. Group members can ask questions and share ideas related to their department, specialization, software platform or other work-related interest. Yammer groups are also an open environment, allowing employees outside these groups to take advantage of the specialized knowledge within them.
For instance, a Yammer group for human resources can serve as a place to learn about updates or changes to employee benefits. HR employees can easily have discussions within these groups to avoid confusion and miscommunication. These conversations are memorialized within the group for later access. Rather than sending out HR information in a newsletter or email, a Yammer group serves as a much more dynamic platform for long-tail information.
It Supports Cross-Company Interactions
The bigger or more dispersed a company is, the more challenging it is for people in the organization to collaborate and develop solutions. In big companies, some people may never get together for impromptu conversations. In companies with a sizable remote workforce, impromptu face-to-face interactions don’t really happen at all.
In addition to supporting purposeful work-related conversations, Yammer also offers a platform for more social interactions across an organization. People with different job titles, shifts, departments or locations can easily have casual interactions and keep up to date with each other’s developments, projects, events and interests, as well as any personal news.
Yammer Boosts Employee Engagement
One of the most valuable Yammer benefits is higher employee engagement. Employees become much more inspired when they can quickly find solutions and build connections with their colleagues.
Dynamic interactions occur when employees post questions, polls and upcoming events. These posts can be interacted with, liked and commented on. The more employees they are able to interact with one another, the more they feel engaged with their work and one another. Higher employee engagement leads to all kinds of benefits, such as lower turnover and higher productivity.
It Supports Culture Building
While employee engagement is this strong tool when it comes to culture building, companies shouldn’t just let their organizational culture develop on its own. A good culture often needs nurturing. Left unattended, a company’s culture can easily grow toxic due to various pressures associated with getting work done.
Company leaders looking to build a robust culture will find Microsoft Yammer to be an invaluable tool. By allowing users to post memes, gifs, emojis and other fun content, Yammer supports the crucial lighter side of culture building. In addition to posting about and discussing company social events, leaders and HR personnel can also talk about lighter moments and help employees vent frustrations in a healthy manner.
Yammer Integrates with Other Office 365 Products
If your company is already invested in Office 365, then it’s already paying for Microsoft Yammer. The platform is integrated with other Office products like Teams and SharePoint, and this makes it easy to get the most out of an investment.
Although using too many apps can lead to confusion or fatigue, Yammer can effectively knit together many different parts of Office 365 to create a comprehensive digital workspace.
An effective approach to getting the most out of Yammer is to monitor its use. When communications teams monitor Yammer, they can determine if employees are truly engaging with one another in beneficial ways.
How Tryane Can Help
Through our artificial intelligence and analytics solutions, we offer companies a way to monitor and extract even more Yammer benefits. Our solutions help internal communications teams stay on the right track and boost engagement where needed.
Please contact us today to learn more about how our solutions can make your company more competitive.