Let me introduce you to Yammer, a social media site made for company collaboration, file sharing, knowledge exchange and team efficiency. Well, that’s how they put it, so would we agree? … Absolutely! Yammer has become an essential communication tool for us here at e-Advantage HQ, whether it be to contact colleagues working from home or to set up a poll to decide where to go for the Christmas do, it gets everyone involved! Pete, the Managing Director here at e-Advantage, says “I find Yammer extremely useful for keeping all members of the company informed about what we’re all up to on behalf of the company. We have many home workers and helping them stay connected with the company’s progress is really important for staff morale & helping us all push in the same direction.”
So what else can you do on Yammer I hear you cry? Well for some companies Yammer is where they hold their meetings, claiming that employees can then input when they feel relevant without disturbing their workflow. Communicating through the chat feature or discussion threads allows everyone to be involved and contribute. Yammer have even written a post about how to best derive value from what they offer, demonstrating various ways in which the social networking site is designed to make business easier, just like we aim to here at e-Advantage.
Here at e-Advantage Yammer is where I personally received a welcome to the team from Nicola who doesn’t work in office. Without Yammer I probably wouldn’t have had the opportunity to communicate with her until meeting in person. This is a great example of how Yammer can aid in building and maintaining team relations. Yammer is also a fantastic tool for giving praise, using @ to tag people in posts, its quick, simple and the whole company gets to see it. When someone has done a good job giving them recognition on Yammer allows for people from other teams, departments and levels of authority to comment, encourage or even give more praise to the individuals involved.
Yammer also now have an app so you can keep in touch, contribute, vote or share ideas all on the move. With 80% of all fortune 500 companies using it there must be a reason why! So if your organisation isn’t on Yammer, why not?