After months of working from home due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, semiconductor intellectual property company Imagination Technologies knew it was time to find a digital platform to replicate the office lunchroom moments, or the office water cooler.

There needed to be somewhere to have the conversations you would usually have at work. Not just the business conversations you have every day with your team, but also the chats with colleagues about everything from; “What did you do on the weekend?” to “How are you feeling today?”. A place where you can ask a question of your executives, where you feel connected to the company, even though you may be working from your dining room table.

In February 2021, Imagination Technologies launched Microsoft’s Enterprise Social Network Yammer. It came a couple of months after the company’s executives and senior leaders gave their commitment to lead the initiative, not just by sharing updates, but by listening to employees and joining in conversations.

Seven months after the launch of Yammer across Imagination Technologies, the network has been identified as the top performing Yammer network for small-size organisations in the EMEA region, and second globally, in SWOOP Analytics’ worldwide benchmarking.

Given the idea of Yammer was to connect Imagination Technologies’ 850+ employees scattered across the globe, and give them a place to collaborate, it’s perhaps no surprise the top performing Yammer community is a Cooking and Food community.

What has a cooking and food community got to do with work? Everything, when it comes to employees’ wellbeing and personal connections. It’s also the gateway to get employees onto Yammer. They may check into the cooking community but while they’re on Yammer they look at business groups and may be able to help solve a problem faced by a team in another part of the world.

Jo Jones, Senior Communications Manager, Imagination Technologies.

“It seemed like we needed something during the pandemic that could replace that face-to-face contact that you would have in the office,” said Jo Jones, Senior Communications Manager at Imagination Technologies, which is headquartered in the UK.

“Something where people can just have a common meeting place, create some of those water cooler moments. Having a platform that’s a little bit more informal, a bit more friendly, a bit more engaging.”

Launching Yammer while working from home

Jo and her team launched Yammer in February 2021 with just a few communities – Ask Simon (CEO Simon Beresford-Wylie), Ask Nick (Chief HR Officer Nick Merry), Ask Steve (Chief Revenue Officer Steve Evans) and so on.

The actual launch took place in the monthly company all-hands meeting and Yammer was turned on straight afterwards.

“People used it straight away. Leaders can post, but you can post questions, and it’s the level of transparency,” Jo said.

A Yammer post from Imagination Technologies CEO Simon Beresford-Wylie.

Straight away, questions were being asked and answered on Yammer and suddenly there was no need to duplicate answers across different teams, as everyone could access Yammer.

“Our leaders understood the importance of it and what their commitment would be to it,” Jo said, adding that most posts are responded to within an hour, and almost all within 24 hours, according to SWOOP data.

About two weeks after the initial launch of Yammer, with the “Ask” communities, it was opened for anyone to create any Yammer community they wanted.

“We created a diversity and inclusion community, corporate social responsibility, IT and more. At the same time, we let people create their own team and social communities,” Jo said.

“Our people really like their food, it’s a shared passion and so it’s not a surprise that it’s a top performing community.”

A food post on Imagination Technologies’ Yammer network.

All employees were already working in Microsoft Teams so they were encouraged to add the Communities app to Teams, and some basic tips on using Yammer were shared.

Jo said discussions in the cooking and food community are rich, and data from SWOOP Analytics shows it reaches across geographical and departmental divides.

“It helps to keep your culture alive,” she said of Yammer’s social-inspired communities.

“It’s hard to have a culture when nobody is actually together, especially for new starters to understand what you as a company stand for, or how you interact with each other.”

Come for the food, stay for the work

Imagination Technologies also realises the value of using social communities to draw people onto Yammer for work.

“I would ideally like everybody to be engaged with the senior team’s post but I am happy if people are engaged in the cooking community, in the music production community, in the social communities, because if they’re using it, they’re more likely to then move over to the other communities,” Jo said.

“They’ll check it when they are there. I don’t mind how I get them engaged, I just want to get them.”

While some sceptics view Yammer as a social media platform, Jo said it’s a business platform first and foremost.

Stop flying blind

Following the launch of Yammer in February, Jo felt things were going well but she was flying blind without data to show her how the network was really performing.

“I could see things but it’s a bit like an iceberg,” she said.

“I could see the top of it, but I didn’t really understand what was happening underneath, particularly from a geographical perspective. I could see a lot of names that I recognised engaging on it but I wasn’t sure that the uptake was everywhere.”

Jo was told about SWOOP Analytics from another UK company. SWOOP shows exactly who is connecting on Yammer, where there may be gaps in communication, and every measure can be identified by region, department, job title or any other segment.

“The key thing is I want to ensure that all our offices, all our countries are engaging with Yammer, but I can’t do that unless I have some data on it,” Jo said.

“That’s why I went to SWOOP. It gives me more content and it helps me understand how I can support the senior team to improve things, like making sure they don’t broadcast, that they actually respond, making sure they engage with other people’s posts.

“I can see how we can improve everybody’s experience and that’s what SWOOP helps me do.”

Why the need for Yammer when you’re already using Teams?

Prior to the launch of Yammer, everyone at Imagination Technologies was working on Microsoft Teams. That led Jo to question the need for Yammer. Why not just have some big teams on Teams?

After doing her research, Jo realised Yammer was an important platform for Imagination Technologies. Microsoft Teams is for collaboration, working with your known teammates, or people across the business, to deliver a specific project.

Yammer communities are to share information.

“Whether it’s the CEO providing an update on a senior appointment or it’s a colleague sharing a recipe, they have different purposes,” Jo said.

“There would be a big hole in our communications if we didn’t have Yammer because I don’t know where a lot of these conversations would have taken place.”

Imagination Technologies has monthly all-hands meetings where questions are encouraged. The agenda is always packed and almost always some questions are left without responses. Jo posts the unanswered questions on Yammer, tagging in the person who asked, and the relevant leader to answer the question.

She also recognises some questions may not be deemed as important to be included in the all-hands meeting, but they can be asked on Yammer.

“I think we would be missing out on so much conversation if we didn’t have Yammer,” Jo said.

“For example, we’re really serious about corporate social responsibility and one of the things we’re going to be doing in our head office is going out and doing litter picking in the local area. If you’re not all in the office, without Yammer, how would you make people aware of that? Email everyone in the company? That seems a bit much.”

Levelling the playing field with Yammer

Imagination Technologies’ executive management is based in the UK but employees are dispersed across the world. As much as the organisation tries to be inclusive with every employee, it’s hard for overseas-based employees to feel as connected with leaders as those who see them face-to-face in the UK, especially when international travel is on hold.

However, with everyone working from home and everyone having only digital access to colleagues and leaders, no one receives any preferential treatment.

“Yammer levels the playing field because everybody has the same opportunity,” Jo said.

“That’s one benefit we’ve noticed in the company – it’s easier to have a discussion with people in the same physical room. People who are brought in electronically can sometimes be left out unintentionally.

“With everyone working from home, it’s levelled the playing field because everybody is digital. It’s reset that and Teams and Yammer has continued that.”